#this kind of rambles but i hope you get something out of it

[pathologicalreid]

falling flat | s.r.

in which you call Spencer for help with a flat tire, and he comes to help with you car troubles - and then some

margovember

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: fluff content warnings: allusions to the reaper, car trouble, blood, tetanus vaccine, kindergarten teacher!reader, flirting, protective!spencer, takes place following 5x22 "the internet is forever", hastily edited word count: 1.87k a/n: rahhhh an old prompt from may 2024 that ended up working for a margovember request rahhh.

The absolute last place you wanted to be was on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere Virginia, with a flat tire. You weren’t entirely helpless until your tire jack broke, sending metal flying everywhere and cutting your hand open.

You slumped down next to your car, pulling your phone from your pocket before calling the first people you could think of. Every single one of them ended up going to voicemail. Some of them didn’t even let it get past the first ring before declining your call—traitors.

With your thumb hovering over the call button, you thought of Spencer. He had a PhD in engineering, but you weren’t entirely sure that would come in handy in this instance. It was late, almost midnight, and you weren’t even sure he’d answer.

At this point, what choice did you have?

As the phone rang, part of you hoped he wouldn’t answer. When he asked you about it the next time you saw him, you’d wave it off as a butt dial and he’d be none the wiser.

“Hello,” he said through the phone, leaving your plans quashed.

This was awkward, you had been on four dates with the guy over the span of two months, and now you were calling him in the middle of the night. “This isn’t a booty call,” You blurted, cringing inwardly and banging your head back on the passenger door of your car.

Spencer laughed lightly, “I didn’t think it was, what’s going on?”

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?” You asked, his job had a lot of long hours, and you didn’t want to bother him if he was catching up on sleep. If he was even home, “Wait, where are you?”

There was a rustling on his end of the call, “No, I wasn’t asleep, I’m at work. We just got off of a case.”

You let out a sigh of relief, at least you weren’t being a total nuisance. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you. I just… my tire blew out on the highway and my jack broke and no one else is answering their phone,” you told him, verging on rambling.

“You’re kind of cutting out, where are you?” He asked, he sounded concerned, and if there was a moment where you weren’t sure you still had feelings for him, it was fleeting.

Looking to either side of you for a mile marker, you stood up, looking at the ground so you didn’t step on any metal, “I don’t really know. There aren’t any signs, I’m somewhere on 28, I think?”

Spencer cleared his throat, “Do you have your location on your phone?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I have enough service to check it,” you said, all you could see were trees.

You could hear him talking to someone, holding the receiver away from his mouth, “That’s fine, I’ll have someone look, just stay on the phone.”

It would seem that dating someone in the FBI does have its perks, “Oh, cool.” You overheard Spencer explaining your situation to someone, hearing the other person in the room say something about Reid’s girlfriend and you couldn’t help but smile. The two of you were very unofficially official.

“Hey, I’ll be there in half an hour,” An elevator dinged in the background. “Is that alright?”

You hummed, leaning your hip against the front of your car. “I mean, I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Another ding of the elevator, “Will you do me a favor?”

In exchange for this? You’d do just about anything within the realm of legality, “Name it.”

“Get in your car and lock the doors,” he responded. “Turn your hazards on because right now you’re a sitting duck. If someone doesn’t see your car, they could hit you.”

As a favor, he was asking you to make sure you’re safe, “Okay, I’m getting in now, should I leave the car running?”

You heard the sound of a car lock disengaging through the phone, “As long as the cooling system on your car is in good shape, it shouldn’t be a problem to leave it running while you wait. Just remember what I told you about the hazards.”

Nodding despite the fact that he can’t see you, you got in the car, turning the key in the ignition before pushing the button for your hazard lights, “Okay, I’m in the car.”

“I can’t drive and be on the phone at the same time, but I’ll be there soon. Don’t unlock the doors for anyone except for me,” he told you, and you thanked him for his help before hanging up and settling yourself in your driver’s seat.

You pulled the hoodie you kept stashed in your car over your head, your school mascot—a panther—proudly displayed in the front, and made sure your car doors were locked. If you said you weren’t a little unnerved, you’d be lying to yourself.

Spencer had a worrisome job; it was something you were aware of before he ever asked you on that first date. It became alarmingly obvious to you when he revealed that he’d been shot a few months prior, which was an appropriate second-date conversation with an FBI agent. It made sense to you that he’d be concerned about you, in your idle car, on the side of the road, but you wondered if there was a case that he was thinking of. Someone with a flat tire who had met an untimely demise.

Shuddering, you turned up the heat in your car, flipping through radio stations until someone knocked on your window. You jumped at the noise, hitting your head against the roof of the car before looking outside to see Spencer. Sighing in relief, you unlocked your car door, and he opened it for you, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Is your head alright?”

You peered up at him, casually leaning over your car door. “You cut your hair,” you observed. You’d seen him just last week, where his hair still touched his shoulders, and now it was considerably shorter.

Self-consciously, he reached up a hand and thumbed one of the tendrils, “Yeah, it just got too long—and heavy.”

Resisting the urge to ruffle his hair, your head bobbed, “I like it. Did you do it yourself?”

“You can tell?” He asked, following you around the back of your car to your busted tire. Spencer sets his tire jack down before looking back at you, putting his hands on his hips.

Grinning at him, you shrugged, “I teach kindergarten, I’m basically a professional at noticing DIY haircuts.”

On a towel that you had previously set out, the two of you sat along the side of your car, and you tried to ignore the fact that Spencer still had his weapon holstered. It made sense, he’d come straight from work, but you wondered if there was a reason he didn’t leave it in his car. “Where’s your lug wrench?”

“I can change it myself,” you insisted, “I just needed a different car jack.” You gestured to the pieces of yours that were now all over the side of the road.

Alarm flashed on Spencer’s face, “Nothing fell on you, right?”

You shook your head, “No, just a cut from the metal.”

Holding out your hand, you let Spencer take a look at the cut on your palm. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

Blinking rapidly, you frowned at him, “Uh, when I was in college?”

“That might need stitches,” he responded, letting you take your hand back. “I’ll change your tire, I don’t want you using that hand for anything,” he informed you, pushing the hydraulic jack beneath your car.

Butterflies swarmed in your stomach as you watched him take your old tire off, muttering under his breath about how your old jack was practically an artifact, seeing how it literally fell apart under pressure. “How was your case?” You asked softly, fully aware that you were likely opening a can of worms by asking about work.

Spencer’s movements faltered slightly at your question, “It’s closed. We were in Boise,” he answered tactfully, leaving out any case details and cluing you into the fact that he didn’t want to talk about it. “What are you doing out here?”

You sighed, leaning back on your hands and watching him work, “I had a meeting with the other schools in our conference. It’s annual, and this year they happened to pick the school furthest away from mine.”

“Well, I suppose it worked out well that your tire blew out so close to me, then,” Spencer said, swapping out the busted tire for the donut and looking over at you. There was something nervous in his eyes, and you didn’t know if it was related to work or you.

Humming, you tried to watch the tire rather than just watching him, “Is there something bothering you?”

He was tightening the lug nuts on the spare tire, “Are you driving home after this?”

You furrowed your brows, “Yeah, where else could I be going?”

“It’s almost a two-hour drive to your place from here,” he reminded you, his tone laced with concern. “You won’t get home until almost one in the morning,” the displeasure in his voice was plain, but you don’t have anywhere else to go. “Plus, you really shouldn’t travel that far on a spare tire, they’re not made to travel far distances.”

Crossing your arms in front of your stomach, you let your shoulders slump forward, “So, what do you suggest I do? Get a hotel?”

Spencer mumbled something inaudibly, trying to finish tightening the bolts on the tire before sighing, “You can stay with me,” he blushes, a swipe of pink across his cheeks.

