#so be it if people label me a monster I shan’t be one to be loved by all for that is a fools errand. But I can try to be kind

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

honestly if all the people over my many years of living were in fact correct in their horrible horrible assumptions I was the most evil despicable inhuman person.

I’d still not care,

does the dog that bites because it’s only known pain evil?

Is the cat that kills a bird to show you it’s love evil?

is the plants that grow through the pipes in the ground cracking and puncturing them evil?

is the curious shark evil for taking a inquisitive bite?

Are the strikes that take the young and skewer them on thorns evil?

are the parasites that depend on its host evil for having no choice?

Am I evil or unsavory, who knows.

but if people wish to dehumanize me I shall make myself happy with the creatures you call evil, the ones who are scary and cruel the ones who hurt and chew and claw.

for we are one in the same, and I will happily accept that from you.

[ofravensandgenesis]

World Building Through Character Creation and Background NPCs

Entry 03. I was thinking over how to build out more plot points for both the underlying bones of original fiction, and also fleshing out ideas for some of the arcs in my ACABH fic. Honestly, adding more characters within reasonable limits seems to really help with that. Even if they’re just characters with a name and a few lines of description, or even just one line of description, it makes for a great springboard point to start tacking on more details. From those details, it’s a lot easier to build out the world around them in various layers. Like for the original fiction world I’m building out right now, creating the character Corwin Blackwood with the helpful input from my friends on how the name sounded, resulted in spinning up a huge chunk of the underlying world order. Originally I was going with just a two-sided state of tension and conflict, but Corwin’s family brings with it a third side that’s caught in the middle—people minding their own business that aren’t actively affiliated with either side. In terms of mechanics, the Blackwoods’ existence brought in some specific broad categories of magical beings, a rudimentary idea of various magical systems with an as of yet undefined overarching universal magic system, and social conflict regarding differing points of view relating to said beings and affiliations with them.

