#prudence’s parents suck

[the16thtower]

Wyll Ravengard fucking undoes me because while a lot of fans and the BG3 writers do him dirty, there's so much going on with his character that just isn't explored or elaborated on that is so fascinating.

I have a parent who functions as a pillar of the community in my hometown, who is incredibly competent and admirable, and who judges me harshly for supposedly making choices that ruined my life. It's really difficult trying to wrap your head around all the different layers of that kind of relationship and Wyll never gets to really address it properly.

If we think about what happens after he gets kicked out of home:

What does he get to take with him? Does he even get a chance to pack any belongings? He looks like a normal human for the most part when we first met him, so what did Ulder tell people? We don't know about his mother's side but is there any family or family friends he could stay with? Did Ulder poison the well with everyone Wyll knew by being upfront about the pact or did he lie and make up another equally damning excuse for exile? God, just the idea that Ulder looked his son in the face (freshly injured) and immediately threw him out is devastating. Wyll is so certain about the prudence of his father's decision when we met him but either:

This is a perspective he's eventually made peace with

His conviction in his father never waned

which both suck! Either his idol, his father, screwed up massively or he has so little concern for himself that it never occurred to him that Ulder's justification was shit. Ulder is the Duke of Baldur's Gate, with all the resources that grants him, and he didn't even try to contact an expert on demons to try and get more info on his son's situation? What the fuck! There's the whole bit with the Trials of Balduran about appropriate punishment that Wyll agrees with that he doesn't even think to apply to his own situation. It can really fuck you up having your hero, who you admire for the good they do for others, decide you're not worthy of that same good.

Wyll tries so hard to be a good person and to lead by example but never seems to see himself as an acceptable recipient of the grace and kindness he shows others.

Does Mizora just immediately whisk him off to different parts of the Sword Coast to start acting the part of the Blade of Frontiers? He's seventeen, homeless, no support network, and fighting monsters - I'm going to lose my fucking mind. That's ridiculous. That kid was already dealing with his father's intense expectations (from what Wyll describes, Ulder was raising Wyll to follow in his footsteps, which is a steep ask). He then suddenly loses everything, on top of the stigma of demon association - Wyll's mental health must have tanked at some point. Depression, anxiety, and PTSD are definitely on the table (plus phantom pains from the prosthetic eye).

Just thinking of this teenager learning how to drink properly with no one looking out for him, trying to numb things a bit, and just becoming a sad wreck every time. Just... there's so much there with Wyll having to grow up very quickly in very lonely circumstances. We know he has some acquaintances, like the tieflings, but who actually knows what's going on with him? Is he still shouldering his burdens alone? Is MIzora around bothering him or does she flit in and out of his life? He's in exile for seven years.

And he's still a romantic and an idealist! Unflinchingly, genuinely, with his chest! He endures! He becomes a hero. It's beautiful. He survives and cultivates his best qualities in the face of awful circumstances. Wyll has this intense sense of morality and will (pardon the joke) that never permits him to sway from the right thing, even with everything stacked against him. And it routinely costs him! It's so, so hard to do the right thing and he still does it because he simply can't see another outcome worth living through.

It upsets me a little that Wyll ends up doubling down on what a good person his dad is when they reunite - as if Wyll hasn't demonstrated infinitely more empathy and compassion for other people, even when it actively impedes him. He's good because he chooses to be good and seeks to understand, not because he's able to follow the standards set by other men.

This is not a particularly organised discussion but fuck, I love Wyll Ravengard.

(UPDATE: I've just made some edits for clarification since I didn't express myself well. Also, this is a game that requires hundreds of hours of gameplay so be kind if I don't know everything.)

[darkfictionjude]

How would MC's family (parents + siblings) react to them asking about the birds and the bees? Lol, like they heard about it from school or read about it in a book.

Oh god anon. Why did you make me think of this.

Victor:

Even before you finish that sentence he visibly panics and says “ask your mother.” Also “how old are you? They’re teaching you this at school? If I asked my father this he would’ve beat me black and blue young lady/man.”

Prudence:

“Who told this?” “What things are they teaching you at that school?” “Y’know what kind of kids talk about these things? Little perverts” and then leave to go get her “special juice” and “Tylenol” mumbling about how they should’ve homeschooled you.

Salvatore:

“Hold that thought, give me an hour.” And then he goes rummaging through his books to find a book on anatomy and sex ed. He sits you down and starts describing the physical act with euphemisms like “bear” “honey-pot” along with some outdated facts like if you masturbate your sex organ will crumble because his books are from the 1950s.

Orla:

She’ll take that opportunity to tell you about the gossip she’s heard from people who have “done it.” She doesn’t even really tell you how it’s “done” and what “done it” means in that context. At a certain point the conversation is just who she thinks is having an affair with who’s husband. It’s only when you ask her if she’s “done it” she stops talking and tells you to go to your room.

Percy:

He cracks his knuckles and tells you to sit down while he grabs a piece of paper and a pen. He then spends like thirty minutes drawing in graphic detail everything he knows about all kinds of sex and even though it gets incredibly inappropriate to the point where you’ll get yelled at tomorrow for asking your teacher why people like to pee on each other you actually learn a lot. But most importantly “if you’re with a guy and he says he doesn’t like condoms because it doesn’t feel good tell him to go suck his own dick.”

Varying degrees of disaster as you can see for most of them 💜

[sea-owl]

Have some in-laws, Colin and Felicity. Set in the arranged marriage au which is also the same universe as this post.

-

Felicity knew it was fair to say she grew up without a positive male influence. Her father, Lord Featherington, had been a drunk and a gambler and then had the nerve to pass away when she was seven. She had no biological brothers, just three older sisters. They don't say it, but Felicity knew she was actually a last-ditch attempt for a male heir. It's pretty obvious when the sister closest in age to you is seven years older.

Then, when Cousin Jack came to try and place a bid as the new Lord Featherington, the ladies of the house were quick to figure out he was another liar and scammer. Mama was not one to take that lying down so she made quick work of him, quietly getting papers that said the first daughter to have a son will inherit the estate.

So yeah, the male influences in her family kinda sucked. But Felicity also thought that to say she didn't have any positive male influences was kind of a false statement.

Though she will never admit it to his face, ever, Felicity had Colin Bridgerton.

Colin has been engaged to Felicity's favorite sister, Penelope, since before Felicity was even born. The way the story goes that once Mama and Penelope no longer had to be isolated from everyone else and could receive visitors the Bridgertons came over to congratulate Mama on the new baby. With them was their five year old son Colin Bridgerton. While the other children played and their parents talked Colin apparently made himself comfortable next to whoever was holding Penelope. If she was passed to another set of hands Colin would follow and replant himself next to the new person.

The adults finally took notice of the little boy's fascination with the baby when Lady Bridgerton asked Colin if he wanted a biscut.

Colin, who at the point was sitting next to the crib they had put Penelope in, said, "No. I want to stay with my Pen."

Felicity thought they were lying the first time she heard this story, but then others including Colin himself confirmed it.

It didn't take long after that for their parents to officially arranged an engagement and ever since then Felicity has been stuck with Colin. At least it wasn't Lord Fife. She might've actually shot Fife if he was around as much as Colin is.

So Colin was there throughout the years. Felicity wasn't sure what happened during the early years, he was getting ready to go to Eton when she was born, but she does remember him coming over whenever he was on break.

"You're here again," Felicity gasped when she saw Colin in their family drawing room. "Didn't you just leave?"

Felicity was nine years old, and Colin was back on break, getting ready to go on his Grand Tour to finish out his university years.

Colin smiled his charmer smile. "Good to see you too Felicity."

Felicity ignored him and crawled up onto the sofa next to Penelope. She half laid on her older sister, hugging her around the middle and resting her head on her shoulder, shooting a victorious smile at Colin. Because despite the fact that he and Pen are engaged, he can't be openly affection with Penelope like this.

Colin's eye twitched.

Felicity giggled, Hyacinth was right. It's fun to rile up older brothers.

A year later, when Felicity was ten, her mother Portia had debuted Penelope at seventeen. Too early in most of the Ton's opinion.

Penelope looked miserable every time she went to a ball dressed in one of their mama's citrus colored dresses.

Felicity was worried. Her mama, Prudence, and Philippa all liked going out to balls. They enjoyed it. What was it her mama called it again? Husband hunting? Penelope already had a future husband, though. Was she upset that he wasn't there?

Felicity asked Penelope.

Penelope looked down at her younger sister, though Felicity was quickly catching up in height, and smiled. "I am alright, Litty. There are just a lot of people there who are very insistent they talk to me because of my engagement to Colin."

Felicity's eyebrows shot up. So this was Colin's fault? These people make her sister miserable that she does not get to enjoy the balls like her mama and other sisters do because she is engaged to him. Yet he is not here to take responsibility for that!

No, this will not do. Felicity's favorite sister deserved to have fun too! If Felicity has to drag Colin back by his ear she will!

Felicity began to pen a letter in her neatest handwriting.

Colin Bridgerton,

You must come home! Mama has debuted Penelope, and all these strangers harass her! Because of you! I can not think of any other way to say it. She looks so sad when she goes to balls, and when she comes home, she looks sad and tired.

You must take responsibility Mr. Bridgerton! Come home and make my sister happy once more, or I shall drag you back myself!

Felicity

Mixing it with Penelope's letter Felicity knew it would get to Colin soon.

Two weeks later, Penelope came home from Lady Danbury's ball and she was smiling!

Something good must've happened then. Felicity so wished to ask her sister. Oh if only she wasn't meant to be sleeping.

The next day, Felicity walked into their family's drawing room to see Colin Bridgerton sitting next to Penelope. Penelope was tracing the spine of a book Felicity hadn't seen before. Meanwhile, Colin was tracing Penelope's hand. They were both smiling.

Felicity grinned. Her letter worked!

"You're back!" Felicity cheered.

Colin smiled at Felicity, one of his genuine ones she's seen him throw at Hyacinth a few times. "Good to see you to Felicity."

When Penelope left the room momentarily, Felicity tapped Colin.

"When I am supposed to debut in society can I live with you?"

Colin made a weird face. "What? Felicity that wouldn't be appropriate."

Felicity frowned. "Why not? You'll be married to Penelope then," Felicity paused. "Won't you? And Ms. Evans lives with her sister, Lady Hunt, and her husband, while husband hunting. Why can I not do the same?"

"Oh," Colin said like he just connected two dots. "Felicity is there a reason you would want to live with me and Pen?"

Felicity fidgeted in her seat. "Penelope was miserable at the balls. She didn't want to go, but Mama made her anyway. What if I'm the same way? What if being out in society makes me sad, but Mama forces me to go to balls? I don't have a Colin to make balls better."

Colin nodded, now seeing the full picture. "Felicity, like you wrote in your letter, Penelope hating balls was my fault. There are people in the ton who want to weasel their way into the Bridgerton family, and they think going through our fiances is the way to do it. I wasn't here to protect Penelope from that. If I knew she was going to be debuted this year, I would have been here from the start. Now if I wasn't engaged to Penelope her dance card would have been full of suitors just like your's will be when you debut.:

Felicity giggled. "Your name would've been on her dance card the most."

Colin chuckled. "Yes, it would have." Colin reached over for a box. "And it's not like you won't have a Colin to protect you. You'll still have the original Colin! Only my protection for you will be a little different."

Felicity gasped. The pistols in the box were the most beautiful she's ever seen. They were small, around six inches and could be easily hidden in a pocket. Ivory handel with butterflies carved in.

"Now," Colin said. "I know you've been learning how to shoot a shotgun bit you need something smaller to be able to hide on you so I'm going to teach you how to shoot these. These will keep you safe, and keep those unruly suitors at bay."

Felicity giggled.

At twenty-one years old, Felicity was cleaning her pistols when her suitor, Geffory Albandsdale, dropped the most curious piece of news to her.

Felicity furrowed her eyebrows. "Geffory, why are you making plans to travel to York when my closest male relative lives in Bloomsbury?"

It was Geffory's turn to be confused. "Felicity I thought your sister was the one who lived in Bloomsbury with her husband?"

Felicity nodded. "She is, as does my brother."

Geffory jumped. "I am so sorry. I was not aware there was a Lord Featherington to ask."

"No there is not one yet," Felicity said. "I do think Penelope will have the first boy though, and that means the estate will pass to her, lord knows I don't want it."

Geffory just stared at the woman he loves. "Felicity, darling, I do not understand. You say your brother lives Bloomsbury but then you also say there is no Lord Featherington?"

Felicity crossed her arms. "Mr. Albansdale, I am talking about my brother in-law, Colin Bridgerton."

An understanding flashed across Geffory's eyes. "Your sister's husband."

Felicity nodded. "Colin has been the longest male influence in my life. We've been stuck with him since his engagement to Penelope when he was five years old. He has been there since I was born, when my father died, when Cousin Jack was found to be a charlatan, and we are still stuck with him to this day." Felicity playfully turned away. "I will not marry until you attain his blessing as my closest male relative."

Geffory smiled in understanding. He bowed to Felicity. "Very well darling, I shall make the trip to Bloomsbury soon."

A few days later Dunwoody opened the door to find Mr. Geffory Albandsdale looking to call on Mr. Bridgerton.

"I would like to ask your blessing to marry Felicity."

[dean23456]

Top 10 characters (in my opinion)

Honorable mentions: Dynamoe/Moe, Quinn, Allan, Chuck, Taylor, Koilee

I don't have much to say for like 7 of them other than that they're nice, and for top 3 that they're really cool, so I added a bit of headcannon stuff in the mix.

Lets go from bottom to top.

Skip: he's pretty cool in my opinion. A lot of my family members are in construction or something and yeah. His pet rat is cool. I dont have much to say for him, he's nice.

Ninjoy: her actual name being a part of it is nice. I find her cool and yeah don't have much to say. She's cool, however I do think that she and Dynamoe take too much of the spotlight (Dynamoe especially, plus other characters) which makes other characters not being noticed a lot or not getting a lot of content being made for them, kinda sucks for people who like more obscure characters or ones that deserve more attention.

Alberto: I just kinda like him a lot. He's one of the first characters I liked a lot and the first male character I liked.

Yuko: when I first saw her, I really loved her. She reminds me of some characters from other media I like. Her being Prudence's mom was something I didn't expect at all.

James: at first I didn't care for him but after a while he's really grown on me. In my headcannon, he does have trauma, but it doesn't affect him at all, as he kinda doesn't remember that much and isn't as big as an impact or had any other bad experience and is normal, which is basically the opposite with Mary, which I'll get to. Also what's the thing that makes him so mischaracterized so much? I kinda don't know.

Willow: she's really nice and i like her design. In my headcannon I thought of her as not being really social and some other things that I might explain, then with the help of James she can express herself more, which makes their friendship stronger.

Scooter: one of the first characters I really loved when I first saw her. I don't have a lot to say.

Penny: the first character I loved. Her design might be simple compared to others but that doesn't make her bad at all. She's the food loving girl who is in every game that is one of the most popular, would be my favorite if it weren't for these 2 existing.