Your lips parted in surprise, “Uh, I don’t… I’m not…” you faltered. Utterly failing to come up with a good enough reason to tell him no, “I don’t want you to feel inclined. This isn’t what I was looking for when I called you for help.”

He let the car down, staying quiet while the two of you cleaned up, and Spencer swatted your hand away when you tried to pick things up. “So, you can come back to my place tonight. My work-issued first-aid kit has your name all over it,” he told you, eyes flickering down to the cut on your hand.

“Okay,” you breathed, unable to conjure a reason to refuse his hospitality.

He was grinning at you, hair just barely brushing his eyebrows, “So tomorrow, maybe we can get coffee and drop your car off to get a new tire?”

You smiled back at him, “That sounds great, date number five.”

“You know where you’re going, right?”

“Yeah,” you’d been to his place once to pick him up, “Hey, Spence?”

He turned around, fishing his car keys from his pocket. He looked ready to respond to you, but you pressed your lips to his before he had a chance to speak.

You kissed him softly, whispering against his mouth, “Thank you for coming.”

He chuckled lightly, gently resting a hand on your waist, “Thank you for calling.” 

[pedriscroquettes]

𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐎 ꕥ FRANCO COLAPINTO

summary. a quick detour proves that you can still be best friends while dating.

warnings. nothing just pure fluff. franco & reader are down bad for each other.

gabri speaks! obsessed with how he’s the people’s princess of argentina. based off vivo by gustavo cerati. kind of short sorry.

SODASTEREO PLAYED FAINTLY in the background as the vibrant city of Buenos Aires faded behind you. You were only fifteen minutes into the forty minute drive to Franco’s hometown and he was already bored out of his mind. He had scrolled endlessly through instagram, twitter, tiktok, and even dabbled into netflix hoping something would catch his attention but nada. Then as he puts his phone down and notices you leaning against the window he suddenly remembers his girlfriend. The two of you were a relatively new couple and somehow he still hadn’t figured out the logistics of it.

“Che, how was your week?” He breaks the comfortable silence preferring your voice fill up the car.

“Franco we literally spent the whole week at yours watching all the Fast & Furious movies.” You remind him.

“Oh, yes! The part where they went to space?” He uses his hands to describe his feelings. “Cine.”

You can’t help but laugh at his mannerism as he describes his favorite scene of all the franchise. The sun shines brightly on his side and his brunette hair literally glows as he speaks. His brown eyes bore into yours as he proceeds to tell you about a show on his watchlist he wants to start with you when the season ends. You’re too lost in his features you don’t notice when he stops talking and waits for you to answer him. Not until he starts snapping his fingers in your face dramatically.

“Can I?” He asks shyly.

“Can you what?”

He looks away briefly for a moment, his cheeks turning a light hue of red, trying to gain the courage to ask you again. Because of course to his luck you didn’t hear him the first time. His hand instinctively goes to the back of his head scratching his neck as he opens up his mouth again.

“Can I lay in your lap?” And if you hadn’t paid attention then you wouldn’t have heard him from how silently he spoke.

“Franco we’re dating now. You don’t really have to ask anymore.” You send him a warm smile.

“It’s just we were friends before this for a long time and I’m still getting used to it. I wasn’t sure if I was overstepping.” He rambles on. “I’m just tired.”

“It’s fine. Come here.” You speak softly.

You shuffle your things to make space for him and soon enough his head is in your lap and your fingers are tracing his face. You’d spend enough time with him to know he was a fast sleeper so in a matter of minutes he was already lightly snoring under you. His curls are soft under your fingers but you’re careful to not give him knots. Franco was very sensitive about his hair and hated having to comb it all out. As Gustavo Cerati’s voice filled the car with Franco in your lap you wondered how you got so lucky.

The car came to a heavy halt and your eyes jolted open. You hadn’t even realized that you’d fallen asleep as well. Meanwhile, the brunette remained asleep. You figured the past few weeks had really tired him out. You recall the phone calls in the middle of the night in which he explained to you, excitedly, how williams was treating him. They were very lighthearted calls at first that gradually turned into calls where you had to remind him that they chose him for a reason. He was still your friend at the time but it was then when he realized he needed you. When you unexpectedly flew out to Mexico that was when he sealed the deal. He couldn’t let you go after that.

“Shh… Franco. Wake up.” You try to talk to him awake but he remains still.

“Franco!” This time you push him off jolting him awake.

“Ay!” He rubs his eyes awake as you brush your hair down hoping your little nap didn’t ruin it. “Oh, we’re here!”

You can barely make the view out of the car but you notice the small city center. There’s various shops, restaurants, and even a little park at the end. Your phone indicated that there was still twenty minutes left to his hometown so you were confused as to where you were right now. Franco opens the door for you and you patiently stand outside the car while he talks to the driver. You look around staring in awe at the architecture of the town you were in.

“Franco where are we?”

“Just a small detour.” He grabs your hand in his. “Come, I really wanted to show you around.”

He quickly puts his sunglasses on as if to hide his identity while he drags you around. You stop briefly at the market where he buys you a bracelet identical to his. He says that it will bring you luck and protection and warns you to never lose it or break it. Then he takes you to the corner store and encourages you to look around for some snacks. Something light he says as his mom is waiting for the two of you with dinner. You decide on an ice cream bar. One for him and one for you. The two of you thank the cashier before he takes you to the last stop on his itinerary.

The park at the end of the road was vibrant with the huge green football field adorning half of it. There was a small group of kids playing football on it and you watched in awe as they chased after the ball. All of them were wearing the same uniform meaning they’d ran straight to the park after school. Franco drags you to the wooden swing set under the only tree in the park.

“Whenever we went to the capital my mom would stop here and let me and my sister play for a little before we headed back. I just thought that it was finally time for me to share it with you.” He rocks back and forth. “So, it can be our place now.”

“Our place? That sounds…” You try and match his pace on the swings. “Nice.”

The two of you swing in comfortable silence admiring the nice weather before a ball lands comfortably in front of Franco. The two of you lift your heads up wondering where the ball came from. Faintly you spot the little boy running towards you as fast as his little feet could take him. His classmates stay back watching attentively.

“Me das la pelota?” He extends his little arms out. “Por favor.” (can you give me the ball, please?)

“Me encanta tu remera! Vos vas a ser futbolista profesional, no?” Franco makes small talk with him. (I like your shirt! You’re gonna be a professional football player right?)

“Si! Le voy a dar a Argentina la cuarta!” He yells excitedly. (Yes! I’m going to give Argentina their fourth title!)

“Dale!” Franco finally picks up the ball and places it in the little boys hands. “Ahí me invitas a la final, eh?” (Good! Invite me to the final, eh?)

“Si!” The boy nods his head enthusiastically. He’s about to say something else when his classmates yell at him to hurry up. He waves goodbye quickly and he’s on his way.

“Wanna bet four lucas he’ll end up on Argentina’s roster in ten years?” He jokes. ($4.000 in argentine pesos)

You don’t even pay attention to his joke because the interaction between Franco and the little boy had you gushing. Before you know it your hands are on his neck and you’re pulling him down for a quick kiss.

“What was that for?” He smiles down at you.

“I like you.” You mumble as he leans against you.

“I like you more.” He whispers against your ear.

[homesick4la]

complicated — hamzahthefantastic

3. brown eyes at the entrance

contains: goofy drunk hamzah, quick mention of sex but no actual nsfw content in this one

summary: what do you do when your ex shows up at your front doorstep?

a/n: short but i just wanted to post hi

last part: with you all night

you left hamzah’s apartment that morning feeling more confused than ever. you two ate breakfast together and then you were out the door. he hadn’t even asked to hangout again or talked about breaking the whole “no contact” thing. he simply said he enjoyed the night with you and told you to have a good day.

how could he spend such an intimate night with you and not ask to see you again?

as hard as it was, you tried to be nonchalant about the situation. you could hook up with your ex in a casual way, right?

you call mandy, practically begging her to meet you for coffee.

now you were at your local cafe, anxiously walking up to the table you spotted mandy at.

