#though mostly bc that’s where his Trial area is part of that being where he found the SJS and being associated with other DV characters

[quibbs126]

So earlier today I saw a video (I’ll post the link here, since regardless of what I say, I thought it was pretty good) about a nightmare of Dark Cacao’s that featured a character that seemed to be fire oriented and I assumed was in a romantic relationship with Dark Cacao, and I half assumed to be Dark Choco’s other parent. Granted I don’t know entirely for sure if they’re romantic, I don’t know the character well, and after watching another video with them I highly doubt that last case, but it did give me an interesting idea

Namely, the question of: what if Dark Choco had another parent who was a fire oriented Cookie? (I’m saying oriented bc I keep forgetting what the word I’m looking for is)

I dunno, the concept of it just stuck with me, and I find it somewhat interesting

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas: Songbird, Part 2

Also on AO3! 

Link to Part 1 

TL;DR: 

Izuku has a powerful quirk: he can give powers to the people around him based on the different songs he sings. Unfortunately, everyone else really wants that quirk and are willing to kidnap him to get it. 

Songbirds sing even when the music stops.

Hello I’m redefining Izuku’s quirk for the sake of more dramatic powers: Most songs are general power-ups (everyone in auditory range), others are personal power-ups (only the person singing). Both only affect those who hear them, unless the effect is 100% intrinsic. Izuku uses a lot of general power-ups because he’s helpful like that. Each song can only be used once per day.

Examples: A song that creates a forcefield will only be a barrier to those who hear it, but a strength increase is a strength increase no matter which way you slice it.

anyway! day 1 of class is ok bc izuku and bakugo head to school together, and its honestly a miracle he didn't get kidnapped again

anyway, he meets iida and is fucking floored when he apologises for yelling at him. uraraka calls him the "boy with the singing quirk" and hes pretty happy. bakugo is grudgingly pleased izuku has friends and sits down, izuku following suit. shinsou is half asleep at his desk and seems to have been there the whole time

aizawa does his little spiel, quirk assessment happens yadda-yadda. izuku looks so chill on the outside but the kid is freaking the fuck out internally

he's coming second in the test, aizawa still erases his quirk, more of an example to the class because he assumed izuku wouldnt lose his shit. he didn't - at least externally

from this we also find out izuku has a kind of internal metronome because he suddenly has no internal 'beat' when his quirk is erased. his hearing gets substantially worse too.

which serves to freak him the fuck out because he feels off balance and like hes had cotton stuffed in his ears

anyway, yeets the ball, all is good, bakugo glares fucking daggers at aizawa for singling out izuku and izuku tries not to dissociate

battle trial is nothing special, but bakugo just fucking,,, turns his hearing aids off so izukus quirk doesnt work on him

its a blessing and a curse because it leaves izuku free to use most personal powerups, but honestly bakugo wants a nice fight more than he wants to win so thats fine with him

izuku wins, but only just, izuku gives uraraka a speed up through the comm link, iida who was Not ready for that, loses

USJ

Bakugo and Izuku sing Stronger than You and kick ass for a solid while before the song runs out and the nomu hits them into the lake. Izuku, with a broken leg and the beginnings of a concussion, has to drag a semi-conscious Bakugo to shore and let me tell you they both almost drown like 8 times. Izuku helps All Might by singing Anything (Hedly), which functions honestly like a big Ol’ Plus Ultra to anyone believing in what they are doing. (It starts working on Shigiraki after the Stain arc, but before then he was acting without purpose)

Sports festival!

All Might and Izuku are basically dad and son in this universe too, so, despite the dissimilar quirks, Todoroki still calls out Izuku to fight. Because Todoroki is the son of Endeavour and privy to a little more heroics insider info than he really should be, he also knows how often Izuku deals with villains. In an attempt to piss off the eternally nice and collected boy enough to give him a fight he can piss off Endeavour with, he calls him a damsel in distress.

Izuku is fuming and Bakugo has to basically hold onto his forearm to stop him from clocking Todoroki right in the jaw, but lord is Bakugo also pissed. Todoroki, for a second, realises he may have fucked up.

Todoroki wins the first event, Izuku is pretty middling. Like he's top 10? But he didn’t make a major impact. But the guy sees Monoma and gets an Idea

“HI SO – I know you hate class 1A, and really there is something to be said for the way our school is trying to pit 2 classes of children against each other like a bitter blood feud - BUT I have an idea that could be 100% ridiculous and if you want 1B to make an impact, please work with me. I need to shove something in Todoroki’s face.”

“… I’m listening.”

The general idea is Izuku’s songs have a different effect when sung in a duet, some are only practical in duet form: IE, stronger than you is a dodge boost alone, but in a duet is a massive power boost to the two singing it. So what if two people with Izuku’s quirk sung a duet? Chaos, probably.

Monoma agrees because one of the only things he likes more than 1 upping 1A is quirk based tomfoolery. The team ends up consisting of Izuku, Monoma, Kendo and Uraraka. Kendo and Uraraka, with the use of Uraraka’s quirk, carry both Izuku and Monoma – the better you sing, the better the quirk works.

Its lucky Monoma knows most of the songs Izuku brings up as ideas, and adds some suggestions of his own. If the other two know the song it's not a bad idea to join in, but its not the end of the world if they don’t.

The list of songs they have on standby and their effect when sung by two people with the Songbird Quirk

Two Player Game - Be More Chill: It forms both a connection between the people singing it, allowing them to anticipate the other's movements and creates a semi-translucent double of each singer that mimics their movements with a half second delay, aka: each punch you throw hits twice.