Mary: OK, so Mary is probably the character I probably give the most deep headcannons for. If she never had experienced those times, she would just be like James. She has conflicting thoughts on if she does want to know the mystery behind her biological parents, is it better to find out, or is it not? She and James most likely would be total wrecks, but could've they changed? We will most likely never know. But what if I threw another thing at her? High school was one of her worst experiences, she was constantly made fun of (mostly for her weight) and gotten beaten up, however it got better in the end, as they got expelled and someone mysterious protected her. In the end, she tries to cover it, but at any really bad moment, might break. So, she masks it up by being the nice and sweet person who's silly and goofy one. Now that I think of it she's kinda like Kel from Omori. Anyways that's just the most basic explanation on her headcannon backstory.

Oh yeah she's cool asf and paints stuff, plays the bagpipes, has 2 pugs and is kinda scared of sailing. Despite all that she isn't my favorite.

Sue: this is my favorite character, I just really like her, now for some headcannon stuff. I don't have as much backstory for her, other than that somewhere between leaving school and getting her job, she got a glow up or something and was always had anger issues, that's all for backstory I have right now, but I have other things. Despite her mean side, many people only focus on that and not the true side, someone who actually cares if you're nice. There's also the questioning her sexuality thing (spoilers ig, but she's a lesbian so thats solved) and some other struggles I don't know about yet. But yeah she's awsome 11/10

I like the headcannon stuff for Mary and Sue that I might give them to ocs if I make more in the future.

[coochiequeens]

Of course the nephew sucks. Why else would the parents want him to stay with the aunt just for "a change of scenery" and say that's an equally good reason as hosting his sisters when they were attending college.

Dear Prudence,

I comfortably live in an area with a very high cost of living. My older two nieces came to stay with me after college while they were trying to figure out their places in the world. Their “rent” went into savings so they could start out with a bit of a nest egg. They were expected to clean and to pay for their own food. We didn’t have a problem, and they both went on to have successful adult lives.

Their brother is another story altogether. He basically coasted through high school and then failed to do anything. No job, no interest in education, no interest in anything but video games—he hasn’t even gotten his driver’s license yet. He is 22. My sister has babied him his entire life. My brother-in-law is at the end of his rope and demanding something be done. My sister thinks that sending him my way for a change of scenery will inspire him. She says it is only “fair” that I help my nephew, as I did my nieces.

My sympathy has limits. My nephew refuses to see a doctor so any root cause like depression is not being addressed. My sister has offered to pay me until her son gets settled, but I am not willing to live with a lump lounging in my living room playing video games night and day. How do I have this discussion with my sister?

—Not a Launch Pad

Dear Launch Pad,

Your sister’s belief that you are obligated, in some way, to put up her children in the big city is ridiculous, of course. You are not! If you do not want to host a third of your sister’s children, rent-free, for some indeterminate amount of time, that is totally fine.

But I would not expect your sister to respond well if your stated reason is that her daughters were cool but her son sucks. And if you really enjoyed the company of those young women, and were pleased to be part of their young-adult lives, I’d remind you that you don’t really know that much about their younger brother or what he would actually be like as a houseguest. Maybe he would be a lump. Or maybe he would in fact find the city (I’m assuming) a welcome change in his life. There’s every chance you might similarly enjoy building a relationship with this young man and helping him along his way.

Or maybe you are not interested in the hassle! If that’s the case, a simple “I’m so sorry, but I just can’t host your son right now” will suffice.

—Prudie, hospitably

Anyone else think she should be upfront, even if boymom isn't going to like it? What the hell is she going to do if the parents kick him out but they leave him at her doorstep so they can tell themselves they didn't really kick him out?

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

"You're on a path and you know where it heads."

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/7hU3LKv by oven3bird Body parts have been appearing all along Gotham City, in such a state that it's impossible to identify them. While trying to solve the mystery, the Gotham Vigilantes have to deal with the fact that Tim Drake-Wayne has been missing for months alongside his friend Prudence Woods. In an effort to find evidence related to his disappearance, Bruce makes his way to his son's house, finding more that he could bargain for. Or: I also suck at summaries and this took too long bc my body decided to stop working halfway through this fic (and its noticeable) Whumptober 2024 Day 3: Set up for failure! (Fingerprints) Words: 3982, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 3 of Ovenbird's Whumptober 2024 hell! Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Gen Characters: Tim Drake (DCU), Bruce Wayne, Prudence Wood, Cassandra Cain, Cassie Sandsmark, Bart Allen, Kon-El | Conner Kent, Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Alfred Pennyworth, Duke Thomas, Tam Fox Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Prudence Wood, Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Angst, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Missing Persons, Grief/Mourning, Tim Drake is Red Robin (DCU), Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne-centric, in some ways, I Tried, Good Sibling Cassandra Cain, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, even if hes not seen as much, hes a good brother, Young Justice Team as Family, the comic young justice, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Still, Whumptober 2024, Canon? Never, I'm Bad At Tagging, Cassandra Cain and Tim Drake are Siblings, Twins if you dare read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/7hU3LKv

[mcrcki]

Was that [ZOEY DEUTCH]? Oh no no, that was just [PJ HALLIWELL], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [CHARMED]. They are [TWENTY FIVE] years old, use [SHE/HER], and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here -

pj has been here since she started college at eighteen, so over eight years now. she thought she was just coming to dc to get her journalism degree from georgetown, but has yet to make it back home to san francisco. she’s actually been enjoying her independence from her family, from the halliwell reputation. but when she’s alone at night, she can’t help but feel that familiar homesickness from her sisters and cousins.

where in your fandom is your character pulled from -

pj is pulled from the future, set after the epilogue of charmed. she was born in 2007, but is from 2025. (every year we get closer to that NOT BEING THE FUTURE)

has the magic affected your character -

nope, she has all of her memories in tact, her powers are still working. she just thinks she came here for school rather than being pulled to some alternate universe.

what is your character’s job -

pj is currently an event planner for the city and is honestly loving it. she runs her own business and is always looking for more employees or people who she can contract out with. she’s just started it up and it is her absolute baby.

other notes

a quick link to her wiki if you want to know like backstory or anything

otherwise here i am to scream about this chaotic idiot child. daughter of phoebe halliwell and coop. charmed one and cupid. she got powers from both her parents, being able to use them from before she was even six months old, beaming her mother around places. she has the powers of : beaming and remote beaming (basically teleportation and the ability to teleport objects. it’s just a pink light when it happens), sensing (being able to feel magic/supernatural beings) and high resistance (to any magical/lethal attacks). mixed with her basic witch powers (spell casting, scrying, potion making) she is one hell of a powerful witch. add on her ridiculous sense of honor and protectiveness for her family, and the hard desire to live up to her namesakes?? you get this chaos dummy.  it’s why she was assigned a whitelighter LONG before any of her other cousins ever got one, since her powers had come in so quickly and intensely, the elders had done what they could to try and help keep this next generation of witches safe. shoutout to them for having to put up with baby pj doing THE MOST and never really getting a break. so sorry buddy. her full name is prudence johnna halliwell, she’s named after her great grandmother, and her late aunt. both of them having passed but they were two of the strongest witches in their line. she struggles with fearing that she isn’t enough for them. that she is a disappointment to her family’s reputation. so she throws herself into danger, putting herself in the line of fire for her family’s safety. she’s taken on a huge role at home, being one of the leaders of the next generation of halliwells. she’s liked, since being in dc, that she doesn’t have to worry as much about that. she’s happy to have her family here again, and she wants nothing more than to keep the peaceful life that she’s used to. she is terrified that there’s a chance, with the majority of charmed ones being around, that demons will start to spawn again too. she’ll fight if she has to, but man she wishes that won’t be the case here.  she has two younger sisters, parker and peyton and she would literally do anything for them. big big protective older sister vibes. that extends to her cousins as well. they are thick as thieves, more like a group of siblings than cousins. she’s been in dc for so long, she absolutely needs a group of friends that she’s known, people she’s dated and broken up with (bc even though she’s a cupid she sucks !! at finding love for herself). though she’s doing better now, but it's still rough at times, and she’s really enjoying her life so far, even though there’s definite ups and downs.

CONNECTIONS :

✩ her whitelighter

please i just think this would be so fun , she was assigned a white lighter at like 4 years old this person would have been with her her whole life, constantly looking @ her like "wtf are we doing babes"

✩ best friend vibes

would love for her to have a bff to be stupid and have fun with, big party vibes but also will stay up till 3 am talking about life and just all around classic bff vibes

✩ employees

she’s a wedding planner and runs a whole company for it so feel free to come have anyone work for her!

✩ vendors she works with

anyone she could potentially contract with that works within the wedding industry (chefs/florists/venue owners/bartenders etc)

this could be v friendly or a strained relationship after a bad wedding who knows

✩ roommate (s)

really just want her to have a fun roommate that gets mad at her for not filling ice cube trays but they vibe with and have a swear jar and dance parties, come join her and mj in their fun little roomie crew !

✩ a squad to make stupid tiktoks with

girl just loves to make bad choices and absolutely wants to make dumb tiktoks all the time between astrology, witch tips, and just stupid drunk videos

✩ old college friends

she went to georgetown and has been in the city ever since freshman year so she would definitely have made plenty of friends while at school and after

✩ old tinder matches / exes

despite being a cupid, pj is literally trash at love. she thinks chad from tinder will fall in love with her because he likes dogs. just all around an idiot and has gotten her heart broken too many times, so she would definitely have her fair share of exes and flings

[iheartsunset]

Papa Louie Prudence HCs

(Nobody asked for these, but I gotta show love to my 8 year long favorite character)

Edit 9/23/20: Sorry I didn’t realize Pickles was a girl, last time I’ll ever listen to the forum lmao anyways I’m about to fail a test tomorrow even though I’ve studied nonstop, but that’s probably just how science goes

-Prudence Carmichael-Wagner is 22 years old and lives in a fabulously rose colored loft in Tastyville. She doesn’t plan to leave her job at the Pancakeria any time soon, but she is studying hard to become a veterinarian. She is the half sister of the famous Rudy Diamond; the daughter of Arugula Bank’s owner, Anselm Wagner; and his ex-wife, Lola Carmichael, the headmaster of Eclair Academy. Prudence has a strained relationship with her emotionally manipulative parents who care more about her achievements than her wellbeing and tried to avoid them whenever she can. Prudence’s mother loves dropping by her loft unannounced, which makes Prudence upset and anxious.

-Prudence can mostly be described as a kindhearted socialite with a strange obsession with the color pink. She is very hospitable and doting on everyone around her, making her seem like more of a mother/older sister figure. She also carries assorted sweets and mints in her purse for both emergency consumption and to cheer up anyone who’s sad. Prudence does also have a habit of panicking at first under pressure, but has learned to adapt very quickly. Prudence also loves to volunteer and help those less fortunate than her. But call her a dumb blonde and we’ll see how many teeth you have left afterwards (as a result of either her purse or Rudy’s fist).

-Her and Rudy were born on the same day only a few hours apart. Many people joked that the two were twins due to their shared birthday, blonde hair, blue eyes, and close relationship. However, she didn’t know that her father and Rudy���s mother, Carla, (his chief financial officer) had an affair that led to Rudy being born. After this was found out by Lola, Carla’s reputation was ruined and she relocated with Rudy to Powder Point, much to Prudence’s dismay. After reuniting years later when the Cheeseria opened, the two found out about the affair and realized they were siblings. They share a close bond now, but still have terrible relationships with their parents.

-As previously stated in Cooper’s headcanons, she is in a polyamorous relationship with him and Taylor. She met Taylor at their shared night school and met Cooper at their shared workplace. While her feelings for either of them weren’t very strong, Taylor’s heartfelt confession made her fall for both of them hard, thus starting the third most wholesome relationships in Flipline’s history (Penny and Alberto have the top spot filled and second place is definitely Olga and Edoardo). She loves to buy them roses or chocolates and see how flustered they both get when they’re delivered. Prudence’s parents definitely don’t approve of this relationship, but she actually doesn’t care this time.

-She and Trishna’s parents were very close in business growing up, so they both quickly became best friends, along with Rudy. She is three years younger than them and is still stuck attending high school. While Trishna isn’t too close to Rudy anymore, she and Prudence still hang out and text all the time. If Trishna is somewhere, then Prudence is probably nearby or at least on the phone with her. Trishna also offers Prudence discounts at Fashion Flambé, but Prudence always declines saying that it feels weird to not pay the full price if she didn’t have any coupons.

-Prudence was given Pickles as a gift from her father. However, he said that she could only keep the dog if she would have good grades and continued with being a debutante, meaning most of her effort was for Pickles’ sake. When she earned a C on a test, Pickles was almost taken to the pound, but she quickly entered them in a dog show to make up for her “mistakes”. The dog show started out as sort of survival, but Prudence continued doing it since she and Pickles actually enjoyed it.

-She and Trishna both attended Croquembouche Preparatory Academy along with Alberto, Penny, Joy, Roy, and Mindy. Prudence was notably crowned prom queen her junior year, all around tennis and cheer star, student body president her senior year, and salutatorian. She also joined multiple clubs. Unbeknownst to her classmates, having to keep up with these high expectations from her family and teachers almost broke her from the stress. However, a pep talk from Vicky allowed Prudence to drop many clubs and sports and take it easier in school, much to her parents’ dismay.

-Allan has thought that Prudence would play a very good Sandy, but Prudence can’t really sing well. She would, however, make for a good Elle Woods (as in the movie version) or any kickass Barbie protagonist (which is all of them, I stan Barbie). Prudence can dance amazingly, but she just doesn’t fit Cha Cha’s sassiness and overall nastiness. She’s a great cheerleader, so she’s a good fit for Patty Simcox, but then again Patty also sucks, so looks like Prudence is just a background dancer.

-She thinks of Johnny as her father, Hank as he other father, and Vicky as her mother. She also considers Trishna, Scarlett, Utah, Clover, Nevada, and Mindy her sisters. Chuck, Marty, and Greg are her brother figures. Rudy is also thought of as her brother, but he’s also her actual brother, so it’s actually very accurate.

-If you smell pickles on the bus, it’s because Prudence opened her big ass jar of them and started eating it. I personally hate pickles, especially when people eat them on some sort of vehicle. Sure you can eat pickles ain’t nothing wrong with that, but I’m not tryna smell pickles when I’m trying to get to school.

-Prudence is a master at fashion and makeup. However, she mostly wears simple cropped shirts and jeans everywhere for comfort. Her only standout accessories are her purse (since she carried Pickles in it) and her bow (she had to find some way to be twinsies with pickles, and she wasn’t wearing no dang collar).

-She and Maggie are both queens and often converse about how to maximize their joint slay. They also love finding examples to disprove the dumb blonde stereotype.

-She likes to get the good dog food for Pickles, but she sometimes gives her some pickles or vanilla ice cream. Cooper and Taylor spoil her with other types of human food when she’s away, though. Not chocolate or any of that kinda stuff though.

-Prudence likes to sit in the stands and drunkenly cheer really loudly for Cooper and Taylor, which actually encourages them even more. Dang they’re just all so cute together like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

-She basically lives at the mall and salon, earning her closer relationships with their workers. She and Kaleb like to drink tangerine pop together and she always gossips with either Mindy or Vicky. Sometimes she takes Cooper and Taylor to get their nails done together. Taylor prefers his nails in ultramarine with white flowers while Cooper likes a classic French manicure better.

-Rudy can’t dress for shit and neither can Johnny, so she tries to help them both out together outfits better. They’re very close to her, but none of them take her advice and she is very sad. She hates flannel, but whatever makes him happy, she guesses.