“y/n! hey!” she said excitedly. you can almost see her eyes analyzing your facial expressions as you walk up to her. “so what’s up? you look like you’ve got something to tell me.”

“oh, it’s definitely..something.” you laugh nervously, “i uh, ended up talking to hamzah last night…”

“oh that’s great!” she interrupts, “did you get any sort of closure?”

“yeah, about that…i actually ended up going back to his place..”

she sighs at your confession.

“and we had sex but listen! i know that it was probably a bad idea but being around him again- it like made my brain go all fuzzy and all common sense went out the window.” you ramble, trying to defend yourself.

“y/n, i told you to go out on the balcony to get closure, not to hookup with him!”, she shakes her head at you. “but i get it. you guys have history, you’re comfortable with him. it’s easy to go back in that situation.”

“exactly! it was so comfortable! it felt like how things used to be. so now, i’m all confused because i thought i had finally gotten over him. and there’s matthew…”

“the guy you said was boring?” she questions.

“he is a bit boring but he’s nice- stable.”

“but what are you gonna do now? keep seeing him?”

“ugh, i don’t know. i guess i should end things with him- because clearly i have not moved on from hamzah yet.”

she nods slowly, deep in thought. “you think you’ll get back with hamzah again?”

“i don’t know,” you let out a harsh breath. “sometimes i think that maybe if we tried again, things would be different. like we’d be able to figure it out this time.”

she smiles softly.

“but today, he didn’t ask to meet again or ask how he could contact me or anything so i don’t even know if he wants to try again.” you shrug your shoulders.

“honestly, y/n, you might want to figure that out before cutting things off with matthew.”

she was right. you didn’t want to ruin a good thing simply for the possibility of getting back with your ex.

after another thirty minutes of catching up over coffee, she reminds you to keep her updated before the two of you part ways.

as you start driving home, your phone rings.

*incoming call: matthew*

“hey babe, you never texted me when you got home?” he questioned, his voice concerned.

you let out a soft sigh, “yeah, sorry- i went to sleep right when i got home.”

“you feeling better today?”

“yeah, yeah i think i just had a migraine or something.”

“good! i was actually wondering if you wanted to get dinner tonight?” his voice is hopeful.

he was kind and cute and he knew what he wanted. how could you say no?

“sure! were you gonna pick me up on the way or should i meet you somewhere?” you ask, a soft smile creeping on your face.

“i’ll pick you up at six. oh- and wear something fancy! i wanna take you to a nice place.”

you agree and say your goodbyes. you were excited to get dressed up and be taken out. you hoped that this dinner would change things- show you how interesting and exciting matthew really is, helping you move on from the chaos of hamzah.

…

the restaurant matthew had chosen was beautiful. the warm candlelight and low jazz music playing in the background creating such a romantic atmosphere.

he sat across from you, retelling a story about a hike he had went on.

you could tell he was making an effort. telling you this story with you in an attempt to share something meaningful with you. feel closer to you.

but as he kept talking, your mind kept slipping into memories with hamzah. you thought of how beautiful his face looked when illuminated by candlelight. the way his smile had always been on the edge of a smirk.

hamzah knew exactly how to pull you into each of his stories. he entertained you effortlessly. just one of his jokes could leave you clutching your stomach in laughter.

“and then i was there, completely lost.” he chuckles slightly as he ends his story.

“oh my god, that must’ve been so scary.” you reply, doing your best to give him energy.

he smiled softly as he looked into your eyes. “that’s what i’ve always loved about hiking though- you never know what adventure’s around the corner.”

“yeah.” you respond, smiling sweetly while all you can think about is how hamzah would’ve made fun of that corny line.

“you okay? you seem distracted.” matthew said, watching you as he took a bite of his steak.

“oh! yeah i’m fine, i just had a long day.” you explain, telling yet another lie.

“i get it.” he smiles, “no worries.”

god, did he have to be so kind and patient? it’d make you feel much less guilty if he was a complete asshole.

no, he was everything you should want. he was sweet, understanding, and so open with you.

but there was no allure. no mystery. no edge. all of the surface-level conversation you two were having was driving you absolutely insane.

“well, i actually had something to ask you.” he broke the silence.

you look up at him, nervously waiting for him to continue.

“i’m going on a trip to seattle next week. it’s completely covered by my job and i have a plus one. i know it’s a bit last minute but i wanted to know if you’d like to join me?”

traveling together would change this “casual dating thing”, into something more serious. something you were definitely not ready for. not yet.

you clear your throat to speak, “can i uh- think about it? it sounds super fun, i just have a lot of school work and stuff…”

he nods. “yeah, just let me know whenever you decide.”

“thank you.” you smile.

after finishing dinner, he drives you back home. he thanks you for the night, explaining what a great time he had with you.

he walks you to the front of your apartment complex and presses a gentle peck to your lips before telling you goodnight.

as you ride the elevator up to your apartment, you decide that you have to end things with matthew. you couldn’t go on that trip with him and lead him on any more than you already have. it was unfair of you to be constantly comparing him to hamzah. the truth was that there nothing wrong with him at all- you were the only person to blame in this situation.

you look up as you start walking toward your apartment to see hamzah leaned up against the wall next to your front door. his head tilted back, eyes closed- simply waiting.

“hamzah? what are you doing here?” you say, your voice coated in shock.

his eyes are low. a goofy smile plastered on his face. he was either drunk or high, or both.

“you look pretty.” you can practically hear his smirk.

you stand directly in front of him. “are you drunk?” you ask as you cross your arms in front of your chest.

“a little bit”, he laughs. “and maybe a little bit high but listen- i just wanted to see you.”

“oh and this couldn’t wait until you were, i don’t know, less…drunk?”

he shrugged, “but you were out with ‘new guy’, what’s his name?”

“matthew.” you roll your eyes at him. “how’d you know i was out with him anyway?”

“mandy might’ve mentioned that you texted her about it.” he grins, “i think watching paint dry might be more exciting than going on a date with that guy. i couldn’t let you go home and just be with that kind of…energy.”

you bit your lip, trying not to laugh. “hamzah, you can’t just show up at my door every time you think i should be around better “energy.”

“oh i can”, he shoots back at you. “it’s actually one of my best skills- showing up uninvited and reminding you of how fun i am.”

“you’re unbelievable.” you laugh, already feeling defeated by his charm.

“and yet”, he pauses. “here you are, laughing. i’ve still got it.” a cocky grin creeps on his face. you can’t help but laugh.

“you’re so full of yourself.” you shake you head, smiling.

“i just feel confident around you, that’s all.”

“oh really?” you tilt your head to the side.

“c’mon, y/n. tell me the truth- was he as funny as me?”

“no.” you admit, rolling your eyes.

“as charming?” he pushes.

“also, no.” you answer.

“then what are we doing here?” he lifts his hands up dramatically. “why are you spending your night with boring ol’ matthew when you could’ve had all this?” he gestures to himself, that goofy smile of his still lingering on his face.

“hamzah. you are being ridiculous.” you reiterate.

“did you mean ridiculous-ly hot and sexy or?” he can’t help but laugh at his own joke.

you shake your head and roll your eyes once again, still unable to contain the smile that seemed stuck on your face.

“you are impossible to argue with.” you tell him.

“is that a yes to me coming in?” he asks, a hopeful look in his eyes. “please? i’ll just sleep on the couch or even, the floor. whatever you want me to do.”

“you came here to sleep on my couch?”

“i just want to be around you.” he whined.

how could you say no to those brown puppy-dog eyes of his? and you couldn’t send him home drunk- that wasn’t safe. you just had to let him in.

“fine. get inside before i change my mind.” you tease as you unlock your front door.

the second you two get inside, he walks over to the couch, flopping onto it and stretching out with a smug look on his face. “see? look how harmless i am?”