His name is all about his role in the story, with the meaning of his first name being “heart’s friend,” and having had a close if tempestuous friendship with the main character. The last name of Blackwood automatically brings to mind a haunted forest, and as inspired by a Netflix Castlevania fic called Baba by Crownofpins on Ao3 as recommended to me by a friend, and the Blackwoods’ home-locale and name makes me think of the Belmonts. So it was easy enough to consider the Blackwoods tentatively as a family of exorcists/monster-hunters/etc in this rough draft. (The Baba fic is pretty awesome btw, it’s got great elements of old Slavic folklore, obviously Baba Yaga for example, among other things. I shan’t spoil it ofc, but I thought it was a lovely read. Adult content warning for the fic ofc, read the tags, etc.) There’s other external factors that helped bring him about, including other recent media consumption on my part also again in thanks to my friends for recommending them, including Mo Dao Zu Shi and The Legend of The White Snake. (Content warning: Both of those works contain adult content, etc.) They’re both stories of Chinese origin that focus on romances that contain supernatural elements, with The Legend of The White Snake being an old classic tale of folklore. But what’s really fascinating to me is the mythology system that’s at play in the stories—I’m so used to “medieval” fantasy settings being European-influenced landscapes and civilizations, it was really cool to see a more involved Asiatic-inspired one. I’ve certainly seen Asian-mythos-based supernatural movies and series before, but not in this specific niche that’s more fantasy-adventure-ish. Usually the ones I’ve come across are much more heavily leaning into the martial arts category of movies as I’d classify them, or set in more modern-based times. That’s probably just a sign I need to go out and find more content of this sort to consume, honestly. But how the above two works treat the whole spirituality/magic/supernatural aspect is admittedly a huge inspiration point for me for how I’m hoping this original fic’s world will be built, and provides a great starting point to go and try to research more into stories and myths relating to those elements. It also happens to fit in neatly with me being interested in trying to learn a bit more about some of my heritage and culture, being partly of Chinese descent. That’s another thing I know I want Corwin to explore as an additional main character: what does it mean when you’re a part of multiple cultures as a person? What’s that experience like? How does that fact shape how he interacts with his world? I know it has a huge impact on how he’s perceived socially and allows him greater access to magical training via one side of his family having the history for it, and it interests me to think of exploring that in writing. What I’m not certain of is what name to label this general cluster of magical beings as—are they demons? Yaoguai? Spirits? There are associations with each word and name, and giving them a newly made up name would mean severing those ties for better or worse. There are definitely classical monstrous elements in that group, but also a lot of diversity, holding up yet another mirror to the run of the mill humans of that world. What is this group of magical beings specifically in this world’s build? Are they humans that have cultivated themselves spiritually enough to transcend, or is it a reincarnation gig, or something else? I’ll probably have to make another OC or import ideas from mythology to explain where they’re from. With regards to the FC 5 fic though, I’m currently listening to more of the in-game dialogue and commentary as provided by DanaDuchy on their account/channel (also: thanks to DanaDuchy for providing the rest of us such wonderful resources on this and other games/works) and boy the dev team did a wonderful job of just adding more of those little details to help make the setting feel alive. Like it’s honestly really cool to hear the NPCs talk about how haunted the King’s Hot Springs Hotel or the Catamount mines are, how Casey at the Spread Eagle makes the best loose meat/steamer/etc sandwiches and burgers in the entire county, the stories behind the Whistling Beaver Brewery, etc. It’s also pretty grim to hear the tales of all the people the cult’s taken and some of the things other people have seen the cult do, namely killing civilians in gruesomely inventive fashion. Which raises as an interesting problem for me as a fanfic writer is trying to figure out A) how much did the Seeds know about these particular clusters of mass murder, B) did they permit it if they knew about it ahead of time, and C) what purpose does it serve? Currently the answer to A is more than enough because the Seeds not knowing wouldn’t fit this AU nor their character builds in it to go well with the level of importance that the themes of responsibility and consequences carry both in the meta of the fic and in-world for Joshua personally. So that means for B, the Seeds are definitely permitting the additional senseless acts of cruelty noted in the dialogue and conflicted-conversations among the Peggies. Certainly they’re aware at least to some extent if not fully aware of the entirety of it, but I would assume based on the Heralds’ personalities that they all do like to know what their people get up to. They all seem like they would want to know the details of what’s going on for various reasons. I’m leaning towards having the particularly senseless murders be a mix of some acts the Seeds ordered, some acts they left open to interpretation to their followers who then took it to a dark extreme, and some acts were instigated by the followers alone. Basically: humans being humans during chaotic dark times and doing terrible, bad shit. Which leads to the conclusion for Joshua that the Seeds should be more disciplined about keeping their followers in line and not sinking down to this level of pointless evil. He’s not wild about their more purposeful evil acts either and is intent on trying to get them to stop the worst of that, but there are darker gradients of black and grey morality for him there to be more outraged by. So that pretty much wraps up C with the answer of “not much” other than humans being terrible to each other. Perhaps from the villainous perspective it helps terrorize the people of Hope County and whittle down the number of people the cult has to fight now or later, but overall that is still straight up mass murder. ...hm, that reminds me, I need to go tweak a line in a past chapter regarding the population of Hope County. I had it too low for there to be a reasonably-sized if small county aside from the cult’s numbers. Hm. I have the cult at around 1,800ish souls, with their goal being 3,000 total based on in-game commentary from nameless background NPCs, and the line from the Book of Joseph “A few thousand pure souls, whose mission would be to start over and repopulate the