-My favorite girl and has been for most of my life. I love her so much.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! I Can't Afford Not To Destroy My Cleaning Lady's Life

Dear Prudence, Slate, 20 September 2021:

Q. Collections department: ​​A few years ago, I hired a cleaning lady. She had a small business, with a few employees working for her. I’d prepay her in batches, and on occasion she’d ask for additional funds due to something unexpected, but she’d always work it off. Then the pandemic hit. Her staff abandoned her, and she had become too unwell to clean herself, so she closed her business, with $1,200 of prepayments from me. I told her back in January she’d need to pay me back, since she could no longer clean, but I wasn’t in a hurry for the money and knocked the repayment down to $1,000.  I’d asked her to send me $100 payments and wanted it paid off by the end of the year.

So far, I have only received $500 back and have had to hound her. She comes back with sob stories of getting fired from various delivery and driver services and saying she doesn’t have any money, after agreeing to pay me when she gets her monthly Social Security deposit. This month, after not receiving a payment in August, I have tried contacting her, and this time no answer. I’m tired of hounding her and could live without the cash, but I can’t live with the resentment of getting taken advantage of by her. I have three choices: Let it go, continue to hound her, or give her an ultimatum that I need to be fully paid back by the end of the year, or I’ll take her to court. I feel like I’m working for my money all over again. What should I do?

Dear Collections Department,

The last 18 months have been incredibly difficult; we are living (well, some of us) through an unprecedented global pandemic that has absolutely decimated supply chains and entire industries, forced parents to make terrible no-win decisions about raising and schooling their children, and separated families across the globe. Many of us have lost and will continue to lose friends and loved ones. Others are economically destitute, forced to work long hours for dying wages in a country with a cruel fucking sham of a social safety net.

And then, of course, there's you — COVID's number-one victim. Sure, Zoom funerals suck, but how about some of these entitled chucklefucks try going a year wiping down their own countertops! Wah-wah-wah, you haven't met your grandchildren? Boo-hoo, you had to put off important medical treatments because you didn't want to risk dying alone on a ventilator in the ICU? Bleat about devastating isolation-induced depression all you want, the real issue is that it's been 18 months since somebody came by to personally clean up your filthy shit.

This cleaning lady ~ claims ~ that a deadly airborne pandemic impeded her and her staff's ability to freely enter peoples' homes to spend time indoors with strangers at length. Pretty improbable, if you ask me! I mean, any rube could have smelled that pile of horse manure from a mile away! Here your cleaning lady is, living the life of Riley on a monthly Social Security stipend that likely extends into the high tens of dollars, withholding from you a king's ransom that could be put to good use for any number of things — lining your purebred hamster's cage, wiping your ass, being set on fire and launched into the sun for shits and giggles. The possibilities are endless, except for the possibility that you just let this fucking woman whose whole life has fallen apart just have five hundred goddamned dollars that you wouldn't even look twice at if it grew fucking legs, put on a trench coat, and started blasting Peter Gabriel on a boombox outside your window.

Poor people are poor on purpose and because of their moral failings, whereas people who would literally never miss $500 but who threaten to take a struggling woman to court to ensure she pays off a meaningless debt at the lowest point in her life and career are good and worthy! It is your cleaning lady who must be taught a lesson about the value of money, and what better instructor than you, a person who deserves all that comes to them in this life, and hopefully also in the next.

[outlander-babes]

Written In My Own Heart’s Blood Thoughts:

Everyone’s just going through it

Lord John’s a fucking menace

Stan Jamie using the fucking Lone Ranger theme to signal people

Poor Willie there is still not a thought in his head

Jenny is the light of my life

Claire calling Hal “Harold” is sO FUNNY

YAY THE RETURN OF DAN MORGAN

Oh my god it’s fucking George Washington

The Hardman’s are so cute

Stan Jamie being a good parent

Claire and Jenny dealing with Hal is a riot lmao

Rachel and young Ian are in love uwu

Stan the Hardmans

I would throw down for Jane

Prudence and Patience are the loml

John babe wtf

Rachel and Jamie threatening Willie over Ian is very fun fresh and sexy of them

Can I PLEASE kiss Jenny Murray

Yay Claire gets to play in dirt!

Claire and Jamie have two goddamn braincells

JOHN BABE WTF

Brianna beating up an asshole in her underwear is my aesthetic

MANDY AND JEMMY ARE SO CUTE!!!!

Buck is so sweet

BRIAN!!!!

AND JENNY AHHHHHH

Stan Hector McEwan

….geillis…???

Ernie is a whole mood

Brianna is kickass but we knew that already

Mr Menzies is cool

Bro I can’t wait to meet jerry

God I wish Roger let Buck kill black Jack but I understand why he didn’t

Joe’s the love of my life and he doesn’t deserve this shit lmao

Jamie and Claire are so fucking chaotic

Please tell me Germaine didn’t run away from home

John’s such an ass lmao

Stan Jane Pocock

Willie is trying his best it’s not his fault everyone around him is chaos incarnate

OH MY GOD ITS LAFAYETTE I LOVD HIM

Denny’s so funny

I love Dottie

Claire giving Dottie and Rachel the sex talk is so sweet

WILLIE MY STINKING PAPIST I LOVE YOU

I like Nathaniel Greene!

John’s a whole ass idiot but I love him

CLARANCE MY LOVE!!!

Ok ok fine Percy is growing on me

FANNY IS SO CUTE AHHHH

Willie and Jane’s relationship is wholesome and as someone who reads spoilers I’m not looking forward to this

I would die for Germaine

Ugh god fine I’ll admit it I’m starting to like Percy

Charles Lee can suck my dick tho

Stan Willie fistfighting an asshole over Jane

Willie’s such an idiot he KEEPS getting hurt like someone enforce the buddy system Jesus Christ

Ian being like “HEY FUCKER THIS HERE IS A FUCKING LORD DIPSHIT” is the highlight of today’s reading

Like I KNOW it’s bad Claire got shot but legit I know she’ll be fine and the way she got shot is so fuckin melodramatic I just think it’s funny

The Greys are so fucking chaotic my god

I would die for the Hunters and their crazy ass spouses

[xanadontit]

I’m sorry - what?

Dear Prudence,

I love my daughter but she has the worst taste in men. Put her in a room with 10 good men and one creep, she will run right up to the creep and let him ruin her life. I’ve watched her get her heart broken again and again: It hurt when she was in high school, but as an adult, it is not just her heart getting broken—it’s her car, apartment, finances, and career.

In college, her boyfriend smashed up her car after she let him drive it. He did it again after we replaced it and made her promise not to let anyone drive it. She still stayed with him. She has let one leech after another live off her until bank account is empty. She has quit jobs to follow a boyfriend of a few months across the country only to break up before her bags are unpacked.

She has moved home five times since she graduated college because her love life ruined her actual one. My husband and I help her get on her feet, try to get her in therapy, and wait for the next one. My husband says we are lucky our daughter hasn’t gotten pregnant yet and gotten permanently tied to one of these jerks. My daughter is nearing 30. She thinks she is just unlucky and bemoans there are no good men left. I told her she needs to look at the common denominator in all her relationships—herself.

That started a serious fight. My daughter was currently living with her sister and working with the man her sister was dating. My daughter was cheating with this guy. When her sister discovered it, she threw my daughter out on her ear. My daughter then lost her job. She wants to come home again. We told her no. Our family has imploded over this. My daughter has called us both crying—she made a mistake and is currently living in her car. We sent her money, but where does it end?

— Heartbroken Mom

Dear Heartbroken,

You’re obviously entitled to tell your daughter she can’t live with you, and I can understand why you’d be upset with her for cheating with her sister’s boyfriend. But why are you so mad at her for her history of choosing crappy boyfriends? Nothing she’s done has harmed you, and cutting her off is not going to help her make better choices.

I encourage you and your husband to sit down and talk about your goals for your relationship with her (not for her relationships with men) and whether you think punishing her for her bad romantic choices by letting her live in her car will get you there. I don’t think it will.

I don’t know all the details, so disregard this if it doesn’t feel like a fit, but would it be worth reflecting on what her relationship with you and her father was like growing up? Is there anything there that might represent the beginning of a pattern where she seeks love from people who don’t respect her and treat her poorly? Did she go through anything especially difficult that harmed her self-esteem? If there’s anything you need to apologize for or heal from as a family, now is the time.

*******************************

Idk, I think this certified non-genius could stand to feel some consequences for her shitty actions. She boned her sister’s boyfriend while the sister was letting her stay with her (yes the boyfriend also sucks) - she’s choosing to burn her relationships to the ground and of course this affects the parents! But sure it’s because the parents expected her not to be a train wreck of a human. That’s gotta be it. 

[fineillsignup]

tips for choosing a Chinese name for your OC when you don’t know Chinese

This is a meta for gifset trade with @purple-fury! Maybe you would like to trade something with me? You can PM me if so!

Choosing a Chinese name, if you don’t know a Chinese language, is difficult, but here’s a secret for you: choosing a Chinese name, when you do know a Chinese language, is also difficult. So, my tip #1 is: Relax. Did you know that Actual Chinese People choose shitty names all the dang time? It’s true!!! Just as you, doubtless, have come across people in your daily life in your native language that you think “God, your parents must have been on SOME SHIT when they named you”, the same is true about Chinese people, now and throughout history. If you choose a shitty name, it’s not the end of the world! Your character’s parents now canonically suck at choosing a name. There, we fixed it!

However. Just because you should not drive yourself to the brink of the grave fretting over choosing a Chinese name for a character, neither does that mean you shouldn’t care at all. Especially, tip #2, Never just pick some syllables that vaguely sound Chinese and call it a day. That shit is awful and tbh it’s as inaccurate and racist as saying “ching chong” to mimic the Chinese language. Examples: Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Tenten from Naruto, and most notorious of all, Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah lo Suee (how the F/UCK did he come up with that one).

So where do you begin then? Well, first you need to pick your character’s surname. This is actually not too difficult, because Chinese actually doesn’t have that many surnames in common use. One hundred surnames cover over eighty percent of China’s population, and in local areas especially, certain surnames within that one hundred are absurdly common, like one out of every ten people you meet is surnamed Wang, for example. Also, if you’re making an OC for an established media franchise, you may already have the surname based on who you want your character related to. Finally, if you’re writing an ethnically Chinese character who was born and raised outside of China, you might only want their surname to be Chinese, and give them a given name from the language/culture of their native country; that’s very very common.

If you don’t have a surname in mind, check out the Wikipedia page for the list of common Chinese surnames, roughly the top one hundred. If you’re not going to pick one of the top one hundred surnames, you should have a good reason why. Now you need to choose a romanization system. You’ll note that the Wikipedia list contains variant spellings. If your character is a Chinese-American (or other non-Chinese country) whose ancestors emigrated before the 1950s (or whose ancestors did not come from mainland China), their name will not be spelled according to pinyin. It might be spelled according to Wade-Giles romanization, or according to the name’s pronunciation in other Chinese languages, or according to what the name sounds like in the language of the country they immigrated to. (The latter is where you get spellings like Lee, Young, Woo, and Law.)  A huge proportion of emigration especially came from southern China, where people spoke Cantonese, Min, Hakka, and other non-Mandarin languages.

So, for example, if you want to make a Chinese-Canadian character whose paternal source of their surname immigrated to Canada in the 20s, don’t give them the surname Xie, spelled that way, because #1 that spelling didn’t exist when their first generation ancestor left China and #2 their first generation ancestor was unlikely to have come from a part of China where Mandarin was spoken anyway (although still could have! that’s up to you). Instead, name them Tse, Tze, Sia, Chia, or Hsieh.

If you’re working with a character who lives in, or who left or is descended from people who left mainland China in the 1960s or later; or if you’re working with a historical or mythological setting, then you are going to want to use the pinyin romanization. The reason I say that you should use pinyin for historical or mythological settings is because pinyin is now the official or de facto romanization system for international standards in academia, the United Nations, etc. So if you’re writing a story with characters from ancient China, or medieval China, use pinyin, even though not only pinyin, but the Mandarin pronunciations themselves didn’t exist back then. Just... just accept this. This is one of those quirks of having a non-alphabetic language.

(Here’s an “exceptions” paragraph: there are various well known Chinese names that are typically, even now, transliterated in a non-standard way: Confucius, Mencius, the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen, etc. Go ahead and use these if you want. And if you really consciously want to make a Cantonese or Hakka or whatever setting, more power to you, but in that case you better be far beyond needing this tutorial and I don’t know why you’re here. Get. Scoot!)

One last point about names that use the ü with the umlaut over it. The umlaut ü is actually pretty critical for the meaning because wherever the ü appears, the consonant preceding it also can be used with u: lu/lü, nu/nü, etc. However, de facto, lots of individual people, media franchises, etc, simply drop the umlaut and write u instead when writing a name in English, such as “Lu Bu” in the Dynasty Warriors franchise in English (it should be written Lü Bu). And to be fair, since tones are also typically dropped in Latin script and are just as critical to the meaning and pronunciation of the original, dropping the umlaut probably doesn’t make much difference. This is kind of a choice you have to make for yourself. Maybe you even want to play with it! Maybe everybody thinks your character’s surname is pronounced “loo as in loo roll” but SURPRISE MOFO it’s actually lü! You could Do Something with that. Also, in contexts where people want to distinguish between u and ü when typing but don’t have easy access to a keyboard method of making the ü, the typical shorthand is the letter v. 

Alright! So you have your surname and you know how you want it spelled using the Latin alphabet. Great! What next?

Alright, so, now we get to the hard part: choosing the given name. No, don’t cry, I know baby I know. We can do this. I believe in you.

Here are some premises we’re going to be operating on, and I’m not entirely sure why I made this a numbered list:

Chinese people, generally, love their kids. (Obviously, like in every culture, there are some awful exceptions, and I’ll give one specific example of this later on.)

As part of loving their kids, they want to give them a Good name.

So what makes a name a Good name??? Well, in Chinese culture, the cultural values (which have changed over time) have tended to prioritize things like: education; clan and family; health and beauty; religious devotions of various religions (Buddhism, Taoism, folk religions, Christianity, other); philosophical beliefs (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc) (see also education); refinement and culture (see also education); moral rectitude; and of course many other things as the individual personally finds important. You’ll notice that education is a big one. If you can’t decide on where to start, something related to education, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, etc, is a bet that can’t go wrong.

Unlike in English speaking cultures (and I’m going to limit myself to English because we’re writing English and good God look at how long this post is already), there is no canon of “names” in Chinese like there has traditionally been in English. No John, Mary, Susan, Jacob, Maxine, William, and other words that are names and only names and which, historically at least, almost everyone was named. Instead, in Chinese culture, you can basically choose any character you want. You can choose one character, or two characters. (More than two characters? No one can live at that speed. Seriously, do not give your character a given name with more than two characters. If you need this tutorial, you don’t know enough to try it.) Congratulations, it is now a name!!

But what this means is that Chinese names aggressively Mean Something in a way that most English names don’t. You know nature names like Rose and Pearl, and Puritan names like Wrestling, Makepeace, Prudence, Silence, Zeal, and Unity? I mean, yeah, you can technically look up that the name Mary comes from a etymological root meaning bitter, but Mary doesn’t mean bitter in the way that Silence means, well, silence. Chinese names are much much more like the latter, because even though there are some characters that are more common as names than as words, the meaning of the name is still far more upfront than English names.

So the meaning of the name is generally a much more direct expression of those Good Values mentioned before. But it gets more complicated!