“mhm, very harmless.” you say as you grab a blanket.

you start tucking him in with the fluffy blanket until he grabs your hand, looking into your eyes. “thank you for letting me in.”

“yeah, well you’re just lucky i’m too tired to kick you out.” you joke.

“yeah, lucky.” he repeats, his voice soft as his thumb rubs your hand softly.

just from the way his gentle touch and low voice had such an effect on you, you knew you were in trouble all over again.

a/n: next part soon. promise. also i did not proofread bc it’s 2 am and im tiredddd also writing this kinda reminded me of the song memories by conan gray so that is where the title for this part is from yay here’s the song if u wanna listen

[windienine]

on soul of sovereignty, ysmé the exalted, and gender presentation.

so! soulsov. soulsov and gender identity.

on my second playthrough (a livestream with friends), somebody pointed out that ysmé scanned to her as trans woman. i asked why, and we ended up in a conversation that lasted long into the night and notes for an analysis post i'd make at some inchoate point in the future.

that inchoate point is today!!

below the cut are some explorations into ysmé's character, her past, and potential intersections with gender identity. spoilers for the prelude ensue. if you're planning to play the game yourself in any capacity, i gently urge you to do that now before reading further. :)

I. YSMÉ, PRESENTATION, AND SPECTACLE

Ysmé is a practiced mage whose highly idiosyncratic use of artisanry (constructive magic) as a body mod is vital to how she chooses express herself as a person. She's out to become God and/or die trying.

We get introduced and reintroduced to Ysmé a whopping seven times throughout the prelude alone. In order, we are presented with her:

as a thief, stealing from a church,

as a sickly damsel, at the Lamplight,

as a treasure-hunter, when her guise starts to falter,

as a crazed mage, when she holds Loïc at gunpoint,

as a spooky ghost, when she is stabbed,

as a goddess, when she ascends,

and, finally, as a tired and scarred woman in the epilogue.

In many of these circumstances, how she appears to others is something she gets to dictate. Most notably, this factors into her choice to take the guise of a frail, sickly maiden` to better court the goodwill of Loïc (who she's already designated as a mark for this kind of act)

and when she later reveals her "true self" in the middle of the Hollow Temple to awe and frighten him. Here, she's in her full clowngirl glory! You can tell that she's spent time poring over every little flourish of this outfit, down to her nails matching the color of her facepaint. It's tacky, it's maximalist, it's sensual, it's a little unsettling, and boy is it everything. This is Ysmé qua Ysmé, and she makes sure you know it with the impact this one scene makes.

Even when we see her put together a look as a literal goddess, we get so much ostentatiousness that points exactly to what kind of person she wants to be seen as!

Two faces, one beneath the other, victory beneath a pulled-aside mask of tears. Fuller lips, fuller lashes behind a mask of smudged makeup. Eyes on her tatas because who the hell is there to tell her not to. She gets scene after scene where we get to see that she curates every single aspect of her appearance, and as someone who takes on many of the signifiers of a stage performer, she cares deeply about the kind of mask she chooses to wear.

Nothing here is accidental. Everything about how she genders herself is purposeful!

II. GHOST YSMÉ... (HEAVY SIGH) AND ALSO LANGLAIS'S ACCOUNT

The first time we see a version of Ysmé who isn't carefully curating her presentation using glamours, it's when she is quite literally dead. Along with wild hair and a body made of ghostly flames, she has a broader, straighter build than she had in any of her past guises (plus a gaping stab wound.)

It's our first hint that Ysmé's use of "glamour" goes beyond just a change of outfit and hairstyle. For friends more observant than I was on my first playthrough, this was the first "wait hold on is this an art style thing or is Ysmé being telegraphed as transgender, here?" moment.

There's one other named character appearing in the prelude who already has his own idea of who Ysmé is prior to the plot, and that's Langlais-- a police officer pursuing Ysmé at the behest of the Church of the Builder.

He quickly demonstrates himself to be pretty repugnant.

Regarding Ysmé's skill with artisanry, he remarks:

From context clues laid out in the wider text, "artisanry" is a magic based around weaving physical matter out of nothing. It is used in construction, art, and the production of goods, generally at a slow, measured pace, making one object at a time. Constructs made with artisanry are meant to be durable. It seems to be the main form of magic taught within the Mosaic, and its creation-based theming seems appropriate to the Builder writ large.

Ysmé's favored use of it (weaving entire new outfits and tools out of thin air, trading durability for speed and flexibility) is considered non-standard and low-brow-- "illusions" that are deceitful or childish in nature. Loïc has been mislead, he warns.

Langlais feels justified in treating Ysmé like some backyard nuisance that needs reining in and Loïc like a wuss for flinching at the sight of a gun, despite him having taken a demonstrably very real bullet from Ysmé's demonstrably very real (if spontaneously generated) handgun just the day before. It all clashes from what we've seen and the inferences we're meant to draw about how Ysmé uses magic--

however temporary, however breakable, Ysmé's "illusions" are to be taken seriously. I think that the way in which she chooses to modify herself should be included here, along with the possibility that that's not exactly an intended use case for artisanry.

In addition, when initially interrogating Loïc, he refers to Ysmé like this

implying that he believes that "Ysmé" is some sort of fake name or alias.

III. BODY DYSMORPHIA

The scene after Ysmé comes down off of her holy high and wakes up ass-naked in god-knows-where, having been assigned to do god-knows-what by the Voice of the Sovereignty, holds a lot of interesting implications for Ysmé in particular.

We get this remark from her internal narration:

Okay, so this is generally the first thing she does when she wakes up. Before doing anything else with her day, she uses artisanry to change her appearance. There are plenty of reasons why this could be the case (vanity, status as a wanted criminal, etc.), but the emphasis on it in this scene makes me believe the text is indicating that Ysmé might suffer from dysphoria and/or dysmorphia.

We get a good look at her in the very next CG, along with the one after, showing us an Ysmé with a different appearance than any of the guises we've seen before...

Ysmé, without any glamours or illusions being sustained, is an androgynous figure, akin to her ghost form. Still quite pale, still a skinny little thing, but the entire cut of her face and all of her body proportions are pretty different than, say,

any of this, in scenes where she's in full control of how she gets to look using magic.

Frankly, she looks like "mysterious elven prince" material, and it contrasts quite a bit with how she presents herself in the temple especially.

For now, I'm not going to go into any supplemental materials like the sketches and paintings featured on GG's blog, but they play with Ysmé's presentation on the regular there as well.

The conclusion I feel like I'm supposed to draw from all of this is that Ysmé is a transgender woman who uses her unique skill for artisanry to change her appearance to whatever she feels suits her. She is not necessarily comfortable being seen or seeing herself without a glamour on, but in this scene she is too spent to do anything about it.

IV. HAHA HEY GG WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH THIS

BUT, that is not where the game ends. The prelude leaves us on a stinger.

A lone figure stands over an altar, praying to the Builder that His lost children, swayed by the Devil, may yet find their way.

The camera then pans over a figure that looks nearly identical to the Ysmé we saw a scene ago (albeit without any scars), right down to the soul-stealing blue eyes, fancy hair part, and really good clavicles. They open their eyes in response to the prayer.

So far, we've got very little context for this. It appears to take place in the same church as the opening scene where Ysmé is caught stealing, but we don't know who this person or the figure in the church is, and we don't even know if this is happening concurrently to the prior scene or if this is a flashback.

It's still of interest, I think. Something that didn't catch my eye the first time around and that I still didn't quite process until I saw the isolated CG on GG's blog:

Hey, check out that carved idol (presumably of the Builder himself?) right in the center of the goddamned church-- a familiar cut of the jaw, and a familiar hair part. Ysmé doesn't just look the part of a prince, she quite literally looks like an incarnation of the Mosaic's creator deity, who is exclusively referred to using masculine terms.