earth.” Doing a little quick search, there are some counties even in Montana that according to past censuses had 3,000 or less people in them. For it to feel a bit less likely that the Resistance and civilian population would be easily overwhelmed, it probably should be somewhat higher than the cult, since the county’s numbers will include those who cannot or do not want to fight—that being the old, the young, the ill, etc. Plus if the cult’s being quite so gruesomely wanton in the murdering sprees, that means they aren’t out to absorb the entire county, just most of it. But the cult must also be expecting losses on their side as well since this is a violent conquest they’re undertaking and all of Hope County’s armed to the teeth, if not as necessarily heavily as the cult itself seems to be. We’ll stick the vague number at around 2,400 civilians who are not in the cult for now then and add that to the notes—plus some of the cult’s population is certainly from the county itself pre-Reaping, not including increases that happen during the Reaping with all the active brainwashing, kidnapping, etc. Hm, given some of the generic-NPC-dialogue of how people were forcibly turned to being obedient members of the cult who actually did turn on and shoot their once-allies (and in that dialogue, the brainwashed were also long-time pre-Reaping neighbors of the speaker,) that makes Pratt’s situation in-game all the more interesting. He definitely recognizes the Deputy, whereas it sounded like the aforementioned brainwashed-individuals did not recognize their once-neighbors and friends at all. Pratt’s capable of thinking independent thoughts and he’s remained lucid enough to observe his surroundings and plan an escape, despite going on what sounds like a very dark “hunting trip” Jacob may have taken him on to hunt “deer” which sounds definitely like he was hallucinating in a bad way per his own lines. Jacob apparently isn’t a guy to miss out on using easy symbolism for his enemies, specifically the Whitetail Militia. That was probably not the only “hunting trip” Pratt and the other converts have been on, and that would potentially suggest that the converts are still possibly hallucinating much like how the Deputy is during the first portion of Jacob’s boss fight with the destroy-the-music-beacons visual effects, after exiting the Wolf’s Den. Is Pratt seeing something like that scene though? He doesn’t seem to be triggered by the music box or in the scenes where the music starts playing certainly. He’s surely been exposed to Jacob’s conditioning or at least the trials, and the list his name’s on would strongly suggest he passed his trial, dark as that is. Who did he kill as his sacrifice? Is he perhaps more immune to the Bliss effects? It seems to vary in intensity of how effective it is and how it effects people, based on their susceptibility to it—some factors may include addictive tendencies, personalities, etc, looking at generic-NPC-dialogue in Faith’s region. The sparkles that show up on the screen in addition to the red edges do lend themselves to interpreting that Jacob uses Bliss as part of the brainwashing regime, in addition to the hallucinations Pratt, the Deputy, and others seem to experience. (Also the Judges disappearing in Bliss clouds during the first half of Jacob’s boss fight, etc.) Either way, with the mention of no one expecting Jacob to go easy on Pratt, it seems like Pratt was more resistant to the brainwashing and breaking than Jacob expected, even in light of there being potentially more torment lined up for Pratt than the average captured civilian. (I suspect aside from Pratt’s involvement with the officers who tried to arrest Joseph, Jacob in particular is more likely to not think kindly of police men, given his time in Juvie and the events leading to him being sentenced to doing time, setting him on the path to joining the Army and the ensuing tragedy, and separated from his brothers when they were younger. Also possibly the lack of perceived protection from policemen in the times prior to their father Old Mad Seed’s arrest.) However, it could also be that Jacob deliberately set Pratt up to test his loyalty to Jacob and the Project by giving Pratt the opportunity to help the Deputy escape, instead (or a little from column A, a little from column B.) That music did come on awfully fast after the breakout after all, and perhaps Pratt hadn’t made his sacrifice yet. Maybe the Deputy was meant to be his sacrifice, in a less murderous way of just leaving the Deputy in Jacob’s hands. Seems like Jacob would have mentioned it if the Deputy was meant to be Pratt’s sacrifice by leaving them in the cage to their fate, but on the other hand it would fit the game’s plot and Jacob’s theme real well. Plus Jacob’s a cunning bastard and able to plot this kind of scheme out quite readily, I would say. This all probably means I need to flesh out more of the fic’s world with background NPCs here and there a bit more for the plot. That being said, I’m all excited to be borrowing with permission AU versions of some of my friend’s OCs for this. It’s definitely a new addition to the plotting that I hadn’t started out with, but feels like they’d fit in well with the plot overall. Two of the OCs will have a significant impact on Jacob as a character across his entire timeline in the past, present, and future. It’ll be an interesting challenge to deal with that, since while I do want to try to interpret the characters as close to their original canon lines and outlooks as possible, I feel this addition does open up more preexisting lines for Jacob that do fit the hints we get of his internal workings from in-game. It’ll mean he’s got more development in certain areas of his psyche and mental state, but a little bit of twisting here and there still keeps it all in line with the initial interpretation this AU’s got for him. I do feel the addition of the OCs will help bring Jacob to be more emotionally involved than he potentially was to begin with before the real-world-now with the intended future events of the fic, and this creates much more potential for up-close-and-personal levels of emotional exploration for the entire lot of them, both positive and negative emotions. ...oo, we might get to see Jacob actually losing his cool on-screen externally as a result of possible plot happenings. That could lead to an entire mess of the entire Seed family being angry and yelling at each other, creating emotional development. It’s really quite fascinating to try to work out how to get a group to actually get along well with characters like Faith, John, Joseph, and Jacob who are often at odds with each other. All while dealing with their rampant personal issues. Still something to study and test out for other original writings—haven’t quite learned how to take that kind of group dynamic apart and construct something from that inspiration yet. But definitely learning as we go. Back to listening to more NPC dialogue recordings though.