Being too direct has, across many eras of Chinese history, been considered crude; the very opposite of the education you’re valuing in the first place. Therefore, rather than the Puritan slap you in the face approach where you just name your kid VIRTUE!, Chinese have typically favoured instead more indirect, related words about these virtues and values, or poetic allusions to same. What might seem like a very blunt, concrete name, such as Guan Yu’s “yu” (which means feather), is actually a poetic, referential name to all the things that feathers evoke: flight, freedom, intellectual broadmindness, protection...

So when you’re choosing a name, you start from the value you want to express, then see where looking up related words in a dictionary gets you until you find something that sounds “like a name”; you can also try researching Chinese art symbolism to get more concrete names. Then, here’s my favourite trick, try combining your fake name with several of the most common surnames: 王，李，陈. And Google that shit. If you find Actual Human Beings with that name: congratulations, at least if you did f/uck up, somebody else out there f/ucked up first and stuck a Human Being with it, so you’re still doing better than they are. High five!

You’re going to stick with the same romanization system (or lack thereof) as you’ve used for the surname. In the interests of time, I’m going to focus on pinyin only.

First let’s take a look at some real and actual Chinese names and talk about what they mean, why they might have been chosen, and also some fictional OC names that I’ve come up with that riff off of these actual Chinese names. And then we’ll go over some resources and also some pitfalls. Hopefully you can learn by example! Fun!!!

Let’s start with two great historical strategists: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and the names I picked for some (fictional) sons of theirs. Then I will be talking about Sun Shangxiang and Guan Yinping, two historical-legendary women of the same era, and what I named their fictional daughters. And finally I’ll be talking about historical Chinese pirate Gan Ning and what I named his fictional wife and fictional daughter. Uh, this could be considered spoilers for my novel Clouds and Rain and associated one-shots in that universe, so you probably want to go and read that work... and its prequels... and leave lots of comments and kudos first and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

(I’m just kidding you don’t need to know a thing about my work to find this useful.)

ZHUGE Liang is written 諸葛亮 in traditional Chinese characters and 诸葛亮 in simplified Chinese characters. It is a two-character surname. Two character surnames used to be more common than they are now. When I read Chinese history, I notice that two character surname clans seem to have a bad habit of flying real high and then getting the Icarus treatment if Icarus when his wings melted also got beheaded and had the Nine Familial Exterminations performed on his clan. Yikes. Sooner or later that'll cost ya.

But anyway. Zhuge means “lots of kudzu”, which if you have been to the American south you know is that only way that kudzu comes. Liang means “light, shining” in the sense of daylight, moonlight, etc; and from this literal meaning also such figurative meanings as reveal or clear. (I’m going to talk about words have a primary and secondary meaning in this way because I think it’s important for understanding. It’s just like how in English, ‘run’ has many meanings, but almost of all them are derived from a primary meaning of ‘to move fast via one’s human legs’, if I can be weird for a moment. “Run” as in “home run” comes from that, “run” as in “run in your stocking” comes from that, “run” as in “that’ll run you at least $200″ comes from that. You have to get it straight which is the primary meaning, which is the one that people think of first and they way they get to the secondary meaning.)

“Light” has a similar “enlightenment” concept in Chinese as in English, so the person who chose Zhuge Liang’s name—most likely his father or grandfather—clearly valued learning.

I named my fictional son for Zhuge Liang Zhuge Jing 京. The value or direction I was coming from is that Zhuge Liang has come to the decision that he has to nurture the next generation for the benefit of the land, that he has to remain in the world in a way that he very much did not want to do when he himself was a young man. In this alternate universe, Liu Bei has formed a new Han dynasty and recaptured Luoyang, so when Zhuge Liang’s son is then born he chooses this name Jing which means literally “capital”. This concrete name is meant as an allusion to a devotion to public service and to remaining “central”. After I chose this name, I discovered that Zhuge Liang actually has a recorded grandson named Zhuge Jing with this same character.

above, me, realizing I picked a good name

ZHOU Yu is written 周瑜 in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters.

The surname Zhou was and remains a very common Chinese surname whose original meaning was like... a really nice field. Like just the greatest f/ucking field you’ve ever seen. “Dang, that is a sweet field” said an ancient Chinese farmer, “I’m gonna make a new Chinese character to record just how great it is.” And then it came to mean things along the line of complete and thorough.

Yu means the excellence of a gemstone--its brilliance, lustre, etc, as opposed to its flaws. It is not a common word but does appear in some expressions such as 瑕不掩瑜 "a flaw does not conceal the rest of the gemstone's beauty; a defect does not mean the whole thing is bad".

Zhou Yu has gone down in history for being not only smart but also artistic and handsome. A real triple threat. And this name speaks to a family that valued art and beauty. It really does suit him.

Zhou Yu had two recorded sons but in my alternate history I gave him four. I borrowed the first one’s name from history: Xun 循, follow. Based on this name, I chose other names that I thought gave a similar sense of his values: Shou 守, guard; Wen 聞, listen. The youngest one I had born when he already knew he was dying, and things had not been going well generally; therefore I had him give him the name Shen 慎, which means “careful, cautious”.

SUN Shangxiang 孫尚香 is one of several names that history and legend give for a sister of w//arlord-king Sun Quan who was married to a rival w//arlord named Liu Bei in a marriage which, historically, uh, didn’t... didn’t go all that well. In my alternate history it goes well! You can’t stop me, I’ve already done it!

The surname Sun means “grandson” and the given name components are Shang mean “values, esteems” and Xiang “scent” which we can combine into meaning something like “precious perfume”. A lot of the recorded names for women in this era (a huge number didn’t have any names recorded, a problem in itself) seem to me to be more concrete, to contain more objects, to be more focused on affection, less focused on hopes and dreams. This makes sense for the era: you love your daughters (I HOPE) but then they get married and leave you. You don’t have long term plans for them because their long term belongs to another clan.

I gave her daughter by Liu Bei the name Liu Yitao 劉義桃. Yi 義 meaning righteousness, rectitude and 桃 meaning... peach. Okay, okay, I know "righteous peach" sounds damn funny in English, but the legendary oath in the peach garden, the "oath of brotherhood" is called in Chinese 結義 "tying righteousness" and the peach garden is, uh, a peach garden. I also give her the cutesy nickname Taotao 桃桃 which you could compare to “Peaches” or “Peachy”. Reduplication of a character in a two-character name is a classic nickname strategy in Chinese.

GUAN Yinping 關銀屏/关银屏 is a “made up” (scare quotes because old legends have their own kind of validity, fight me) name for a historical daughter of Guan Yu. Guan means “to close (a door)”. Yin means “silver” and ping means “a screen, to hide” and according to the legend, her father’s oath brother Zhang Fei named her after a silver treasure. So here again we see a name for a woman that completely lacks the kind of aspirations we see in male names. Who would have an aspiration for a daughter?

My fictional characters, that’s who. I named her daughter Lu Ruofeng 陸若鳳/陆若凤, Ruo (like the) Feng (phoenix), based on a quote from a Confucian text about what one should try to be during both times of chaos and times of good government. I portray her father as a devoted Confucian scholar, so that was another factor for why I looked to Confucian texts for a source of a name.

Modern parents also now have big dreams for their daughters :’) and so modern girls receive names that are far more similar to how boys are named. 

GAN Ning 甘寧/甘宁 is a great example of a person whose name does not suit him. Gan 甘 depicts a tongue and means “sweet”, and Ning 寧 which shows a bowl and table and heart beneath a roof means “peaceful”. Which, it would be hard to come up with a name for this guy, a ruthless pirate turned extremely effective general:

that is less suitable than essentially being named “Sweet Peace”.

And when he was an adult, his style name—a name that Chinese men used to be given when they turned 20 (ie became adults) by East Asian reckoning—indeed reflects that. Choosing your own style name was widely considered to be crass. I absolutely think that Gan Ning chose his own style name; he was that kind of a guy. And the name he chose! Xingba 興霸/兴霸! I’ve never seen another style name like it. It means, basically, “thriving dominator”! Brand new official adult Gan Ning treats his style name like he’s picking his Xbox gamer tag and he picks BadassBoss69_420, that’s what this style name is like to me. Except, you know, he had almost certainly killed many hundreds of people by the time he was nineteen, so, uh, it wouldn’t be a wise idea to make fun of his name to his face.

In my fictional version of his life, he married a woman whose father was the exception to the “parents love their children” rule and who named his daughter Pandi 盼第 “expecting a younger brother”, which is a classic “daughters ain’t shit, I want a son” name. Real and actual Chinese women have been given this shitty name and ones like it.

Because Gan Ning had an ironically placid name, I also gave his daughter the placid single character name Wan 婉, which means “gentle, restrained”, as a foil to her wild personality.

So there are a bunch of examples of some historical characters and some OCs and how I chose their names. “But wait, all that was really cool, but how can I do that? You can read Chinese, I can’t!”

I originally had a bunch of links here to dictionaries and resources but Tumblr :) wouldn’t let the post show up in tag search with all the links :) :) :) so you need to check the reblogs of this post to see my own reblog; that reblog has all the links. I’M SORRY ABOUT THIS. Here are a list of the sites without the links if you want to Google them yourself.

MDBG  - an open source dictionary - start here

Wiktionary -  don’t knock it til you try it

iCIBA (they recently changed their user interface and it’s much less English-speaker friendly now but it’s still a great dictionary)

Pleco (an iOS app, maybe also Android???) contains same open source dictionary as MDBG and also its own proprietary dictionary

Chinese Etymology at hanziyuan dot net

You search some English keywords from the value you want, and then you see what kind of characters you get. You should take the character and then reverse search, making sure that it doesn’t have negative words/meanings, and similar. Look into the etymology and see if it has any thematic elements that appeal to what you’re doing with the character--eg a fire radical for a character with fire powers.

And then, like I mention before, when you have got a couple characters and you think “I think this could be a good name”, you go to Google, you take a very common surname, you append your chosen name—don’t forget to use quotation marks—and you see what happens. Did you get some results? Even better, did you get lots of results? Then you’re probably safe! No results does not necessarily mean your name won’t work, but you should probably run it by an Actual Chinese Native Speaker at that point to check. Also, remember, as I said at the beginning, sometimes people have weird names. If you consciously decide “you know what, I think this character’s parents would choose a weird name”, then own that.

THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY IGNORE!

Starting in relatively recent history (not really a big thing until Song dynasty) and continuing, moreso outside of mainland China, to the modern day, there is something called a generation name component to a name. This means that of a name’s two characters, one of the characters is shared with every other paternal line relative of that person’s generation; historically, usually only boys get a generation name and girls don’t. (Chinese history, banging on pots and pans: DAUGHTERS AIN’T SHIT AND DON’T FORGET IT!) “Generation” here means everyone who is equidistant descendant from some past ancestor, not necessarily that they are exactly the same age. For example, all of ancestor’s X’s sons share the character 一 in their names, his grandsons all have the character 二，great-grandsons 三, great-great-grandsons 四 (I just used numbers because I’m lazy). By the time you get to great-great-grandson, you might have some that are forty years old and some that are babies (because of how old their fathers were when they were conceived), but they are still the same generation.

In some clans, this tradition goes so far as to have something called a name poem, where the generations cycle, character by character, through a poem that was specifically written for this purpose and which is generally about how their clan is super rad.

If you want to riff off of this idea and have siblings or paternal cousins share a character in their names, ok, but it genuinely isn’t necessary. Anyone with a single character name obviously doesn’t have one of these generation names, and by no means does every person with a two character name (especially female) have a generation name. If you’re doing an OC for an ancient Chinese setting (certainly anything before the year about 500), you shouldn’t use these generation names because it wasn’t a thing. Also, in a modern setting, even if such a generation name or name poem exists, it’s not like there is any legal requirement to use it (though there may be family pressure to do so).

As a further complication, some parents do the shared character thing among their children without it actually being a generation name per se because it isn’t shared by any cousins. Or, they have all their children (or all their children of the same gender) share a radical, which is a meaning component in a Chinese character.

If someone does have one of these shared character names, then their nickname will never come from that shared character; either they will be called by the full name or by some name riffing off of the character that is not shared. For example, I knew a pair of sisters called Yuru and Yufei with the same first character; the first sister went by her English name in daily life (even when speaking Chinese) while the second sister was called Feifei.

tl;dr If you don’t already know Chinese, consider generation names an extra complication for masochists only. Definitely not required for modern characters.

Fortune telling is another thing that I think you should either ignore or wildly make up. Do you know what ordinary Chinese people who want to choose a lucky name for their child do? They hire someone to work it out. This is not some DIY shit even if you are deeply immured in the culture. There are considerations of the number of strokes, the radicals, the birth date, the birth hour. You’re the god of your fictional universe, so go ahead and unilaterally declare that your desired names are lucky or unlucky as suits the story if you want to.

MILK NAMES

In modern times, babies get named right away, if for no other reason that the government requires it everywhere in the world for record keeping purposes.

However, in traditional times, Chinese people did not give babies a permanent name right away, instead waiting until a certain period of time had passed (3 months/100 days is a classic).

What do you call the baby in the meantime? A milk name 乳名, which your (close, older than you) family may or may not keep on using for you until such time as you die, just so that you remember that you used to be a funny looking little raisin that peed on people.

This kind of name is almost always very humble, sometimes to the point of being outright insulting. This is because to use any name on your baby that implies you might actually like the little thing is tempting Bad News. Possible exception: sometimes a baby would receive a milk name that dedicated it to some deity. In this case, I guess you’re hoping that deity will be flattered enough to take on the job of shooing away all the other spirits and things that might be otherwise attracted to this Delicious Fresh Baby.

Because milk names were only used by one’s (older) family and very close family friends of one’s parents/grandparents, most people’s milk names are not recorded or known, with some notable exceptions. Liu Shan, the son of Liu Bei, who as a baby was rescued by Zhao Yun during the Shu forces retreat from Changban. Perhaps because his big debut in history/legend was as a baby, he is well-known for his milk name A-Dou 阿斗, which means, essentially, Dipper.

If you’re writing a story, you really only need to worry about a milk name for your character if it’s a historical (or pseudohistorical) setting, and even then only if the character either makes an appearance as a small infant or you consciously decide to have them interact with characters who knew them well as a small child and choose to continue using the milk name. Not all parents, etc who could use the milk name with a youth or an adult actually did so.

Here are some milk names I’ve come up with in my fiction: Little Mouse/Xiaoshu 小鼠 for a girl, Tadpole/Kedou 蝌蚪 for a boy, and Shouty/A-Yao 阿吆 for a boy. In the first two cases the babies were both smol and quiet (as babies go). The last one neither small nor quiet, ahahaha. 蔷蔷 Qiangqiang, which is a pretty enough name meaning “wild rose” (duplication to make it lighter), except the baby is a boy, so this is the typical idea that making a boy feminine makes him worth less, which, yikes, but also, historically accurate. Also Xiaohei 小黑 “Blackie” for a work that I will probably never publish because I don’t ever see myself finishing it. I might recycle it to use on another story.

 Here are some more milk names I came up with off the cuff for a friend that wanted an insulting milk name. They ended up not using any of these, so feel free to use, no credit necessary. Rongzi 冗子 “Unwanted Child”; Xiaochou 小丑 “Little Ugly”; A-Xu 阿虛 “Empty”; Pangzhu 胖豬 “Fat Pig”;  Shasha 傻傻 “Dummy”.

