#solution nine blorbos

[tallbluelady]

"I just can't believe Black Cat got beaten, Gio. And by a couple of chumps without feral souls!"

"I'm sure she'll get 'em next time, Bix."

"Hey, Ro, is it just me or do those two seem familiar?"

"Huh..."

"They do kind of remind me of Thorsthal and Quex..."

The TL;DR of Thorsthal and A'quexta is that they're part of Rowan and Khaliun's light party for most of MSQ as Tank and Healer respectively. They "retired" on the Island Sanctuary and didn't get an invite to Tural.

I didn't like the idea of a Rowan or Khaliun shard in Solution Nine, but the idea of a Thorsthal shard being there appealed to me when I saw a Highlander Elf Ear mod. Since his Ancient was Minthe's brother, I thought it would be fun if he resembled Rowan here. And since various shards of A'quexta's Ancient end up with him, there's a version of her here too.

Plagioclase is the equivalent of an electrician in Solution Nine. He knows his way around Electrope and makes sure the displays all work.

Bixbite is a huge Black Cat fan and a cosplayer. Gio only takes her to the Arcadion if she promises not to make any bets. This has saved the couple a lot of money.

(Also please pretend that they are wearing regulators. I got all caught up in the new blorbo ecstasy that I forgor.)

[skullhaver]

2, 13, 14, 35, 51 for Ari

A surprise Ari ask swoops in!! Of course I will answer. Aristide Lucarno is my Antivan Crow apostate mage (Dragon Age OC with many non-canonical traits, like being visibly half-elven)

2. What was your original concept for this character? How did playing them change that concept?

Original: (slaps them on the back) This rakishly charming blorbo can fit so much traumatic backstory in them.

After roleplaying them for a year and nine months: This rakishly charming blorbo has even more depth and nuance to their traumatic backstory than I originally planned, but also they are genuinely funny, caring, and also kind of simple and stupid in an intensely lovable way.

13. What are some motifs you associate with them? Did you intentionally bring in those motifs or did it happen over time?

Intentional from the outset: illusions, masks, mirrors, gold and violet

Happened over time: foxes, wisteria

14. What keeps them up at night?

Quite literal, in their case. Ari's an apostate who has never set foot inside any Circle, but they were trained by a Crow mage who grew up in the Antivan Circle and escaped as an adult. Maestro Octavian imposes as much of Circle disciple and traditions on Ari that he can, including a sort of version of a Harrowing that Ari underwent at the end of their Crow apprenticeship. Long story short, Ari did not defeat their assigned demon but made it out of the Fade anyway. Afterword, they regularly began encountering that same demon in their dreams. Ari's solution to this is to do drugs about it (in our headcanon, elfroot functions something like weed in real life) and Ari hasn't fallen asleep sober in years to avoid dreaming and running into the demon again.

35. When did they feel loneliest?

Well you see 🥺 They got picked up by the Crows after a magical accident in which they accidentally killed their closest friends, resulting in a You Can Never Go Back Home situation. So. Those first couple weeks in the manor owned by House Lucarno were pretty fucking lonely.

51. What element of their backstory are you proudest of?

I have a story about them that I'd really like to put on AO3 maybe one day. It recounts the "burning down a building in a magical accident" incident mentioned above, only it's told from the Crow master's POV who finds them. Ari's little child gang has broken into her house by pure bad luck, trying to do some petty sneak thieving. The most fun part to me is that Ari is not the kid who distinguishes themself first - it's written to make it seem like another kid is the protagonist, an older girl who's the leader of Ari's child-gang and Ari's best friend, Luisa. This Crow master basically overlooks Ari entirely because they don't speak up and don't distinguish themself in any way until, OH, they are magical and cause a massive house fire and are the sole survivor.

[transfenris-truther]

Water, Ice, Rock, and Metal for the ask game?

Thanks so much for the ask anon!

Water: How did you start writing?

I was a very sick child, lol. I started writing because I was a voracious reader, so I was already interested in stories. But I didn't start telling myself stories until I was stuck in the hospital for two months as a kid. I think that was the first time I got fixated on a specific daydream. I've been in and out of daydreams ever since, and eventually I started writing them down. I have like a lot of juvenile stories I wrote as a kid, but the pandemic is what made me decide to actually work on my writing seriously and start posting. I needed an outlet.

Ice: What do you always get stuck on when writing?

Transitions! I have a tendency to get stuck when a character needs to move from place to place. My current solution is to slap all my internal monologes onto scenes where characters are moving from place to place.

Rock: How do you deal with writer’s block?

Write something else! Move to a later part of the plot or a different story. Often I have to go back and scrap a setup that doesn't work, so re-reading helps. Failing that, I go do something else. Knowing me, I'll be thinking about my blorbos while I do it.

Metal: What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

A few things- for fanfic specifically, the twenty minutes or so after I post. I immediately hate what I've written and come up with like three better ways to have done things. Super annoying.

I also struggle to pace well. All my fanfics are way too long, imo. I cover so much and feel very pressured to describe every little thing. I'm absolutely obsessed with the way certain writers can make nine months pass in a few sentences and it feels crisp and natural.

I find it difficult to track when there's too many characters in a scene. So much of my writing is about introspection and memories and when there's five or six people present, I want to get distracted by the feelings of everyone in the room, which is a mistake.