If the person in the end CG isn't Ysmé, then who is it? Why do Ysmé and this person both heavily resemble the Builder?

I could draw all sorts of conclusions about this from the text as written so far, but the one that feels most relevant here is this: if Ysmé is indeed "meant" to look like the Builder, if she was made to serve a very distinct purpose, if she was at some point meant to serve as a living vessel for His will,

wouldn't that put any decision by her to trans her gender in a very narratively relevant light?

Wouldn't that put her decision to leave the Mosaic and seek the Sovereignty in a very different light?

Wouldn't that mean that the story that she told Loïc on the way to the Hollow Temple (fleeing a religious family to serve a higher purpose-- even if it's just for herself) was technically true, after all?

If nothing else, it would put into perspective why a Church lapdog such as Langlais has been ordered to pursue her, along with a fully mobilized police unit in tow.

This pretty quickly takes a flying leap into the realm of speculation on my part, but I'm sure there's some connection between all of these similar elements and I'm interested in how it plays into Ysmé's character.

V. LOÏC, AND CONCLUSIONS

Let's jump back to that scene of Loïc and Ysmé waking up together.

None of this seems to come as much of a surprise to Loïc, who gives her the cloak off his back for modesty and regards her kindly despite the kind of day she has just put them both through. There's never any demand from him for her "real" name, no demand that she explain herself further, and certainly no shock about her appearance.

I'm inclined to agree with Loïc's read of the situation, here.

Ysmé is demonstrably a pretty poor liar. The dying ingenue act doesn't have much in the way of substance to it-- certainly not enough to buoy her through several conversations and a mutant wolf encounter with Loïc on the way to the Hollow Temple-- but the speech she gave in the forest about wanting something better for herself, a second chance away from a controlling family

struck a chord with Loïc. Despite it having been woven into her ongoing wicker basket of lies, there's a glimmer of something true, there. Ysmé wants the capital-S Sovereignty-- and lowercase-s sovereignty over her future and what she gets to make of herself.

Judging from her seeming unfamiliarity with the outside world, it might not be something she's ever had before.

None of her presentations by themselves comprise a complete snapshot of who Ysmé is as a person. However, they are different parts of the elephant, so to speak-- there is flicker of truth in each of them. After seeing several, Loïc decided that the fuller picture they form isn't one of the kind of person who would doom humanity.

He doesn't truly know her, yet, no. However, I think he has decided what he has seen of her paints a picture of a lonely, long-suffering, malcontented queer lady who, indeed, as mentioned by the pastor (?) figure in the first CG...

... has a heart. More alike to his own than different, even. In every form she's taken, she's revealed a little more about who she is and who she would like to be seen as. (For the record, I also feel like there are a few parts of the text that imply Loïc is his own flavor of trans and/or queer, but that's a much bigger leap and would deserve its own post)

I'm not sure how much all of these inferences will be backed in the final release. In Loïc's words,

Thank you for reading!

(your honor, i love her.)

[just-null]

Do you ever do requests? If so, do you ever plan on drawing some Yandere with the Hantengu clones? :D hope you have a good day/night!!!

Mentioning an unfamiliar name

yes!! I love yanderes.. and these guys.. these guys are such good material...... nods nods..

I'm not sure about requests..I assume you mean drawing requests? I suppose if it REALLY catches my interest enough, I'd do it, but it'd probably just be line art/sketches.

[shepscapades]

shep I was talking to my brother about dbhc xisuma as one does and mentioned that ask about not being able to puzzle xisuma's face together mentally and my brother joked that the reason you put the spoiler bars and such on his face is cause you cant draw his whole face yet 😂

anyway I might have talked his ear off about dbhc idk tho lmao

LMAOO NOOOO!!! MY SECRET FINALLY IS OUT!!! /silly

[lucabyte]

Your gender thought type essays have made me curious about what your oc creation/development process is like! It seems to be something you put a lot of thought into and that’s very interesting (especially cause my circles don’t often go into detail in that area)

I'm delighted to hear you're curious!! I'll give as thorough an answer as I can manage, though it'll likely be a bit disorganised. Okay, so... I'm gonna use a couple examples for this, and since you specified gender stuff I'm gonna go for some where gender/sexuality are integral, even if in seemingly counterproducive ways (but that'll be the last few...)

So. The first character that comes to mind here for me in terms of like... A lot of thought going into their gender is Lavender.

So going all the way back... Lavender was made in 2015.

Spreadsheet puts her at the 13th character in the setting, creation-date ways! So she's Been around a while.

Part 1: A Core Idea

Now, why was Lavender made? This is the first step of character creation. Well, she was made to tick a bit of a box. I realised my only girls at the time were all tomboyish so I needed a cute girl. And this was 2015, so she arose in the form of a Waifu Joke. She was intended to be a side-character with no real plot ties, so I just designed a character as cute as possible, named her simply (Lavender Wafeu == literally Colour and Waifu) and was basically done? 7 months later I would make Mafioso to slightly further the joke, in that giving Lavender a girlfriend makes her unpursuable* as a waifu. This also gave me a stark butch/femme pair, and I recall around this era there was a joke going around on tumblr of 'Indestructable Lesbians' as opposed to buried gays. This kinda became their thing. Two lesbians the plot wouldn't touch and they wouldn't be endangered.

.... And then that was kinda it. She was a cute girl who was fun to draw, shy, and reserved in nature. An opposition to Mafioso's brash (but secretly a little nervous) demeanor. I would literally just liken this to flutterdash outright. I was basically just doing flutterdash in terms of their personalities.

SO: This is the first step to all my characters. Find a core concept, or more likely, a core joke. Lavender's core joke is a very rough and (frankly unfunny) "your waifu isn't going to fuck you" joke. But you can see how she was built out of it. And we'll get to how that building happened next.

(^ Weird 2015 era lavender with her total lack of emotive range and flat characterisation)

Part 2: Dormancy

Lavender stayed unchanged for quite a while, in this flat state. She picked up a few things, mostly little 'twists' to her character. ie. she could hold her own in a fight, is surprisingly quick to jump to (cartoonish) violence, and likes a good steak. All very basic little things, obvious "oh bet you didn't expect That" contradictions.

She didn't recieve much attention during this time despite me really liking her design still. Mafioso languished even worse in this era, with her mother Omerta picking up most of the development instead. Overall, these two were very, very boring. No amount of little superficial additions could save them from this.

But it... hints at something, right? It hints that maybe there's a facade somewhere, that maybe the perfect-cute-girl thing might actually take a little bit of effort to upkeep...? Hrm...

Part 3: A Fresh Perspective

So, sometime in 2020, I was finally remaking my 2016-era spreadsheet of all my characters from the ground up, since I needed to remove a lot of ms excel specific formatting it had in it.

And while going through, I was being helped by @samhainian, who I had befriended in the years between. And they remarked that I didn't have enough directly trans characters in the cast, to which I agreed. I had a handful of tokens at the time (Adder and Angel spring to mind?) but not many more, so we literally just went down the list with suggestions. And when Sam suggested Lavender, I reacted with confusion. Because... Wait. Is she not trans? But she's so feminine? All of my characters lean extremely gender-neutral in presentation unless they're trying to do gender on purpose...?

And this just, unlocked her whole character like a skeleton key.

I was making her do her gender on purpose. The reason she had those contradictions is because she's putting in the effort to appear like this perfect, girl-next-door, waifu type. Something that doesn't really work if she doesn't have girlhood to prove.

From here, her coy 'maybe she has more to her than cute girl' hints were instantly recontextualised as a thing She was Doing. And instead of being random superficial tidbits, they were Depth. And her cartoonish 'extremely mild-mannered and polite persona' suddenly became a very human facade.