PITFALLS!

Chinese has a lot of homophones. Like, so many, you cannot even believe. That means the potential for puns, double meanings, etc, is off the charts. And this can be bad, real real bad, when it comes to names. It is way too easy to pick a name and think to yourself “wow, this name is great” and then realize later that the name sounds exactly the same as “cat shit” or something even worse.

Some Chinese families live the name choosing life on hard mode because their surname is itself a homonym that can make almost any name sound bad. I’m speaking of course of the poor Wus and Bus of the world. You see Wu may have innocuous and pleasant surnames associated with it, but it also means “without, un-”. (Bu is similar, sounds like “no, not”.) Suddenly, any pleasant name you give your kid, your kid is NOT that thing.

This means picking a name that is pleasant in itself yet also somehow also pleasant when combined with Wu. So you might pick a character with a sound like Ting, Xian, Hui, or Liang - unstopping, unlimited, no regrets, immeasurable. A positive negative name, a kind of paradox. Like I said, this is naming on hard mode.

If you are naming an ancient character, I am going to say in my opinion you should ignore all considerations of sound, because reconstruction of ancient Chinese pronunciations is on some other, other level of pedantic and you just don’t need to do that to yourself.

For modern characters, however, an attractive name, in general, should be a mix of tones and a mix of sounds. As a non-Chinese speaker, basically this means especially if you go for a two character given name, having all three characters start with the same sound, or end with the same sound, can sound kind of tongue twistery and thus silly/stupid. That doesn’t mean that such names never exist, and can in some cases even sound good (or at least memorable), but how likely is it that you’ve found the exception? Not very. (Two out of three having repetition isn’t bad. It’s three out of three you have to be careful of. Something like Wang Fang or Zhou Pengpeng is probably fine; it’s something over the top like Guan Guangguo or Li Lili you want to avoid.)

Just like the West (sigh), in the modern Sinosphere it is widely acceptable for girls to have masculine names but totally unacceptable for boys to have feminine names. If you see the radical 女 which means woman, don’t choose that character for a boy, at least if you’re trying to be realistic. Now Chinese ideas of masculinity doesn’t have the same boundaries as Western ideas, but if you want to play around in those boundaries, you gotta do that research on your own; you’ve left what I can teach you in this already entirely too long tutorial.

Don’t name a character after someone else in story, or after a famous person. In some/many Western cultures, and actually in some Eastern cultures too (Japan is basically fine with this, for example), naming a baby the same name as someone else (a relative, a saint, a famous person, etc), is a respected and popular way to honour that person.

But not in Chinese culture, not now, not a thousand years ago, not two thousand years ago. (Disclaimer: I bet there is some weird rare exception that, eventually, somebody will “gotcha” me with. I am prepared to be amazed and delighted when this occurs.)

Part of this is because of a fundamentally different idea in Chinese culture vs many other cultures about what is valuing vs disrespecting with regard to personal names. The highest respect paid in Chinese history to a category of personal names is to the emperor, and what would happen there is that it would be under name taboo, a very serious and onerous custom where you not only have to not say the emperor’s name, but you can’t say anything that sounds the same as the emperor’s name.

Did I mention that this is in the language of CRAZY GO NUTS numbers of homonyms? The day-to-day troubles caused by observing name taboo were so potentially intense that there are even instances where, before ascending to the imperial throne, the emperor-to-be would change his name to something that was easier to observe taboo about!

So you see this is an attitude that says: if you want to honour and show respect to somebody, you don’t speak their name.

As the highest person in the land, only the emperor gets this extreme level of avoidance, but it trickles down all through society. You can’t use the personal names of people superior to you. Naming a baby after someone inherently throws the hierarchy out of whack. Now you have a young baby with the same name as a grown adult, or even a dead person, who is due honour from their rank in life. People who would not be permitted to use the inspiration’s name may now use that name because they are superior to the baby who received the name! This would mean that hierarchy was not being preserved, and oh my heaven, is there anything worse than hierarchy not being preserved? All of Chinese History: Noooooo!

Now. As an author—and I hope to God no one is using my Chinese name guide as a resource to name an actual human baby because I can’t take that kind of pressure—you can use the names of characters to inspire the names of other characters, in the following way.

Remember that I said that the key, the starting point, to naming someone in Chinese is to start from a value. Okay. So what you do, if as the author you want to draw a thematic connection between two fictional characters, is take the Inspiration character’s name, think about what the value is that caused that name to be chosen, and then go from that value to choose the New Character’s name.

If you’ll recall what I said about Gan Ning and his baby Wan, this is exactly the approach I took. Gan Ning had a placid single character name that belied his violent and outrageous personality; I chose a placid single character name for his similarly wild daughter to make them thematically similar. As an author, I named his baby after him. But within the context of the story, she was not named after him. Does the distinction make sense?

Values also run in families for obvious reasons. It’s very common to look at a family tree and see lots of names that follow a kind of theme and give you a sense that, eg, this family is rather low class and uneducated; this family is very erudite but a bit too fussy about it; this family is really big on Confucianism. So yes, as an author, looking to other characters for inspiration is not a bad idea.

Remember, a lot of times, as an author, you can and even should kick realism to the curb sometimes. If you want to make some Ominous Foreshadowing that Character A’s name is something to do with fire but! They name their child something to do with water and therefore they are destined to clash with their own offspring, gasp, you can do that kind of thing because you are the god of your universe. Relish your power.

Do you have any more questions? Feel free to send a PM or an ask. I hope this was helpful! Go forth and name your Chinese OCs with slightly more confidence!

Edit 22 April 2019: I added some more sections (fortune telling, Milk Names, and taboo on naming after people). I also need to overhaul the entirety of the previous to emphasize that even thought I thoughtlessly used “Chinese” as if it was synonymous with “Han”, there are non-Han Chinese and they can have very different naming customs. Mea culpa.

[onetuffbunny]

[???] the Government Man

Bunny doesn’t answer the knock on the door because nothing good comes from answering doors in the middle of the night. You’re going to let a Dracula into your house that way or a ghost or a ghost Dracula or a thousand things without names that you don’t want. Bunny might be dumb as hell but he’s not about to let some ghoul into his house.

Also, he’s made of teeth and pain and a deep, deep bone ache right now, so that’s a very important factor in not throwing his door open to the world. The curtains are shut tight so that not a scrap of light can possibly enter and, more importantly, no prying eyes can peek in. This isn’t R.A. She’d call first or at least shoot him a text message. It’s not Prudence or Avery because they’re babies and they shouldn’t be walking through the woods at night, though Avery never would because he’s afraid of so many abstract concepts that definitely include the dark. It’s not Lucy. She’s far away and he’d have to buy her a plane ticket and he forgets a lot of things but he thinks he’d notice the financial loss of a couple hundred or however much tickets are going nowadays because he doesn’t know, Bunny tries not to fixate on the rising cost of everything in general, especially when his net profits aren’t netting a profit because the competitive world of selling lingerie on the internet and also you know is competitive.

Nah. Fuck that. He’s not answering any doors. Mr. Dracula can fuck right off and knock on someone else’s door but he isn’t sucking any Bunny blood today.

The Dracula knocks again. Again. Again. You don’t answer these things because you can’t let vampires into your life and you don’t answer these things because you can’t let the good vibes out of the house and you don’t answer these things because sometimes it’s a man here to tell you that your wife is ██████ and then all the good bits of you fade away until you’re left with fidgety rabbit instincts.

“Jack, I know you’re in there. Open up. I'm here to ask you a few things about your kids. I’m with the, uh, Department of Child & Parent Services,” says █████, not really annoyed but almost there and Bunny doesn’t like it when people are almost annoyed and he also doesn’t like it when he almost knows a name except his brain fizzles out right before it can think it and it dies on his tongue. It’s like walking through a door and forgetting why you even came to the next room in the first place.

No. Tricks and lies. He knows them when he sees them. Jack isn’t even his legal name and no one calls him that anymore. It’s Jackie. He likes Bunny better though because it’s cute and people look at his muscles and his spikes and his metal shirts and assume he’s tough shit but at the end of the day, he just wants to be something soft and cute. Like, jacked as hell but soft and cute. They’re not incompatible ideas. People think they are sometimes but they’re not.

"Your van is in the driveway. I know you’re home. You’re not fooling me. C’mon, man, this is hard enough for me, so do you really have to make this harder than it already is every single time?”

Near annoyance turns into a near plea but Bunny will not be moved out of his hiding spot when there are predators in the forest. It does not occur to him that he is predator now instead of prey, an affront to the natural order of things. Some nights are made for thinking about the nature of existence and scrabbling enough brainpower together to work on stickers to plaster around town because you have to find someone or something and you’re just not sure what. Other nights you’re a creature. That’s the way of the world. You can fight against it or you can just lean into it and turn your brain off.

"Jackie, just open up or I’ll open it.”

No, no, nope, no one will open the door, this is his house and this is his shelter and no one will ever-

The lock rattles with the turn of a key.

“Get the fuck out of my house, buddy,” he growls but if someone really wants to come in, then there’s not a lot he can do to actually prevent that because what, is he going to bite someone? Actually, yeah, maybe, he’d probably consider that if not for the fact that it’d kill someone now but he’s not going to think about that.

The door opens. The intruder walks inside, except Bunny knows he’s not an intruder and knows that he’s not with the Department of Whatever & Whatever services because he’s [????] and that’s fine and normal.

█████ is older than the last time Bunny saw him, except he’s not really sure when he saw him last or who he is because it’s just a big blank when he tries to remember his time in Florida. He can tell this man’s from Florida because he doesn’t remember him. Florida people exist as a big blank in his head with something lurking underneath, an echo of an echo of an echo fading into silence in his head. His hair’s still curly and it’s getting long. It wasn’t long in Florida. He doesn’t know how long it was in Florida but he knows. There’s knowing and knowing.

He looks tired. █████ looks like he doesn’t drink enough water. You have to hydrate to have a happy life. You can’t stay up late watching cartoons every night or else you get the brain munchies. You can’t be happy if you’re dry and sleepy and your brain is munched.

Then he looks like business.

“Hands where I can see them. No sudden movements. Identify yourself,” the man says, brisk and commanding and yet, underneath it all, scared. Scared’s bad. People do dumb shit when they’re scared. They get unpredictable. The man pulls something from his pocket and trains it on him and it’s just a funny little box but Bunny freezes anyway.

“You have five seconds,” the man barks and he’s gone straight from almost annoyed to pissed off. Freezing won’t do. Stopping whatever he’s doing and pretending the danger isn’t happening is his natural reaction to most things (although sometimes his natural reaction is embracing his inner rowdy dirtbag nature and throwing down with a guy) but it’s no good against a mystery box.

“Dude, what the fuck, this is my own house, man,” Bunny says, half a whine and half a plea, and sure, he’s not really answering the question but he’s hunkered down, he’s scared, he’s defenseless because he's not going to go and bite a guy to death, he’s doing his best.

The man’s eyes narrow. He lowers the mystery box but doesn’t put it away.

“Name. State it.”

I’m me, I’m me, I’m me, he wants to cry but he doesn’t.

“Bunny, like the rabbits. I’m just sitting here minding my own business and-”

"If you're Bunny, tell me your wrestling name,” █████ says and he’s got a funny look on his face, brows furrowed like he’s on the edge of realizing something.

“Butcher Jack? What the fuck does that have to do with why you’re in my fucking house? Maybe don’t be in my house?”

The dude makes no motion whatsoever to leave his house. This is most uncool of him. This whole situation’s what’s colloquially known as a dick move. The thought that this dude isn’t properly freaking out about a giant were[???] does not occur to our Bunny because in his heart of hearts, he knows this is a man that knows things that others do not and he also does not question why he knows that.

“What country singer would you marry if he asked?”

“What the fuck does Willie Nelson have to do with you being in my goddamn home?!“

“What’s your username on almost every website?“

The dude is still in his house, the opposite of where he needs to be.

“I’m failing to see how the donglord42069 alias is useful here, buddy. Dude, what the fuck.”

The stranger groans and practically collapses onto his rocking chair like he owns the place. Man’s still wearing his shoes. That’s really uncool of him. This is a shoe-free zone. He doesn’t want any outside crap tracked into his house that he payed too much money for because everything around Maroa is so stupidly expensive, even when you live outside of it in the middle of a forest because your income only covers so much even when you’ve got as many side hustles as you can hustle and bustle. He’s got bills, man, he can’t afford to rent a carpet cleaner. Not an Internet bill though and he doesn’t question that or why he gets suspiciously good Internet despite living in the middle of a forest. Ned or Ed or Ted with the pumpkins who lives a couple miles over set it up for him and told him not to worry about it, so he doesn’t worry about it.

"This was just supposed to be a standard welfare check, oh my god,” █████ says, face in hand. “Standard. You know what this is, Jackie? This is not standard. Why’d you have to go and make this nonstandard? This is going to be so much paperwork.”

Bunny makes no move to leave his blanket and cushion nest because his bones hurt down to the marrow right now but he does shrug off the blanket wrapped around his shoulders in hopes that not wearing a magical girl blanket makes him more intimidating.

“Well, I’m fine, I’m totes cool, so you can get out of my home, I don’t need a welfare check, who the fuck even are you, I don’t know you, fuck off, government man.”

"Listen, you’re a...Bruuuux? Brux. Bruxy enough. So actually, you do need a welfare check because despite everyone’s efforts to keep you away from aliens, you keep throwing yourself at aliens. But you know what? Maybe it’s a good thing someone finally turned you because you do not want to know what they’ve got written in your file about what to do with you if you had to get mindwiped again.”

Bunny’s eyes narrow. He knows there’s so much he doesn’t know about how this alien shit works but he knows enough to make some conclusions about this fellow’s job function.

“You a regulator? You here to take me to star jail?”

"No, I’m not and I don’t even know what that is. I actually work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and we’re doing a study on the long-term effects of what Florida does to someone. We’re aware of aliens because, as I’m sure you know, Orlando exists,” the guy says with perfect confidence and Bunny just accepts it because okay, sure, that seems like a thing that the government would spend money on. “My name’s not important...you’re just going to forget it again.”

Bunny relaxes a little even though he’s in the presence of a government man with government hands. He has already forgotten talk of mind-wiping. This is fine and normal.

“Okay. Like...okay. I guess. But you’re still not supposed to enter houses without, like, a warrant.”

���Nope, actually, that’s just the cops but legally I can go wherever I want because I have clearance for that, so it’s fine,” █████ says. “So...vampire, huh? Yikes.”

“I’m a werewolf, actually,” he says even though he knows he’s prooooobably not that. He’s definitely not a vampire though. He eats fish and critters.

The guy’s eyes narrow.

“Whoever did this to you clearly isn’t in the picture. An attack? An ex? A one night stand? Did you have a preexisting relationship with the person involved?”

Oh, so the federal government’s making inquiries into his sex life now, huh? The government wants to know what he does in the bedroom? Fuck that, they gotta pay him money if they want to know what he does on the weekends.

“Look, buster, it’s bad enough you FBI creeps are tapping into everyone’s phones, y’all don’t need to know what I do with my dick,” Bunny says even though he’s pretty sure that if the government looks at everything you do on the computer, they’ve definitely got a real good idea of what he does with his dick.