[simonalkenmayer]

I intend to say this once:

I am pro-choice, though that label is silly to me. I have experienced enough atrocity in my existence to thoroughly and with utmost disgust rebuke any infringement upon rights that don’t constitute a compromise for the greater good. Vaccination, for example, infringes upon a person’s right to get ill and die, but I support mandatory vaccination because it prevents people from spreading it to the unwilling or non-consenting. Abortion harms no one. And before someone pops up to argue with that statement, don’t. Abortion causes the body to slough off a hunk of meat that doesn’t yet have a nervous system. That’s not a person. It’s not more deserving of protection than the person lying on the table. It’s not even deserving of equal consideration as the entity lying on the table.

Unless I intend to eat a person, I will not ever advocate anything that infringes upon their rights. Particularly when it comes to their physical body.

The entire debate hinges on one idea, pivots on one fulcrum: pro-lifers believe that humans are somehow important or divine or necessary. They’re not. They’re the result of biological evolution. You want lumps of fetal tissue to transform into babies because they’re like you, and you want to exist. That’s all. There’s nothing sacred about fetuses. Nothing any more sacred than a cow fetus or a lizard fetus or a rodent fetus, all of which look remarkably similar to a human fetus. I don’t see you out there arguing over the lost mice of the world. No, because only human fetuses are so important to you. They’re important because they were you. There’s an instinct in you that believes that once a precedent of non-sacred status is set, murder and death will just be common place. You worry that society will rip at the seams. You fear what it means to exist if you’re really not so important.

So allow me to say this once and for all. I don’t care to have an argument about it. I don’t care to have a debate. You won’t change my mind. I’m not welcoming a discussion of this point. My beliefs have come to me from a furnace of experience and they are as hard as steel, so sending anonymous asks or comments or leaving notes on any entry regarding it will not work. I will not discuss it. I will not shift my point of view. I also won’t allow you to use my platform to try and shift others. It will not happen. Not with regard to this issue.

A person who is fully formed, out in this life, rules their body. Anyone who tries to compromise that ownership for any reason other than the greater good of other existing persons is committing a crime to my way of thinking and it enrages me to contemplate it. I don’t care how the person became pregnant or why they don’t want the fetus. I don’t have to know why or how, because they have decreed it and they are absolutely entitled to do so. A person’s body is the one thing in this world that a person may control, and so therefore it is the one rule that should not ever be breeched.

You can call me a monster if you like. I really don’t mind it. I say it every day to my own reflection. If you want to leave this blog because of that, you may be my guest, but I’ve always claimed to be a monster and promised to present the case for my nature to you on a regular basis, so can hardly be faulted for doing so.

If you are a gentle reader and are pro life, then that is your choice, but I’ll advise you not to bring it up to me nor to send me messages or asks about it. It is not something about which I’m willing to receive whatever education you care to supply. You will find me also quite disinclined to friendship and comeraderie as well, because this particular issue does a great deal to indicate what sort of person I’m interacting with, and so serves as something of a proximity filter. So I can tell you, if you approach me about this, you will likely find me cordial and polite, but cold. If that’s alright with you, then do feel free to keep up with the experiment. I shan’t bring it up or involve it in our conversations, should we have any.

If you’re a stranger and you come here to use my blog as your soap box, you will not enjoy the experience.