So, she had a new core to build around. And her lack of anything going on before in terms of backstory suddenly felt contextual? She's clearly fresh new to this. She had already had the backstory of being a very young (about 19~21) person who had moved to a new town to live on her own-- Suddenly that makes sense. She's forging a whole new identity. Her polite 'never really talking about herself because she's an object for the audience to desire' quietness becomes intentional evasion. She doesn't have a backstory, because she doesn't want it to be any of your business.

And ironically, this immediately Gave Her the backstory she had been missing. Her wiles and hidden 'smarter than she looks' becomes so relevant as to be real character traits...

I already somewhat went over this (and a number of other gender thoughts, including my thoughts on my myriad 'cis but not' or 'nb in a specific direction') in a thing I wrote, woof, 2 years ago: (LINK) which was a ramble about a lot of my character's genders... In that I summarised Lavender's gender as such:

Part 4: In practice

Okay so it's all well and good that I realised Lavender is Trans Gemder. But that's not where it ends, because she finally became refined and polished to the point of um. Quadrupling her image count on toyhouse. because of Purrgatorio.

See, the other reason I was getting my spreadsheets in order was for Purrgatorio (the original flavour of it, the visual novel) and I needed to just do some general housekeeping.

Lavender, Mafioso and Ess shared a route in VN!Purrgatorio, being that I saw them as a triad of characters. While this characterisation of her basically did nothing interesting, aside from showing her fiery side, this would later become the basis for her being one of the first characters met in actual purrgatorio, where she, being polite and nice, and established back in 2016ish to be one of the few characters Chrome isn't a total asshole to--- She gets to meet Ali.

Now this is where I would say a lot of the real development happened. Right there, in action, in putting her to the test of real writing. All of her characterisation stops being hypothetical, and instead something I have to portray. And I found as I wrote, she grew more deep simply by giving her such an odd situation to be in. And of note, by having Ali be intimidated by talking to cute girls, it gave her the upper hand in the dynamic-- Really allowing me to show off her ability to lead a conversation, and her quiet confidence in herself-- as well as hinting at the thing she isn't quite so confident with.

It's also allowed me to start thinking about her sexuality, too. This is another thing that goes back to her flimsy core concept. The Waifu is generally a sexless being in their own right, having sexuality projected onto them by the narrative or audience. In fact, a lot of shounen girls don't get to be romantically forward-- both because it risks alienating the intended selfshipper-audience, and also because showing too much confidence and autonomy in their sexuality can be too threatening for the chuunibyo audience, who aren't yet comfortable with their own sexuality and-- wait! Look at that! Another part of the core concept I can toy with! Wouldn't it make sense, if she's meant to be a deconstruction of The Waifu Archetype, for her to have that confidence and autonomy? This is what 2015-me was clumsily trying to grasp with the whole lesbian thing... So why not just re-angle that into her being confident and forward. It fits with her new personality, so it works!

*oh hey there's that asterisk. I also realised she had chemistry with Ali! Given the way she is level-headed and rather logical deep down, her curiosity drives this. She's not going to pass up a chance to know a literal Alien... But it also further illustrates how badly Mafioso has been left in the dust by her. (She's been quietly tinkered with behind the scenes ready for her reintrodcution, but for a while, I was really struggling!! Like, considering overhauling her character levels of struggling!! But, we managed, I think. She's yet to be introduced and put into practice yet, but it's upcoming.) To the point where I've broken them up! At least for now. Mafioso needs to prove herself I think, since now she can't rely on Lavender being waifish and easily won over.

TO SUMMARISE THE MAJOR POINTS THERE:

Any joke/idea can be a suitable core, even if flimsy, you just need to find which parts are interesting to either double down on or deconstruct

It's okay for characters to take a long time to form! If you don't feel connected to a character they might need a shake up, but also YOU might need a shake up. Lavender needed a new perspective from someone with a different approach to gender as me, and for I myself to become more comfortable with Real Sexuality (ive literally just aged nearly 10 years itll happen) before she could really shine.

Following on from the above you basically never need to throw a character out completely. You should try and find what it is you like about them, or consider core, and perhaps try and reframe or refract those elements. A character might get demoted to non-main status sometimes, but why throw away that depth? They can hang out on the sidelines if that's better for them.

Sometimes a character won't feel done until you write them! You can do this with RP if you have the ability, but I wrote Purrgatorio instead, which is intentionally low-stakes and non-canon so I don't get too freaked out about writing it. It's a playground for testing characterisaton, and putting characters in weird pairings they otherwise wouldn't to see if something interesting arises.

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES FROM MY BACK CATALOGUE:

Lavender is a bit of a daunting pick, given that she's spent nearly 10 years slowly rotating in my brain, only to finally become realised in the last 3-4 or so. But I do have some more recent quick examples, as well as another giant thing you can read if you want to.

GIANT THING TO READ IF YOU WANT IT: I've posted abt this before way ages ago but I wrote up a whole gigantic thing on my probably 2 most in depth characters. It can be found here (LINK) and also has a longass diatribe about their genders, sexualities, and the core thing they were originally riffing on. (Which was like. a specific type of anime boy ship i was a sucker for, that I eventually realised I was making way more interesting than most anime i was into was bothered to do)

It's a very thorough look into my thought process, including ANOTHER diatribe on purrgatorio granting me some good boons of character.

OTHER EXAMPLE 1: ALI

Okay Ali is too complicated to get into thoroughly here, but they're another good example of a core idea spiralling out.

Core idea: Blank slate visual novel protagonist, so gender neutral and a bit of a flimsy everyman. No real name, only a default name if you left the entry blank. (Ali, a shortening of the canon surname). #FFFFFF skin to keep the jokey ambiguity and pink hair to reference Dante's silly red hat.

Twists: Canon assigned surname of Alighieri, implying them to be some descendent of The Real Dante. And they're in a VN so there's a spooky easter egg where you can roll a death screen that shows them as an ominous demonic Thing instead of a regular human.

The, VN!Purrgatorio got shelved, and because they were human instead of a furry they got shuffled into other projects. A furry version of them showed up in a different project riffing on the demon thing, making them a child-friendly antichrist with 2 siblings based on the tragicomedy masks. Then that furry version's stuff got shoved onto the human version who was just a half-demon kid in Creature Feature. THEN we decided they'd be half-succubus to keep the ability to shift between the sexes (referencing the blank slate gender ambiguity of the VN). THEN that became 'nerd who is freaked out by being a sex demon and doesn't like the ethical implications of their existance but is still kinda miffed that they arent Getting Any' who STILL HAD the antichrist stuff from the furry version....

(^ technically a completely seperate ali ive not done anything with in years lol)

Like you get it. It's a giant katamari of STUFF from all different settings. This is what I mean by 'you never really need to scrap a character'. Because after all this shoving them around into different projects and them accruing things (the 'guy who is really concerned with informed consent is a succubus/incubus' angle really informed them here, as well as deciding that they're apathetic about the magic sex characteristic changes.) we threw them right back into the original setting of Purrgatorio and it went WAY BETTER once they actually had some character traits!

But that core idea still stands a little. Not in them being an everyman, but in prompting them to become an altersex character when fleshed out, and in the way that they're distinctly still tied to that second-person-narration that VNs have, and the eventual 4th wall break they got in the VN informed their powerset as 'narrative manipulator'.

also as a note here: DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY WHILE YOUR SETTING ISN'T DONE!

VN!Purrgatorio got shelved because I redid a bunch of MYMK's setting when I was finishing it up. But It was worth it even unfinished.

Ali themselves when in Current!Purrgatorio has spent, up until very recently, their whole time with their home setting (Creature Feature) in a state of being deeply unfinished and in need of a reshake. It's finally getting that now, but it was still fine for me to reference what I knew likely wouldn't be changing! They were able to function just fine without their home setting being solid for upwards of 2-3 years. Obviously this shouldn't be done for *finished* works, but when you're just playing, like I am with Purrgatorio, it's okay to keep things fluid and effectively quietly retcon things later.