“Hey, hey, hey, big guy, I’m not judging,” Mr. Government Hands says. “I’m just assessing the situation. Getting a feel for what happened. This is all part of field work, which, by the way, not my job but someone likes to personally torment me, so hey, here we are again. Don’t think I don’t like you. You’re great. You’re not who you used to be because you’re all shook up but listen: you’re top notch, the high quality stuff. It’s just like, ‘Hey, I’m almost forty, why am I still stuck doing this bullshit. Hey, I’ve been here forever, why are they still throwing old mistakes in my face every chance they get.’”

Bunny does not give a shit about this guy’s job.

“Anyhoo, the point isn’t my office drama. It’s you. Actually, it’s who did this to you,” the dude continues. “Was it someone you have any emotional attachment to whatsoever? Because if yes, then oooof, now that was a dick move on his part. It’s still a dick move either way but then it’s majorly a dick move.”

Cool, Bunny totally loves people poking at the various sore spots in his life.

“You know what, I don’t want to talk about this, actually. I’m going to call the cops on you,” Bunny says as he staggers up to his feet. It’s kind of awkward because even though he doesn’t actually hit the ceiling, he feels like he’s going to.

“Pffft, with that face? Don’t think so, budderino,” Asshole says. “Answer my questions and I’ll get out of your hair.”

Bunny limps forward, his legs all tingly and weird because his circulation’s shit ever since the Bad Thing happened, and tries to look threatening, but if this dude’s not freaking out about his appearance by now, he’s not going to.

“It was just a dude, okay? Like, a real hot dude, name of John or something, some bar in New York, they were having a party or something and I got inside on account of wearing no shirt, okay. I don’t know him, man. I didn’t even get to score. He was stupid hot too.”

The man writes something down in a little notebook he procures out of a pocket.

“Alright, I can do something with that information,” he says. “So, you know about regs. Did he give you a little primer on the basics before he fucked off or..no, nope, that wouldn’t make any sense, you wouldn’t give a guy the basics if you knew you were going to run off. You wouldn’t want him to see your face that long. Let me guess. you ran into one of the weirdos in the woods and they told you the situation? Gave you a little run down? Showed you the ropes? Okay, okay, I know I shouldn’t call them weirdos, that’s not professional on my part, but jeez, you read some of the files I have and you’d call them freaks too.”

Okay, that’s kind of rude, actually, but, like, whatever, whatever.

"Mayhaps. Or mayhaps you should be happening out of my house. I didn’t say I’d participate in any studies.”

The dude smiles and finally vacates his rocking chair, which is the only good thing he’s done so far.

“Okay, I’m taking that as a yes, so that makes my job easier. I can probably come back with some welcome packets or something. We have them. I just don’t have any because this stuff isn’t my job,“ he says. “In the meantime, stay out of sight of humans, obviously, and you know what, better avoid the weirdies too because I know you and you don’t need another kid. Tell you what, though, she’s weird too but why don’t you seek out Ned Castillo who lives a few miles down the way and-”

“What's the pumpkin witch got to do with anything?”

The dude frowns.

“Neht’s under strict orders not to reveal witchery, wizardry, or whatever the hell she likes to call her bullshit to normies.”

"Witches know witches on sight, dipshit. It’s, like, a seventh sense or something,” Bunny says because get a load of this guy, he doesn’t even know about seventh senses. “She doesn’t have to tell me shit. I know my witches.”

“Well, whatever, I don’t actually give a shit who tells anyone what as long as HQ doesn’t have to hear about it,”  █████ says. “Okay, that’s taken care of, now’s the question of...aw, shit. This is the part I hate.”

The dude consults his notebook again.

“Okay. You clearly haven’t met up with a reg yet because your file hasn’t been updated and you’ll need a glamour. That whole look? Can’t go down the street with it. Who all have you told about this?”

Bunny looms over the man and contemplates just dragging him out of the house. In normal situations, he could definitely pick this scrawny fuck up but he doesn’t have a lot of faith in his bodily strength. Would the government get mad at him if he roughed him up a little?

“I’m going to bite you if you don’t leave,” he says even though he won’t.

“If it’s just your wife, that’s fine, we’ll just have to get her up to speed on a few things. If it’s the two little ones too, that’s a little iffier but I think the odds are 95% in your favor since both parents have vam-”

“I’m giving you thirty seconds,” he warns.

“Ohhh, if you told Lucy though, that’s not going to fly, considering the whole situation with her mo...eh, you know what, I’ll do my best.”

Bunny bares his fangs.

“I’m going to do it. Right now. I’m going to do it. So you better get out.”

“Now, you just need someone to process your paperwork and it can’t be me. That’d end bad. I’d do it, I’d do that for you, but I can’t give the illusion of favoritism considering past situations led to your situation. I could point one of the softer, more tractable regs your way and...hey, what the fuck?”

Bunny does not bite the man. That’d kill him and also he’s afraid of losing control, eating a person, and learning that people are delicious. Instead, he grabs the plastic fruit sitting all nice and cute on a bowl on his table and starts pelting the annoying stranger.

“Time to go! You never saw me, buddy! Bye! Don’t come back! Goodbye forever! Byeeee!”

“Asshole,” the dude mutters. “Fine, I’m leaving. Don’t tell anyone you saw me, though I doubt you’ll even remember my face. You never do. Your brain does some real weird shit to preserve itself.”

‘Hah, fat chance of that happening,’ Bunny thinks.

The minute Mr. Government Man leaves, he immediately forgets █████‘s face again. This is fine and normal.

[tedrick]

Agnes De la Rosa = 12/7/2000, ☀️sagittarius 🌙leo ✨pisces, infp-t, age 18-22, she/her, bi

quiet, friendly, sensitive, thoughtful. taking a gap year, doesn’t know what she wants to do for college. works at a grocery store. likes sadgirl music. lives with her parents, but her dad “works a lot”. her mother is abusive. friends with josiah

Josiah Gray = 8/15/1998, ☀️leo 🌙aquarius ✨pisces, isfj-t , age 20-24, he/him, bi

serious, sad, kind, tired yet hopeful. graduated highschool and never went to college. wants to be a mechanic or some shit. works a lot of odd jobs, currently works at a grocery store. fights for money and is kinda good at it. friends with agnes, dating corinne. lives in a house owned by corinne’s dad. corinne is abusive. hasn’t spoken to his mom in over a year. his abusive dad died when he was in highschool. drinks too much, smokes too much, and abuses medication. listens to 90s rock and doesn’t have many hobbies.

Corinne Kelly = 10/20/1998, ☀️libra 🌙scorpio ✨capricorn, estj-a, age 20, she/her, straight

vain, mean, shallow, rude. a bitch. cosmetologist. josiah’s highschool girlfriend who he’s still with. total daddy’s girl who really gets whatever she wants. isn’t mean for any reason, she just fucking sucks. spends most of her time at work, likes to shop a lot, spends the rest of her time either accounting for her dad or tormenting josiah. abusive. really values her appearance.

Lucia Caro = 6/17/2001, ☀️gemini 🌙libra ✨pisces, enfp-a, age 19, she/her, bi

bubbly, outgoing, chaotic, friendly. instagram influencer. angel kin, angel complex, god complex, the works. obsessive and almost delusional after chisme’s influence. loves cute things. hobbies mostly just include social media stuff and pinterest diy things she thinks are cute. likes thrift-flipping. (lu-CHEE-uh)

Karma = she/it

angel of hurt/pain/revenge. the unholy entity within Lucia. whether it is an angel, demon, new, or ancient, is ambiguous. only desire is to wreak havoc. curiously has a great attitude about it.

Chisme = she/her, aro, estp-a

energetic, enthusiastic, impulsive, apathetic. demon who deives people to evil or death by gradually influencing their emotions to become more severe, leading to the person becoming more impulsive and less tied to reality. Considers this to be entertaining. Influencing Lucia, but never reveals herself. Generally has a great attitude about things, but her emotions are strong and the change quickly.

Edgar Graves = 11/28/1999, ☀️sagittarius 🌙scorpio ✨sagittarius, istj-t, age 20, he/him, gay

reserved, serious, lonely. idk what he goes to college for but he has no friends. after a bad party experience w and ouija board or some shit and ended up getting haunted by a fucking demon :(((. he’s so super depressed but he wont fuckin die and its annoying but he’s stubborn and values his little life.

Maalik = he/him, gay in denial, istp-a

sadistic, mean, cocky, confident, an asshole. mentally and psychologically torments and tortures, people to evil/death. currently doing so to edgar. he considers this to be fun, but doesn’t really care about the people whose souls he steals. when he’s rlly invested he will show himself. for some reason, though, Edgar never reacts?? and for some reason? Maalik has been holding back a little.. hm...

Prudence = they/she/he/it, aro, isfj-t

overly-cautious, nosy, timid, nervous. an angel that none of the other angels like because they’re lame. she hangs around with Chisme and Maalik even though they bully him but it doesn’t really mind. She kind of has a stick up her butt and has never been to earth, although he does hear a lot about it from Chisme and Maalik. Not especially powerful, but they don’t really do anything anyways. It’s not very proficient at it’s job (making sure people are careful), bc all it really comes across as is overthinking. People really get annoyed by this, and thats why they don’t do much anymore. hearing about what the demons do bums them out but they don’t really do anything about it.

Susannah Reid = 5/9/1999, ☀️taurus 🌙 aquarius ✨leo, infj-t, age 21 at death, she/her, bi

gentle, intelligent, naive, lonely. aerospace engineering student with no friends who just wants to feel close to someone. Goes out with Corbin for roughly 3 months before he kills her, then she becomes a vengeful spirit of raw anguish that hunts him down. Loved reading and researching, as well as singing quietly to herself

Corbin Wright = 4/12/1998, ☀️aries 🌙leo ✨ capricorn, istj-a, age 22, he/they, pan

manipulative, suave, amicable, ruthless. travels everywhere picking up new, lonely, unnoticable people to woo and date for a bit before he murders them. killed Susannah by drowning her. is familiar with Cecilia

Cecilia Ayers = 11/16/2000, scorpio, age 20, she/her, bi, istj-t

Fake, observant, volatile, calculating. Rich kid with daddy issues bc her dad wanted a son that he never got. Became a perfectionist overachiever to an obsessive degree. Has a large social circle but doesn’t care for any of the people who consider her a friend, her entire outward personality is fake. In realisy, she is very cold and uncaring. Spends all of her free time on work, until the wrong guy pushes her too far one night and she kills him. then another. then another... she notices Corbin putting the same moves on Susannah one day, who luckily goes to her college. Taking a passing interest in Susannah, she notices the changes caused by Corbin’s abuse until: Susannah goes missing. Now aware of Corbin’s action’s he is also aware of hers in a spy v spy situation.

Amber Little = 1/15/97, age 17 at death, she/her, straight, enfj-a

Art Andrews = 2/19/2000, pisces cusp, isfp-a, age 19, he/him, idk

Big puppy dog, amicable, goofy, easygoing. Arthur’s been through a lot thanks to his neglectful mother. Having been in foster care, then held back, he met Ben before going back into his mom’s custody. Ben was Art’s first real friend, since his school experience was mostly characterized by outbursts and fights. in hs, Art began self harming, smoking, doing drugs, and illegal activity with a seperate group. Ben eventually helps him out of this lifestyle, and he goes clean on everything but smoking, as well as getting into the occasional fight because of his past crowd. While he harbors a lot of hardships, he’s a genuinely nice and caring friend, and could become friends with probably anyone. Spends most of his time chilling with Ben, doesn’t have a knack for most things besides math.

Ben Luna = 12/19/2001, sagittarius, infj-t, age 18, he/him, gay

clever, considerate, anxious, stubborn. Ben was pretty lonely before he met Art, and doesn’t have too much of a social life. A straight-a student, Ben understands practically everything, and could be taught anything else. Bad relationship with his parents, because he refuses to not transition, and though he lives with them, they hardly interract. Has a pretty bad crush on Art, but he’ll probably never tell him. Thinks March is a bad influence ~_~. Spends a lot of his time gaming or doing things that stimulate him. prone to anxiety, yet very steadfast.

March Abbot = 3/15/2001, pisces, estp-a, age 18, he/him, bi

laid-back, arrogant, charming, sarcastic. Marcello rich boy with the worst daddy issues in the entire world. he doesn’t want to be like his dad, or run his construction company, or grow up to be anything like that stuck-up prick. likes to rebel as much as possible, usually by partying and picking up a lot of girls. took an interest in Art because he seemed like a delinquent. Spends most of his time fucking around any way he can that will keep him away from home. mostly dismissive of Ben since he seems like a dumb nerd.

Jude Keane = 1/12/2003, capricorn, infj-t age 18, he/him, bi

outgoing, expressive, reliable, thoughtful. finally moved out of house to go to college for idk, anthropology. beach boys and oldies in general enthusiast, influenced by his grandparents. even though his mother supported his transition financially, she had a general attitude of wanting him to “grow up” and “get real” about his life, causing him tons of self-doubt. meets Taylor at the record shop they work at and become friends.

Taylor Zamora = 4/9/2002, aries, age 19, enfj-a, they/them, pan

confident, insightful, mature, cool. Taylor’s the cool person who is too intimidating to talk to in the grocery store. they give the best advice and always take the time to listen and help their friends, but their past is pretty mysterious. loves to live in the moment bc they fear that they didn’t get the childhood that they should’ve.

Robyn Parry = 1/27/2003, aquarius, age 16, istp-t, she/her, lesbian

reserved, serious, intimidating, calm. Powerful gay energies. Robyn really likes drawing realism portraits and breaking the dress code. Other ppl don’t talk to her with the exception of Eden. despite the bullying she’s gotten for her unique freckles, she is very confident and self-assured

Eden Houghton = 8/21/2003, leo, age 16, esfp-a, she/her, lesbian

bright, optimistic, loving, sweet. Eden just transferred to the same all-girl school as Robyn, and meets her on the first day. People either love her or are rude to her, but she tries not to let it get her down. she loves being outside in nature, or doing anything that isn’t sitting around at home, but she has a passion for crafts to keep life interesting.

Cathy = 10/8/2002, libra, she/her, bi, enfp-a

my girlfriend

Keith Harlow = 9/14/1997, virgo, age 19, intj-t, he/him, gay

tired, irrate, paranoid, determined. his parents were killed by a monster when he was like, 9, and after years of shit life and trying to find the truth, he finally makes it back to the town where it happened, where he meets Ethan, who helps him uncover the mystery. unfortunately, he might be more monster than human himself at that point. nah thats not true, he’s just a poor boy. he does die uhh. he knows no hobbies, only the hunt

Ethan Wake = 10/30/1997, scorpio, age 18, infj-t he/him, gay

curious, patient, reserved, empathetic. moved to a small town with his parents for him to figure out college and them to go through their divorce. meets Keith and helps him with his investigation until keiths paranoia overcomes him. oh also he initiates the romantic relationship with keith and pierces his ears and everything. used to cut. gets shot (by keith). survives, forgets everything.

Christian Covett = 7/23/1996, leo cusp, age 26, entj-a he/him, pan

intelligent, unhinged, deceptive, upbeat. has a knack for morally ambiguous/deplorable scientific inquiries and experiments. upon finding Adrien, he captures him and uses him to try to figure out the secrets of holiness/divinity and shit. seems like a bubbly, if not weird dude in public due to his overly-cutesy demeanor and clothing. is actually very malicious, sadistic, and completely apathetic. can switch from smiling to evil in less than a second.