That is final. On the subject of abortion, I believe it should be a protected right and that’s all I have to say about it.

[cloudbattrolls]

Heartless

Etuuya Vannyn || Prior Night || OLSC Hiveblock

You've spent the last forty-eight hours either frantic or staring at a wall, and right now, you’re hanging upside down from a maintenance ledge way up high, the ceiling’s lights bright around you.

It’s clearly meant for the slender drones that come up here to do repairs, sleek things with tech shells and organic insides, to make sure that the building’s both solid and secure from any Imperial bugs. The grated metal walkway is meant for things with hooks for claws, that skitter and scramble with ease across surfaces no troll can climb. 

So it’s a perfect spot for you, especially given your recent difficulties.

It’s annoying to be labelled a “sound problem” but you suppose it’s deserved. You thought you were being quiet as you sang, danced, and ran your sewing machine.

You’ve thought a lot of things lately that turned out to be a few degrees south of real.

For the hundredth - five hundredth time, probably - you marvel at what she said, turning the words over in your mind as if they were a gleaming coin.

She cares about you. You! 

That was never part of the plan, way back when you were made, when the troll Etuuya Vannyn offered themself up eagerly to become a tool for the caverns, and more importantly, for their ancestor.

It wasn’t like Rhomox hadn’t warned you. The old bastard must’ve learned his lesson by then, had enough dead Vannyns cry and wail at him that he’d decided he was done with all that. Only someone who really wanted it would be his next subject.

You’d sneered at the idea of quadrants - silly, frivolous things, only useful for slurry production, and weren’t there two of your line already? That was enough.

You hadn’t been one for friends, either, not since Rhomox had come and you thought you were too good for all of the others. You could always get their attention by pranking them, sabotaging them, staying one step ahead of any attempts to get back at you. It was all a game, and you were determined to win at any cost.

Swinging back and forth, your wavy hair dangling off your head, you adjust your legs so they don’t go numb.

So why does something never made for troll connection want it so much, feel ridiculously pleased when someone makes the poor choice of deciding to give it?

Biologically, it makes no sense for anyone to care about you. 

It made no sense for you to take in Uunive either. Yet she loved you once.

Perverse, that’s what Rivali likes to call you. A monster playacting things it’s not meant for, things it can only pretend to be. 

Is that all that matters? Mimicking, so that people respond more to the surface than the true nature beneath?

No, Claire’s too smart for that. She might call herself simple, but she was in the medical field - better than most trolls, she knows very well how important what’s under the skin is.

Plus, it’s not as if your hobbies and thoughts aren’t yours. You’re quite good at them and clever enough too, thanks. If you weren’t a gross creature, you’d be a widespread delight at parties.

“What are you doing up there?”

Your erstwhile roommate’s voice drifts to you faintly as you see them on the roof of one of the blocks below, arms folded. 

“Why do you care? You’d be pleased as punch if I never found a way back down.” You yell back. “Which won’t happen, so don’t get your hopes up, jadepup.”

“Stop yelling.”

“Then move closer, wingding.”

“What.”

“Wingding. You’ve got no friends so you bother even me, when I am TRYING to be a polite member of the community, and also celebrate and despair at the same time. I’m very busy.”

The younger jade drags a hand down what’s undoubtedly a face full of makeup, and then takes out a small mechanical device that you can’t see the details of at this distance, but whose nature becomes clear after it splits in two and one of them zips toward you.

With a soft buzzing noise, it hovers around your face, then spits out Rivali’s voice in a surprisingly clear reproduction.

“You have work to do. Tulais won’t be happy if you keep messing around.”

“Is she ever happy these nights?” You yawn. The teal’s disapproval is in the negatives on your priority list. She needs you for her plans and you’d have a very difficult time leaving, so it’s a bit pointless to pretend her ire means anything. Stalemate as ever.

The little tech bug is gleaming silver with golden whirring wings, and eyes whose facets reflect the ceiling lights. Giving it a winning, sharp-fanged smile, you clear your throat, arms crossed before you speak again.

“You know what I think?”

“I’ve never wanted to know anything le -”

“I think you’re jealous.”