OTHER EXAMPLE 2: PEACH TRACY

Peach tracy is an actually recent character, and is under @samhainian's purview, as with the rest of Moraine. Now, she was made with a very distinct gender/sexuality in mind, unlike a lot of my characters who stumble ass-backwards into one.

Peach is the 'token girl' of her group (the other two being Red, a closeted and unaware transfem, and Toyon a he/him butch.) and well, her gender is basically "tik tok girlie", as is her core concept. She only works if she's a pampered cisgender straight girl from a rich background. She's nice! But she's privileged.

Her twist however, is that she is wracked by the guilt of her and her group letting a friend take the fall for an Illegal Youtube Prank to save their own skin, and as such her entire character unravels from there.

Because she has all this guilt, it stands that her Girliepop Persona must be somewhat constructed. She's leaning in to the femininity as a shield and a deflector. She's, y'know, a white girl.

So her gender ends up being overperformed, and she's petrified of expressing her sexuality due to it being tied up in this image of purity. She's the exact type of person to psyche herself out into believing those 'having a crush on your friend is problematic' tumblr posts.

But none of this would really work if she did not start as a (white) girl, able to use that shield. If she were a dude or nonwhite-coded she would not have the ability to react to her situation that way. Ergo, she is actually built out of her identity this way.

(As for her sexuality, she is unhealthily self-flagellating about it, so it ends up just being unpleasant. This was a genuine surprise to myself and @samhainian when we were discussing it. We hadn't thought about it prior to starting some lighthearted riffing about assigning characters kinks literally bc we were bored when we had the horrifying realisation that Peach would not be safe about this shit AT ALL due to a lack of self preservation and way more ambient suicidality than we realised she had until we dug here. We quickly resurfaced from the joke conversation into an actual deconstruction of how she's internalised a lot of blame and decided to go distinctly carceral with it for herself. so there's another tip: Even if you aren't making nsfw content, poking around a character's sexuality will sometimes reveal raw truths that come from sexuality being very vulnerable by default.)

Peach is overall an interesting contrast to Lavender, since they're both Girls Being Feminine On Purpose, but one is transfem and one is. Well god idk what peach will end up but she'll need to unpack it.

(I note that peach is white also, since while I rarely intentionally racially code my characters, sometimes i SUPER do.)

OTHER EXAMPLE 3: VIRGIL MALACODA

Okay because I've talked about a number of girls so far lets be brief about a fuckin Dude.

Virgil is like, some real toxic masculinity shit. He would probably be fucked up in some different way if he were born a girl, but he's distinctly falling into a lot of traps due to his upbringing as "A dude who was promised he'd get power when he grew up".

His dude-ness is a very flat fact to me in that way, and he's similar to Tabitha in that regard since it's one of the ways they're meant to reflect each other. Dudes who's place as patriarch-to-be saved them from being pawned off as a wife, but is still responsible for a lot of their misery. Certainly the better of the two options, but could still be better!

Virgil's themes of masculinity being a simultaneous shield and blinder is a simple one but I go back to it a lot because it can be true a lot of the time in antiquated social situations like, say, the upper class. So, being a villain, he does end up being a condemnation of the structures that disincentivise healthy masculinity. He's necessarily amab because he is the result of how particularly regressive views of masculinity can shape a child into a repressed and miserable adult.

Whether or not virgil stays a dude or not if he ever figures out his way of viewing power structures was Fucked Up and Bad is anybody's guess. It's not really Masculinity that was hurting him, so much as a rich asshole's narrow view of it. So there's no real reason for him to reject a healthier version of it outright, it's just whether he'll ever get there...

CLOSING REMARKS:

Okay writing in the tumblr post editor is starting to scare me with errors so I should probably close this out. But yeah this is a little bit of a run down of where my head is usually at when making characters. A lot of it is just batting jokes back and forth until they become something more solid, which I don't know that I really got across here.

Like, a lot a lot of my characters are built around a core joke. Usually what-ifs like.

"What if a shounen-type card game anime protagonist was just as brash and head-full-of-air as the rest of the, but a girl"

"What if Ed Sheeran had a cheating scandal with two tboys and it made the radio fucking horrible to listen to"

"What if a wrestler was really, really wide and also clearly into rubber"

"What if somebody took the 'blonde anime boy who barely shows emotion' trope seriously because that kind of repression can't be good"

"What if a guy was specifically interested in becoming a Soil Scientist from like, age 4, and never gave up that dream"

^ If you can figure out who's who then you win a prize (a kiss)

But yeah. Jokes upon jokes upon jokes. Assign them classpects and pokemon and put them into speed/power/fly formation and just joke for as long as you possibly can until you hit on something. And if a joke feels really right, or completely off the mark, try and dig in and find why.

Like. I joke about the sexuality thing but it does help since it's so disarming and immediately a bit childishly funny often. Sometimes you'll end up with say, something as serious as "Despite being friends with The Fence, Selene probably shouldn't be left unsupurvised in kink spaces because she ABSOLUTELY does not have the ability to restrain herself and not take her anger issues out on strangers" and sometimes its as silly as "even outside of being asexual, ess is never jackin that shit because if he got caught in any kind of mildly embarrasing scenario it'd ruin his whole year so the cost/benefit analysis of that really doesn't work out"

Because like. both tell you about the characters, and you can also read them more broadly now. Selene ruins relationships by letting anger at unrelated things get in the way, Ess keeps himself from doing even utterly harmless things out of deep social anxiety.

Like yeah, i got to them via goofing about sex but it's still character analysis at the end of the day so long as you put The Reading first*

*DISCLAIMER: im asexual im only ever doing stuff for the read lol . it might be more difficult if youre allosexual . or maybe itll be easier. i dont know just dont get too lost in the sauce. think with ur brain not ur other parts

ALSO gender and sexualty often end up linked so it makes sense to end up at one from the other a lot of the time. It happens.

And as an addendum if you wonder where i tend to literally Design characters? Like visually? It's usually at some point between the first few jokes and before naming them. Though sometimes names come first.

OVERALL: A character should have a core concept to them to start with. This core concept CAN SUCK and be flimsy, or a joke, or even a joke you no longer find funny. But you can always refer back to it when building a character up. If you want to capture the concept, work toward it, if you want to deconstruct or mock the concept, then do that instead. If you sour on a joke, maybe find a way to satirise or deconstruct what you're no longer finding funny.

Sometimes this core concept is steeped in a specific cultural thing, be it race, gender, sexuality, ect, and those necessitate thinking about. Sometimes it's not and those things can practically be an afterthought, but once you lock it in it's likely to begin informing the later choices as it becomes part of the scaffolding.

(To hop back to why you even asked this Q: I so thoroughly read Siffrin as amab BECAUSE they had so many themes about Not Having Changed and clinging to what they knew, and so working backwards from that it only made sense to me that they mustn't've done a big overhaul YET or made any big decisions about that YET by the time we see them in game, because that's what gels best with their themes of being Too Afraid To Change and being a contrast to Isa who has changed a bunch, and a comfort to Mira who hasn't changed at all in their gender. Then it was a case of looking through the game for more evidence either for or against this reading, and I found a lot of evidence for it, in my opinion. But I did so Because I noticed that the themes were Stronger if read this way, and because I conceptualise characters as themes and concepts FIRST it made sense to try and work back to those themes.)

But yeah. TL;DR:

Ground yourself with a Hook for the character, sometimes making it sillier makes it easier to think about.

Try and think about how they would be formed by the world around them, or what their behaviour says about how they must've been formed

Don't worry about things taking a long time. Sometimes a character needs someone else to make a suggestion, or for you to grow and change a little before they click

Putting it into action helps a lot, even if its just roleplay or short snippets. If you can't 'feel out' what a character would do in a situation, that's when it's time to think about their goals for how they want to be seen as a person (including, if they don't want to be seen at all...!) and what hard boundaries they have say, morally.