Adrien = he/him, aro, istp-t

deadpan, moody, introverted, resilient. a very weak angel who is on earth bc of a demotion. was captured by Christian and tortured for a while before eventually regaining his power and getting payback and escaping. Dresses like a clown

Hayden Voss = 6/21/2002, cancer cusp, age 19, istp-t, they/them, bi

stoic, quiet, loner, mysterious. has a shaky grasp of their own metallokinetic powers, which have the potential to be very very powerful. doesnt really talk to anybody about anything for any reason. hayden would much rather be alone than training, bc they hate feeling weak or dumb, and considers their lack of technique frustrating when they have to admit it

Tere Montoya = 3/24/2000, aries, age 21, esfj-a, they/them, pan

charismatic, athletic, fun-loving, hard-working. Firebrat has more energy than anyone else. literally. enhanced stamina leads to slower heart rate, considerable muscle and notable strength, an avg body temp of ~101 degrees, and extreme speed/agility/dexterity. they love to win, making them a natural at most sports, able to usually do very well at anything they try. prolific in hand-to-hand combat. usually stays awake for at least 48 hrs at a time. lovable and not too cocky, they make a pretty fun, if sometimes annoying, coach. they might (... and can) kill you with their extreme energy.

Callum Sorel = 10/27/2000, scorpio, age 17, intj-t, he/him, pan

shy, nervous, neurotic, fearful. callum lived his whole dang life being a cute lil meganerd in a small town who minded his own business until one day somehow he was attacked by a vampire (um. i think his town had a local cryptic grave that he came in contact with) and then he went on a fucking murderous rampage as he tried not to succumb to feralness!!! fuckin crazy!

Gossamer Glasgow = 4/22/2005, taurus, age 17, infp-t, gay

hopeless romantic, scaredy-cat, punk arachnophobe who went into a haunted house once because he thought it would be cool and badass but ruh roh spaghettios

Fathom Jackson = 5/17/????, taurus, 17 when he uhh, esfp-a, he/him, gay

cheerful, upbeat, naive boy who went missing a long time ago because he walked into the haunted house :/

Malady Lovelace = 1/16/196?, capricorn, 13 at death, esfp-a (alive), she/her, idk

missing under mysterious circumstances in the 70s. has become an extremely angry house ghost

Harvey Duran = 4/17/2004, aries, age 17, intj-t, he/him, gay

responsible, collected, positive yet cautious Normal Boy who has to wrangle his chaotic best friends, one of which he is hopelessly in love with.

Leo Vargas = 9/12/2003, virgo, age 18, enfp-a, he/him, gay

kind, extroverted, energetic and easygoing boy who really just wants to have fun and be happy with his friends. semi-cousins with josie idk

Josie Morisson = 3/22/2004, aries, age 17, esfp-a, she/her, lesbian

batshit insane criminally chaotic girl who just wants to watch the world burn, mess with Harvey, make Leo happy, and love her girlfriend.

Devon Banks = 5/26/2003, gemini, age 18, intp-a, they/she/he, lesbian

Josie’s chill and athletic long distance girlfriend who occasionally gets to come visit.

Tyler Everett = 1/6/2001, capricorn, age 20, intj-t, he/him, gay

eternally tired and stressed punk barista who finds himself as the babysitter for two anomalous beings. hardworking and blunt, yet patient and gentle when he needs to be.

Damion = he/they, pan, infp-t

anomalous humanoid being in the appearance of an ~16 year old early 2000s emo boy with too much energy and slightly unnerving features. super loud. never sleeps, never shuts up. origins are very unknown, which he is very insecure about.

Essie = she/her, idk she doesnt know, isfp-t

usually found crying, emotions always running at maximum capacity. sadness means sobbing, joy means happy tears, but she can’t find it in herself to be angry. very sedentary, never goes out, and probably looks much too strange to. doesn’t think much about her own origins, kind of is already emotional enough.

Dakota Herrera = 10/10/2003, libra, age 18, intj-t, they/them, pan

Lucille Bloom = 2/11/????, aquarius, 19 when uhhh, infp-t, she/her, pan

Eleanor Fay = 7/12/2003, cancer, age 18, estp-a, she/they, bi

Angel Murillo = 3/10/2002, pisces, age 14, infj-t, he/him, bi

Nicodemus Worth = 2/25/2001, pisces, age 15, intp-a, he/him, gay

Harlow Liu = 12/21/2003, capricorn, age 17, intp-t, they/he/she, pan

Ruby Lopez = 9/1/2003, virgo, age 18, enfp-a, she/her, lesbian

Rosario Vergara = 12/7/1999, scorpio, age 19, istj-t, she/they, bi

Misha Amato = 3/13/1999, pisces, age 20, intp-a, they/them, pan

Nadia Bell = 6/28/2009, cancer, age 23, intj-t, she/her, pan

Charlie = 10/31/2010, scorpio, age 22? idk, istj-t, they/any, pan

Guts = 12/27/????, capricorn, age idk 19?, esfp-a, he/they/it, pan

emo boy!!!

Antonio Gunner = ?/?/????, 30’s and un-aging, intp-t, he/him, pan

ranger, reborn, human? clown name is “Tarnation”

Alarick = ?/?/????, 30’s and un-aging, esfp-t, he/him, gay

dhampir by birth, sorcerer maybe

Dahlia Gunner = ?/?/????, 31, istj-a, she/her, lesbian

human ranger(?), clown name Belladonna, not related to Antonio

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, NAY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE LOVERS with the faceclaim of ASHLEY MOORE. Admin Cas: I think we can all agree that The Lovers is a difficult concept to pin down. It’s a task in itself to balance the devotion they have for The World, her world, while not sacrificing who they are at their core. But, Nay, you were certainly up to the task. There’s something so lovely about Prudence, so beautiful and admirable, but something hungry. So much of her life revolves around The World, but that does not mean that Prudence doesn’t have a story of her own to live out. I particularly enjoyed the way you likened her story unfolding to a caterpillar grows into its chrysalis; to become a butterfly or moth, either is possible. I can’t wait to see what you do with her!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

Out-of-Character.

NAME: nay 

PRONOUNS: she / her

AGE: twenty-two

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: gmt + 5 ; and i’d say my activity ( especially with quarantine, still ) is at a 7/10. lately, i have been trying to write every day, and that means at least a reply every day – even if posted through queue after being written on a better writing day. 

ANYTHING ELSE?: i wrote this way too quickly, because i suck at being patient and didn’t want to wait a week to turn in an app, so forgive me for the sinful typos committed in my haste! this definitely isn’t as polished as i wish it were. also? there are possibly too many insect-facts in this and if that shit squicks you, i am so sorry.

In-Character.

SKELETON: the lovers

K E Y W O R D S 

UPRIGHT: love, harmony, relationships, values alignment, choices

REVERSED: self-love, disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values

| source: x

NAME: prudence “prue” luna lockhart

→ ETYMOLOGY ;

P R U D E N C E / “intelligence; discretion, foresight; wisdom to see what is suitable or profitable;” also one of the four cardinal virtues, "wisdom to see what is virtuous;" from Old French prudence (13th Century) and directly from Latin prudentia “a foreseeing, foresight, sagacity, practical judgment,” contraction of providentia “foresight” (see providence). Secondary sense of “wisdom” (late 14th Century) is preserved in jurisprudence.

L U N A / “the moon,” especially personified in the Roman goddess answered to Greek Selene; also, an alchemical name for “silver”; from Latin luna “moon, goddess of the moon,” from PIE *leuksna- (source, also: of Old Church Slavonic luna “moon,” Old Prussian lauxnos “stars,” Middle Irish luan “light, moon”), suffixed form of root *leuk- “light, brightness.” The luna moth (1841, American English) so-called for the crescent-shaped eye-spots on its wings.

L O C K H A R T / Scottish: of uncertain origin, probably from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements loc 'lock', 'bolt' + hard 'hardy', 'brave', 'strong'. English: occupational name for a herdsman in charge of a sheep or cattlefold, from Old English loc 'enclosure', 'fold' + hierde 'herd(er)'.

| sources: x & x

FACECLAIM: zendaya coleman ( or ashley moore or natali litvinova — in order of preference! )

AGE: three-&-twenty for zendaya / four-&-twenty for ashley or natali

→ BIRTHDATE: fantasy-equivalent of july 8th; the most cancer baby there ever was!

DETAILS: it took me forever to find a skeleton that made me feel the enduring love i’ve been searching for beyond the ability to see a story, and as it always, unfailingly, tends to happen for the rare occasion where i opt for a softer character, it caught me completely off-guard. initially, surveying the tags, i was leaning towards the skeletons of the wheel of fortune, the hierophant, the devil, the hermit – all of whom, in my opinion, are characters who have been shaped by a darkness, be it inherent or inflicted, that’s rendered them with shadows or edges. with the lovers, that’s not the case. they are tender: like a paramour’s kiss, or a bruise, or an overripe peach you can sink your fingers into. and maybe it’s my unflinching desire to subvert the stereotypical presumption of what it is to be soft, the fragility noted in their skeleton does not translate to weakness or meekness to me; i enjoy that they are both tender, and possess the ability to be chaotic, and manipulative, and impulsive and desperate and vindictive and defensive. what i love most about this particular skeleton is the sheer humanness of them.

that, and their love for THE WORLD. for a moment there, that was definitely what drew me to them; this idea of love as religion had my mind reeling like a siken poem, rhapsodising about a love so powerful, it can alter a person. this is partially because i am the most hopeful and shameless of romantics, and partially because love, its nuances, and its powers and vulnerabilities genuinely, deeply interest me. however, working my way deeper into this application-form, that changed.

it is the love that the lovers — or prue, to me, now — holds for THE WORLD is one that attracted me. it is her own potential for growth that’s kept me in her clutches, besotted, wishing to tell her story. hers is a tale, i believe, of metamorphosis: a question i posed in a later section, as well as what lurks in my mind, is whether that metamorphosis is one that leads to a moth or a butterfly. did you know it is moths who come from cocoons, but butterflies who come from a chrysalis? moths, who are drawn to light. butterflies, who drink nectar, also help spread the seeds to grow more of the flowers. both which come from a caterpillar, whose first meal is typically the egg they come from. what i enjoy is the ambivalence that presents itself — or, as i like to call it: potential. there are several directions that prue’s story could go in, several choices that could define her, and it’s all up in the air until it isn’t anymore.

i wish i could tell you that my EUREKA! moment wasn’t insect-research, but i can’t, because that would be a lie. i’m not even sorry. 

BACKGROUND: 

☉ CONTENT WARNING(s): infant death, stillbirth, body horror imagery, insects

come, dear reader, won’t you settle in? let me spin you a tale—a tangled web of one, indeed—about a girl who smells sweet as white roses and is as satiny to touch as her gossamer-thin garments. this girl is just a girl; she has never been the girl. even so, this story is her story, and though she is not equipped to be the heroine of a story, or so she believes, she is the heart of this one. like a heart, she is swollen with the fullness of blood: thus, let me etch this tale into parchment with the blood of love, in crimson-ink of metallic-reek. 

it comes in three parts: a beginning, a middle, an ending; it is for you, dear reader, to decide which is which. 

let us anoint this tale the title of METAMORPHOSIS –

✧✧✧

i. THE EGG ;

before there is the girl, there is a man and a woman who live in faerûn by the sahrnian sea, bound together by a contract that is decidedly not the forest-fire love faerie-tales herald. yet that is not to say that love never comes, just because love comes after. when it does, it is a calm love, a steady one; a love that has never cost one to lose one’s mind, and has been grown, meticulously, over the passage of time and the trials and tribulations have littered the path of a match made by those who are older and have witnessed so much more life than them. it is not for years that the woman feels nature stirring within her body’s vessel, and when it does, it is with the undying bestowing upon her a gift that makes up lost time. 

when the girl comes, she comes from a belly more full than most. it makes sense that it is so, for there were meant to be two of them: a boy, and a girl. one might suppose that, in the end, there still were, yet only one in the way it mattered. 

( you decide, dear reader: which is which? ) 

she is born — and it is days, and days, before her time. no matter, a name still awaits her. prudence, they call her. pierce, he would have been.

from the beginning, she emerges from the ruddy cave of her mother’s womb incomplete. a greyish pallor remains where life ought to be warming her skin; it is as if he leeched enough life from her for him to choke on, and she siphoned her brother’s death through the connection only womb-mates share – and this is what she will hear in later years, when she asks about him. 

she will wish she hadn’t.

✧✧✧

ii. THE CATERPILLAR ;

( when you feel unforgiving, dear reader, remember: it is a caterpillar’s job to eat; without an abundance of consumption, it cannot survive. it is this abundance of consumption that allows for the production of silk. it is this same abundance of consumption that is its undoing. )

years do not care if one is ready to bear them; they come, when they must, as they must. and so comes to pass the childhood that tries to swallow prudence lockhart whole, over and over and over –

as an infant, blood is filtered out of her body and fresh blood poured into her veins. it helps, some. it does not help enough, yet there is nothing more to be done; her parents must take her home, and pray to the undying god for the rest. they pray, and pray, and pray, as two people of noble blood and lucrative business-dealings rarely stoop to, for lack of need to need it.

as a child, prue is still a frail slip of a thing, with bones jutting out against taut bronze flesh in protest. fill yourself up, her mother pleads. you must survive, beloved. she offers her savory meals and sweet decadence twice, and anything she takes a suggestion of a liking to just as many times more — and it works; it takes time, but work it does, and prue’s cheeks round some and at times flush rosily, some weakness giving way to the minute miracles that are her tardy signs of life. it is not much, but it is enough, isn’t it? it is to the mother who has warred for her existence. who still combats for prue’s survival. 

when does the girl begin to feel that it might be her that her mother is fighting, when every frustration about her lessness, her inherent lessness, begins to steal the breath from prue’s lungs – for is it not her who is all poetry & rot, wisp-thin & about as flimsy? her heart fills with hot, vital blood then: it beats loud and clear as a belltower’s toll, cutting through all else with the potency of its truth. this is as much as i am, she beseeches in turn, as her mother had once done, except not, for graceless tears roll down her cheeks in impassioned rivulets and the voice that thickens with feeling.

how will you survive the world, beloved? her mother implores.

i might not, prue knows. i might not, she accepts.

it is the caterpillar’s destiny to unbecome –

✧✧✧

iii. THE CHRYSALIS ;

– unbecoming takes time.

it takes long enough that both mother and daughter grow used to it, initially, and then around it, ultimately. 

there is, after-all, the distraction of warfare engrained in the backbone of their precious faerûn. there is the journey to tyrholm, the settling into the dregs of hightown – not quite lowtown-bound, and not-quite-not. it fazes her parents to not be profound upper-echelons of society; her father, a man used to running the business inherited by the men in the lockhart family, and her mother, who had spent all of her time worrying for prudence and never had to about wealth. but prue, for her part, is accustomed to the notion of not-quite-right / not-quite-enough; the feeling might not be home, per se, and yet she recognises the walls of the house all the same – could walk its rooms in the dark, if she had to.

it is circumstance that calls the lockharts to castle tyrholm. 

it tears at her parents: her father believes in not squandering opportunity, and her mother would rather squander anything but prudence. even THE EMPRESS sees it, does she not, when she cants prudence’s head and observes her fragility? the king’s reputation precedes itself; would a heart as true and innocent as hers survive a court like his? within minutes, it is too late to ponder it any longer. within minutes, it is no longer a choice, but a deal already struck. just like a match: it cannot be unstruck. one can endeavour to douse a fire, but it is not the same as un-starting it.

for a time, the castle is one more place prue does not feel she belongs; it is alright, she tells herself. you are alright, she says – because her mother is no longer by her side telling her anymore, is she? silken thread ensnares the girl when THE WORLD knocks on her door one evening; it is lilly-white, the radiance of their smile. prue does not understand why, then; she is nothing exceptional, she flounders for the right thing to do, and even then, she gets it wrong so much more often than she ever gets it right. perhaps, she will never understand why – why they are so kind, why they make her feel seen, why… 

and still, this once, there is no question of whether it is enough. they are more than enough.

for the first time in her life, prue discovers what it is to be warm.