There’s silence, and then a snort comes through the bug.

“If I were jealous of you I’d need my thinkpan examined. Just get down here.”

“Shan’t.”

“You’re acting like a wriggler.”

“I thought I’d take some of the strain off you for once, filling the part all the time.”

More silence follows from what you gleefully imagine is Rivali silently fuming. They do seem to have their arms crossed.

“Where do you think this is going to lead? Do you think she’ll care about you for long before realizing her mistake? Are you going to tell her your feelings?”

Your ears flick as you blink, surprised by their vehemence at first, then realizing you shouldn’t be.

“However long Claire wants to care about me is up to her. And don’t be silly, I would never do that. Besides, you can’t think she’s so stupid as to feel the same way! Give her some credit.”

You chuckle softly. Claire, in pale with you? She may be too kind for her own good, but no one is that insane. You’d make a terrible pair anyway.

Perhaps she sees something in you that a real, more whole troll doesn’t have. A sort of damage the pair of you share. But that can never be more than friendship, which is surreal enough anyway. Part of you still thinks you must be dreaming.

“Don’t you have better things to do than bother me, jadepup? Again: go make some friends.”

“I would if you didn’t keep getting to all of them first!”

You blink, and open your mouth, but Rivali plows onward before you can reply.

“Every other time I go in, you get mentioned! ‘Oh, Vannyn made me clothes. Oh, I saw Vannyn the other night at Claire’s.’ It’s saying something when Uunive of all people has the good grace to not bring you up! Maybe she’s finally realized she’s better off without you - why are you laughing?”

You have to stop laughing before you fall off and hit your head, which could break a horn again, and it was annoying enough the last time.

“Probably because it’s funny.” You deadpan. “We can talk to the same trolls, you know, it’s not illegal. Or did you never learn how to share? I had to teach Uunive as a pupa; I can give you remedial lessons.”

“Shut up!”

The voice that comes through the bug is cartoonishly enraged. 

You allow ten seconds’ silence before that gets boring.

“Did you ever stop and think, jadepup, that maybe your fixation is the problem? Maybe it’s because ever since you’ve left that cavern, you haven’t had anything to hate, except me. But the thing is - you went out and hunted me down when chasing drinker stories, hoping for a pat on the back, hoping that maybe those old wretches would finally say ‘good job’ without a sneer in their eyes or a smirk on their fangs, and that didn’t work. It’s why you came with me, after all - well, that and a spot of blackmail. 

I don’t think my metaphorical pusher would’ve really been in it though. Sparing that mutant was one of the few nice things you probably ever did, even if you did it out of spite. Are you afraid to be nice, is that it? Afraid that the world’s just a giant cavern, waiting to dismiss you for the crime of not being a woman? That you’ll always be in someone else’s shadow, whether it’s your ancestor’s or mine? I suppose I can understand that.”

It’s deathly quiet. The bug hovers, but no sound comes out. 

“You’re still a right bellend, though. That’s what really makes us different; not the worms, not my winning sense of humor. The fact that I don’t let fear dictate everything I do. Or constantly overcompensate. My goodness.”

The bug zips away. 

Maybe that was too much. 

No, it’s Rivali - that was probably just enough.

With a sigh, you wriggle yourself around until you’re clinging to the ledge, stretching your legs and arms to get feeling back into them and not feel so wobbly, and then you start going back down.

You feel for them in a way, this troll who could be living a nice, social life if they weren’t so afraid and hateful. Another part of you resents them for wasting what they have, as a normal living person.

There are few things stranger than a monster being more capable of friendship than a real troll. Even if your feelings are just a mockery, they fill you up, overflow so much that you don’t keep the boundaries you should. They spill out of your mouth and fingers across the keyboard (worms across the keyboard, sometimes), so much that they’ve settled in another troll’s pusher. Enough to make her reciprocate.

You have no bloodpumper. Biologically, you’re an undead thing, supposedly incapable of seeing trolls as more than prey or feeling more than hunger.

Perhaps you’ll never understand how you can love, or be loved. Perhaps it is something that can only end badly. 

Still you smile, whistling softly, as you carefully climb back down.

It hasn’t ended yet.