I am by no means a like. Expert on any of this. I'm fumbling through it all just as much as the next guy (AND... I'M ACTUALLY SOMEWHAT OF A HYPOCRITE. I THINK CHARACTERS ARE BEST SEEN AS 'NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTS' RATHER THAN 'PEOPLE', SO ALL THIS ADVICE BEING SO CHARACTER FOCUSED RATHER THAN NARRATIVE FOCUSED IS MISSING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES LOL....) but apparently people do Like my characters? So, what do I know i suppose LMAO

[transgenderfivepebbles]

hating hod is a red flag tbh. never trust a hod hater

[froschli96]

you know, i always find it really funny when dudebros complain about syndicate and odyssey being too "jokey" or not "taking its characters seriously" or whatever…

like, did y'all collectively sleep through "it's-a me, mario!", "i meant besides vaginas", ezio inventing the latte, bartolomeo's... just... *gestures vaguely* entire character, etc?

like, it's fine to have preferences of course, i myself prefer a more serious and grounded tone, but these are usually the same people who tout the ezio trilogy as "peak assassin's creed", call ac1 a glorified tech demo and hate on connor for being "too serious and boring", like? make it make sense!

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i only just found your au and i need everyone to have a happy ending so badly im gonna cry ;-; sally is gonna be so freakin upset when she wakes up for real and sees she decimated barnaby.

oh, Barnaby already has his arm stitched back on when she wakes up! and really, even if he didn't, that'd be the Least of her worries. she wakes up into a Real nightmare - partially of her (unintentional) making

[designernishiki]

Fun fact: Takeuchi the guy who wrote those MineDai RGGO stories said that he thinks Mine and Daigo should be together. Like yeah bro. We got that memo loud and clear already

(if you have a link to where he said that id LOVE to see it btw)

YEAH he made that pretty fucking Obvious.

you know……with the combined power of takeuchi wanting minedai to be together and yokoyama being super into mine and wanting to bring him back…………you see where im going with this

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

HAHA TAKE THAT CAKE AND ICE CREAM FOR DINNER 🖕🖕🖕

[lesbiansanemi]

I'm so tired

[ssreeder]

Hey!! I just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work <3<3

I had been a little down when it came to creating more content or being involved in Zukka side of the fandom but seeing your update reminded me to just have fun. And okay this is going to sound bad but I swear I mean this as a compliment; I thought I was wasting my time working for months and years on the stuff I made, but then I realized your fic series brings me so much joy and I'd never, ever judge you for the amount of effort you put into your writing. Seeing it's actually inspiring, to see that someone holds that much passion and creativity and you are sharing it all for FREE. That a person could take all this time to intricately weave together a story, create memorable OCs, breathe new life and make the ATLA world so much bigger than it ever was in canon.

So thanks for accidentally giving me a kick in the butt to stop being judgy about my own work and making me realize you and every fan creator is AWESOME.

I hope you have a wonderful day, your writing is a blessing.

awwww I wanted to say thank you for sending me this ask! I know it’s not easy to put yourself out there, even on anon, so I think it’s cool you felt confident enough to come here and tell me about how you’re feeling.

I don;t think what you’re saying is bad at all haha, because honestly, I feel the same way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered why the fuck am I still doing this? What’s the point? Do people even still care? What if it’s not good enough? What if people discover I have no fucking idea what I’m doing? Why am i spending so much of my time and effort doing this?? I mean… the self doubt is super real, and shiiiiiit let me discover one person that feeds into my self doubt and I’m full on spiraling haha. (Be nice to creators damn it! we are doing our damn best lol)

I’m really glad you think my fic is awesome, and if it weren’t people like you reminding me, I probably would have given up a long time ago haha. I do give my fic a lot of effort, and I hope you continue to give your creations the same amount of love and effort! I’m sure you’re amazing, and seriously don’t give up! I care about your creations and if I don’t get to stop neither do you! WOHOOO!!

Thanks for the ask anon sorry it took me so long to answer

[wolpatinga]

[fluffypotatey]

any tips and tricks for getting into the writing zone?

ok so i have 2 methods and they depend on what i'm writing on: story writing and essay writing (waring: this is a mini-ramble)

with essay writing,

get mad, get super fucking mad, write that shit with spite flowing in your veins. even when i'm writing essays and stories i enjoy, i drag my feet.

i whine and complain like a toddler in my head because despite this topic being one i enjoy, putting my excited tones and rambling into coherent words always tends to feel like i'm butchering that (which is why academic papers should simply let me swear in them and use the 1st pov bc it is sO easy and my thoughts flow a lot better but noooOOOOoooooOOOOOooooo, i have to be formal and proper and-)

also, outlining. fucking godsend with essays. it's why a lot of my longer essays have headings bc i use them to outline and keep my thought on one line of thought bc i have a rambling issue (which is then easily solved with parentheses, my beloved)

with story writing (notice how this is basically a heading? good job! you've found my mini outline for this reply! have a cookie 🍪)

i find that jotting down that scene that is nagging at your brain immediately is super helpful. and do it even if you're now writing out of order. pro-tip: writing out of order is THE best, endorphins be going crazy bc you're actually not fighting with your brain with the story but writing alongside your brain-map.

personally, i find it very difficult outlining a story (how contrary) because sometimes my mind changes ideas or switches the order of scenes, and it is exhausting trying to keep up with all of that in your outline. but i guess, my "outline" with stories is simply me jotting down a very quick summary of the plot that invaded my mind in one document, never touching it again, but staying true to it because i wrote it down. therefore, it exists no longer in the recesses of mind but it a physical statement/promise to complete.

also (this advice goes for both story and essays) it is ok to take a break, step back, and not look at your writing for some hours, days, weeks, months, years--fucking whenever.

my midterm essay? a fucking nightmare. loved the topic, would write something similar about it for fun, but the reason it took me so long to complete (and why i dragged my feet) was because of the "short" timeline i had to complete it. i felt like i was on a time crunch and that led to me procrastinating, stressing over it, and taking my grand old time researching for it. however, when i was able to work on it? i allowed myself to simply do as much as i could. if i was unable to look at that stupid document, i didn't look at it. if my mind had a really good thought or example for the topic rotating in my head? immediate sit down and get that thought onto the paper. it must exist.

i have fics sitting in my folders that have been unfinished in so long, but i still consider them as wips because (and here’s another subpart-advice) i tend to work on them when i am unable to touch my current work. to be frank, working on something else helps keep you in the writing zone even if you cannot stand to look at the blank/unfinished work you wanted to complete originally. when i was incapable of writing for the Monkie Destiny Challenge, i switched to working on writing and editing my teen wolf fic (a fic i had not looked at since July) because while i still had that itch to write, something was blocking me from completing the prompts. and when i switched fics, getting into the zone was a lot easier.

so, to recap:

when jumpstarting the writing zone for writing an essay, you get passionate (can be read as mad/spiteful), and outline your thought process of the essay with headings to keep the writing flow flowing (the headings do not need to stay in the final product but they are good to have in the draft) .

when jumpstarting story writing, write! that! shit! down!!!! chronological order doesn't mean shit when you're in the planning/writing phase. your readers don't have to know that you wrote/planned a character's death before writing/planning out the beginning. they just read it in the order you publish it in!

to keep the writing zone stable and in working condition, TAKE THOSE BREAKS BOO! who cares about your personal deadlines???? if you feel exhausted before opening up a doc, then take that break, babygirl. again, your reader(s) will not need to know (nor do they need to know) how long it took you to get your writing piece done. hell, if you still feel the itch to write but the thing you wanna do is not working, then work on something else you haven't touched in a while because that itch WILL get its scratch somewhere, so help me god.

so yeah, i hope this was helpful, anon (and coherent jfc there better not be a plethora of typos T^T). happy writing, and may your weekend be a healthy dose of eventful!