✧✧✧

tell me, dear reader – is this a butterfly’s or moth’s metamorphosis?

PLOT IDEAS: 

❂ “love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. it’s like religion. it’s terrifying.” – richard siken  

see, i told you: siken’s poetry reeling through my mind. religion is a really interesting ideology to link the notion of love to, because there are so many boundaries one crosses in the name of faith. at times, we call it the lesser evil. other times, we say it’s letting the end justify the means. we’re all trying to be holy. 

this is where i want to start discussing potential plots for prue — but i want to, first, preface it by saying that though THE WORLD is very much at the centre of her story, it is because prue’s unparalleled love for them is central to her life-story; i treat it like an experiment, where prue is the dependent variable and her love for THE WORLD is the independent variable that incites action & reaction, placed in different situations. it is, that said, the most potent of variables, and can hardly be called controlled, despite how desperately prue herself attempts to keep it to the corner-alcove they hide the truth of their love in. this love is not a selfish love; it is strong, and all-consuming, and maddening – more than a soldier’s swearing fealty to a kingdom, it is the most devout of prophets bowing their head at the altar of the divine deity they put their faith in. that’s pretty intense stuff, right? i want to see what it elicits.

this can be a double-edged sword, and in fact, i’d be rooting for it to be. on one hand, i want to explore how this love has made prue strong. i want to see how it has made her braver, and more resilient. i want to explore that she took THE EMPRESS deeming her fragile-seeming, and how she’s donned it as armour, because it is that same delicacy that has made THE WORLD love them. i want to explore it through interactions with the royal family foremost — THE WORLD, of course, but THE EMPRESS, THE EMPEROR, THE CHARIOT, and if it works out, maybe even septimus himself. it’s rare for prue to not let things slip, and roll off her back, but that is when it comes to her. her love for THE WORLD makes her want to protect them, fiercely; it lights a fire in her soul that has never been lit before. and fire? yes, it warms – but oh, it burns, too, doesn’t it? it has the power to ruin. and i don’t want to limit that exploration to just the royal family; i want to explore it with the animosity-potential between her and TEMPERANCE as well, but that’s one plot i’ll talk more about further down. 

there are little ideas floating around in my head that i would love to explore with the respective players, but i could imagine a friendship between prue ( probably due to her sweet-tooth luring her, too often, to the kitchens ) with THE HANGED MAN – and to explore a bond, that could further be complicated, potentially, by prue not being able to talk about what she and THE WORLD share. or, more chaotically: for her to share it, and for THE HANGED MAN to let it slip to THE DEVIL? how far would prue go to protect this? and would she, if it presented the opportunity for the future where she and her love get to be together is pushed closer by it? how selfless is her love? how powerful would fear be against it?

i’m honestly just a firm believer that, when our backs are against the wall, that’s when we find out who we really are. and that’s the main storyline i want to explore with prue, more than anything else, because i think that she has never been pushed to that edge and, because of it, she’s never copped up to her own identity. she met and fell in love with THE WORLD at such a young age, so quickly and wholly, that it has shaped so much of what her ideal self is. i want to see how her ideal self would differ from the reality of her. and i want to see her confront it.

❂ “you are going to break your promise. i understand. and i hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that i will not hate you.” – catherynne m. valente

very recently, someone put forth an idea to me: love is a promise. that’s what i want to talk about here. there’s a sense i got — both from the lovers’ skeleton, and THE WORLD’s — that both of them know that there is a time-limit on their relationship. or, at the very least, whatever room there is for prue in their future, it isn’t a room where they share the bed. but i also get a sense that they know it, and neither of them talk about it. i think a part of prue feels like the amount of good that THE WORLD has brought her will last her a lifetime, and i think that isn’t true, so much as she’s hoping it is? i want to see the two of them talk about it. i want to see prue wanting them to fight her love. i want prue to admit she wants to be chosen over duty, or a marriage with someone who isn’t her, or fear, and i want to see what something like that would do to their relationship. or hell, i want someone who has power over THE WORLD, like THE EMPEROR, or THE EMPRESS, or THE CHARIOT or THE HIGH PRIESTESS to find out about the true nature of their relationship and force that choice once they even start talking about, so the situation can force their hands even if they don’t force one another’s.

there’s so much between the two of them i want to dissect and play with, it apparently needed to separate quotations. oops?

❂ “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” – ernest hemingway 

we all have the occasional ( or perhaps more, no judgement! ) propensity for wickedness. i feel really passionately about softer people not being safe from cravings for chaotic behaviour, even if they might, in prue’s case, justify it through the innocence of intention. a lot of her initial effusion is of a heady amalgamation of sweetness and delicacy; i want to see her display a dash of something that takes leave from that, and surprises even herself. now, though not at all set-in-stone and totally up to be discussed with the respective player, i could easily see it rearing its head in the dynamic between herself and TEMPERANCE. how many times will she be shooed away from a room with a beautiful woman and the love of prue’s life? it terrifies prue, the idea that THE WORLD will slip out of her fingers like the sands of time, so much sooner than she is ready for. i’m curious: would there be a moment where she would not leave? where she would make the nature of their relationship known? would she ever snap back, or continue to smile tenderly, bow her head, and listen?

i’m also dying to explore the potential plot brewing between the lovers and DEATH. part of this is a total shot in the dark, so bear with me, but – imagine this: there is a darkness in them that tugs at the darkness in her; they are hungry, and she is a starving-thing, and what a pairing they could make. imagine prue venturing into lowtown with them, and for the alternative reality DEATH’s hunger dangles that could open a door to an actual future with THE WORLD? i want there to be temptation — towards darkness and chaos, yes, because i am a sucker for moral ambiguity, but also for the loyalist that prue is to be lured by the revolt. 

❂ “you cut up a thing that’s alive and beautiful to find out how it’s alive and why it’s beautiful, and before you know it, it’s neither of those things, and you’re standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” – clive barker

it is difficult for even me, as i delve into prue’s psyche, to be a wordsmith adept enough to encapsulate the sheer magnitude of her love for her lover. let me tell you this, though: it is love that is devout enough that prue would sacrifice herself before it. she would shirk what she believes she knows of herself to fight for THE WORLD. but there is little in the universe free of the shackles of consequence. it feels inevitable to me that, at some point, sooner or later, prue will commit an action or reaction in the name of love — and then, she will have to live with it. it’s even better to me for her to go beyond her limits for this love that is everything to her, and then find herself turning to them to sacrifice for her as freely as she does them… and for them to, perhaps, not be able to. or perhaps, for it to turn prue into a person she herself can no longer recognise. there was a part of me that wanted to already cook something up, and to toss it into the writing sample portion, but i decided otherwise. if i get to write this character, i want to start in a place that is different, and develop my way towards a darker pasture, so to speak.

a darker pasture, however, is where i want her to at least visit. in a setting such as this one, i don’t think it can be helped, truthfully.

❂ “each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – anaïs nin

while i was trying to knit this application together into one whole piece, a recurring concern for me has been that i want this character to have its own story, and the lines of that can get awfully blurry when the character is one the feels as intensely as prue lockhart does. she is such a hypersensitive creature; more than anything, it is her interactions that penetrate her, and alter her, and cause the discord between the sides that are wont to tug at her, who stands in the most Lawful Neutral of spots. i’ve decided to lean into it, though, because i genuinely believe that it poses an intriguing dichotomy between her inherent nature and the nurture that moulds it beyond the obvious, magnitudinal parental hand in it. that said, there are actual several different potential connections i want to toy with here. ( one of which is THE HANGED MAN, but i already mentioned that above, and didn’t want to be repetitive! )

THE MAGICIAN / listen, prue is so used to being the Softest. but this little baby is even softer than her, and every time they flinch, she just wants to help. she tries, at every turn, to be kind and i really want to see her become a friend / confidant for them? maybe learn about their magic. to maybe give them a secret of her own back ;) gal pals, gimme. i need something wholesome; it can’t all be agony & ecstasy, god damn it.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE / it is pure coincidence that throws the two of them together as often as it does. but prue is the sort to believe the best in people, and is never too arrogant to admit where she’s been wrong. this bond is where her feelings towards magic first begins to see development, and i am so, so, so interested in toying with it. even more so when you throw in their bond with THE EMPEROR — does faze prue a little — and his relationship with THE WORLD in there. such potential for growth and drama.

DEVIL / for years, every time prue has seen them, she has walked in the other direction. otherworldliness is unnatural enough as it is, but the proof of what they can do scars them with evidence of it – and so, out of genuine fear, she’s evaded them. and yet, coincidental interactions with the WHEEL OF FORTUNE has made prue think twice. a look at the haunting in their eyes has made her think thrice. i want to play with that dynamic!!!

THE MOON / hers is the only magic that does not scare prue, i think. it is the only one she is not too intimidated to ask questions about, because she truly is extremely curious when she takes an interest in something, and a lifetime of listening in the background has given prue a taste for stories. i feel like she could bring out something adventurous and wild within prue? a part which prue never got to explore, because she grew up with a very, very cautious mother who kept a very close eye on her and treated her like glass because prue really does look fragile. i want a bond to make her feel stronger!

THE STAR / if there is one thing that prue has grown up to be, it is a true romantic. it makes him something of a kindred spirit; something in her could reach out to something in him, creating a kindred bond that makes her feel seen in a way that only THE WORLD has ever given her.

THE TOWER / because she was raised right by it, the sea is where prue feels most at home, and she always has. i could see there being something about THE TOWER’s stories making her feel warm inside, and thus, her braving a friendship with them. i think she could use the wisdom of someone older? and there’s just something about them that made prue shyly scuff her toe at the ground, like – an oliver twist moment of, “can i have more, please?”

THE FOOL / stories talk about princes and princesses. the dragon’s fire, the nobel steed. prue looks at him, and she wonders: where are the stories about them? the princess’ lover, and the king’s soldier – those who fight for the crown, without wearing it. it could make for such an unlikely bond, but such an intriguing one, i think? i got the idea, and i just could not shake it. humour me!

and 0f course, there is potential with literally every other character, too, but i honestly ran out of time before i could come up with something for them too. i’m down to flesh it out~

❂ “we grow. it hurts at first.” – sylvia plath 

at the start of her story, prue starts off as a fragile underdog. she turns blossoms into a lover, and it turns her fiercer – which is not the same thing as being fierce, but it’s a start. what i want for her — what any writer wants for their muses, i reckon — is growth. i want prue, who has grown up sheltered and protected, to experience pain and hardship. i want her experiences to call into question what she thinks she knows, flip it on its head, and make her think. i want her to think, and to change her mind, and to change it again. i want her to confront her fears, and her uncomfortable truths, and to experience all the tempestuous emotions she’s spent her entire life keeping at bay, having convinced herself they could shatter her. i want her to unearth her endurance, to test its limits. i want to explore her undoings and remakings. what i enjoy most about her is the volatility of her that most would not see coming, because volatile and tempestuous and emotional is what she is. she is all heart, all the time, everywhere. can you imagine how visceral that has to make every experience?

imagine the potential for growth if she let herself just feel all of it. if she opened herself up, and let the universe rush in, instead of walking on eggshells as she does. just imagine. that’s what i want for her.

CHARACTER DEATH: i could, of course, see prue meeting an end. in fact, there are a couple of circumstances that could make it deliciously poetic, even.

Writing Sample.

They match each other: step for step; right, then left –

Hardly anyone turns to look at the two of them anymore. The two of them, making their way down the hall, with their dark heads leaned close together, like two plants growing towards one another when the sun leaves them for too long. It might be more peculiar to see them apart. There is a strange pride that twists a corner of Prue’s mouth at the unshakeable knowledge of the fact – a hint of tremendous pride at the small, precious claim THE WORLD makes with the statement of their proximity. It is everything to her, and perhaps it is what lends to the smoothness of her gait as they move past the portrait-eyes that scrutinise it, as if they await another of the many stumbles they’ve already witnessed. Prue floats beside them.

Her heart is gone, long-since pressed into the palm of their hand. Does it weigh them down? She could pretend it is why she keeps their fingers curled into the crook of her elbow, helping them carry the heaviness of the heart she’s given away to them; Prue holds fast to that touch with her own hand covering their fingers, unwilling to give up those four pressure-points that burn her flesh through the silk of her sleeve for anything, enough to shield it with the dome of her palm.

“ – Prudence?”

Their hand flinches at the same time as Prue’s grip on their fingers tightens. As if a chill blew in, and froze the marrow in her bones, the girl stills in place. It is not because she recognises the voice. It is because she ought to have done, for what the cant of her head finds is a woman whose gaze mirrors her own: amber-warm, almond-shaped. It is her same mouth that speaks the syllables of a variation of her names that does not belong to her, not as Prue does.

“Mama –” she says, her voice so quiet, she fears it might not reach her.

She is too far away now. Even mere footsteps away, she is too far.   

Extras.

✦ INSPIRATIONS → anne shirley cuthbert – from anne of green gables; tiana – from princess & the frog; missandei of naath – from game of thrones; margaery tyrell / house tyrell – from a song of ice & fire;  madame lebedeva – from deathless; effie trinket – from the hunger games series; jack pearson – from this is us; patroclus – from the song of achilles; 

✦ INSPIRATION TAG → here;

✦ PINTEREST BOARD → here.

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

"You're on a path and you know where it heads."

by oven3bird Body parts have been appearing all along Gotham City, in such a state that it's impossible to identify them. While trying to solve the mystery, the Gotham Vigilantes have to deal with the fact that Tim Drake-Wayne has been missing for months alongside his friend Prudence Woods. In an effort to find evidence related to his disappearance, Bruce makes his way to his son's house, finding more that he could bargain for. Or: I also suck at summaries and this took too long bc my body decided to stop working halfway through this fic (and its noticeable) Whumptober 2024 Day 3: Set up for failure! (Fingerprints) Words: 3982, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 3 of Ovenbird's Whumptober 2024 hell! Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Gen Characters: Tim Drake (DCU), Bruce Wayne, Prudence Wood, Cassandra Cain, Cassie Sandsmark, Bart Allen, Kon-El | Conner Kent, Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Alfred Pennyworth, Duke Thomas, Tam Fox Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Prudence Wood, Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Angst, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Missing Persons, Grief/Mourning, Tim Drake is Red Robin (DCU), Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne-centric, in some ways, I Tried, Good Sibling Cassandra Cain, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, even if hes not seen as much, hes a good brother, Young Justice Team as Family, the comic young justice, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Still, Whumptober 2024, Canon? Never, I'm Bad At Tagging, Cassandra Cain and Tim Drake are Siblings, Twins if you dare via https://ift.tt/7hU3LKv