Family – Mother Mother: Creates a kinda forcefield that hovers just above the body. The stronger the bond between the singers, the stronger the shield – good thing Uraraka and Kendo know that one.

Hurry Hurry – Airtraffic Controllers: Slows down your perception of time, giving the appearance of superhuman reflexes. With the addition of a partner, it also grants superspeed.

We don’t get tired, we get even – Pat the Bunny: The more energy you’ve used up, the more energy you get back when singing this song + a proportional increase in general ability.

Doubt Comes In – Hadestown: Anyone who hears it quickly loses the ability to fight other people, including the singers.

The Greatest Show – The Greatest Showman: In addition to the normal effect of drawing attention to the point you can’t look away, singers get a ‘moon jump’ ability.

Turn the Lights Off – Tally Hall: Makes the area pitch black and gives the singers monstrous forms with plenty of claws and eyes.

How they use these is up to your imagination, but they end having taken the 10’000’000 point band from Todoroki. Bakugo, the only person with a decent understanding of Izuku’s quirk, just turned off his hearing aids and told his team to block their ears when weird shit started to happen. They came second, Todoroki third and Shinsou’s team fourth.

Uraraka gets to the second round bc Bakugo fights Monoma in the first round and jesus that fight is hilarious because its just Monoma – while using Bakugo’s quirk too – insisting that Izuku has abandoned class 1A for class 1B and Bakugo getting progressively more done with this boy’s shit.

Izuku and Bakugo + Todoroki and Iida are the semi finalists. Izuku and Bakugo are mostly just like “Thank fuck I’ve been talking to so many god damn weirdos today please can we just have a normal fight”. Izuku wins, j u u s t. (Izuku and Bakugo have a pretty 50/50 win loss ratio going on in this AU)

Todoroki vs Izuku is the final round of the whole thing, Todoroki told him about Endeavour, Izuku is pissed that no one looks at him and sees him, they only see his quirk (other than like, 6 people at this point). So he gets where Todoroki is coming from but holy shit hes doing literally just that. The main song Izuku uses for that round is Escapism – Steven Universe which makes him intangible (other than like his feet so he doesn’t go through the floor like Mirio). He’s trying to get the vibe across to Todoroki that he is free of his blood. He stops singing just to scream that at him, which is really what loses him the round. He's not intangible anymore, so he has no way to dodge the fire that comes at him. But he's pretty happy anyway.

Stain Arc!

Izuku’s hero name is Lyre!

Izuku doesn’t intern with Gran, but he does visit the guy with him. All Might hasn’t given his quirk to anyone else because the only suitable person he can see is Izuku, but Izuku basically can’t say no to him so he’s having a crisis. Izuku just thinks he’s there to visit All Mights old mentor and shoot the shit, which is really what they do.

Gran basically just ends up telling him “Kid aint a wallflower, he’ll tell you to fuck off if he doesn’t want it. All Might decides to ask Izuku about it after everything is over.

Izuku ends up interning with Endeavour, along with Todoroki. He never ended up yelling at endeavour, even though he hates the guy. Shouto encouraged him to take the offer bc, 1, Endeavour literally never gives out internship offers and 2, it’d be more fun because that way he doesn’t need to deal with his dad’s bullshit alone.

Endeavour is like “Oh it’s the kidnap kid, your quirk is neat.” And izuku is smiling through gritted teeth like “Th Anks SiRr”

So, starts pretty normal, then the winged Nomu steals Izuku right off the ground. Izuku just says “I’ll be fine! Just keep doing what you're doing, I’ll get myself down.” Endeavour just shrugs like “Ok, I give you permission to defend yourself.” While Todoroki is screaming internally because his new friend is literally being flown away

So the Nomu that was once a really good friend of Izuku’s (not that izuku is aware of that) literally just dumps him somewhere else and leaves. Izuku is confused, really confused, so he starts walking his way back to where he was before he hears a familiar voice.

Guess who it’s Iida, with a serial killer standing right over him. Izuku panics and goes straight into Turn the Lights Off. Without Monoma it only makes it dark, but it’ll have to do.

Thing is: he has a key problem. By virtue of the fact he’s singing, Stain can always hear him. Izuku’s only advantage is that he can see Stain but stain can’t see him, and the darkness means Stain moves more cautiously.

Anyway, in the artificial darkness, he can send a longer text anyway.

Midoriya [7:31PM] stain – [Location Pin Dropped]

So a lot of people, All Might and Aizawa included, f r e a k o u t. Todoroki goes running, Endeavour sends sidekicks with him because he saw his son, normally deadpan, almost chocking on panic as he mutters “Midoriya found Stain.”

Endeavour very much wants to also get Stain but the Nomu are Very Pressing Right Now, so there isn’t much he can do other than try and hurry the fuck up. Torino is kicking around because he could mostly, trying to get a glimpse of All Might’s kid in action, ends up having to kick villain ass. He's not that concerned until he remembers “OH SHIT TOSHI’S BOY”. When he finds Endeavour the man, a little panicked for Endeavour’s standards, yells at him to go to the address bc his son and intern are fighting the fucking hero killer.

Gran Doesn’t think he’s moved so fast since he kicked All for One in the face with Nana 25 odd years ago.

So Stain is kinda pissed bc suddenly he can’t see and someone is singing. He goes to stab Iida but,,, he ain't there anymore, and the singing is fading away. He figures “oh well, lemme get native” the singing changes to a different song. Very quickly he can see, but the singing boy, still singing is rocketing towards him and rapidly changing form.

Monster – dodie: Literally shifts Izuku into a monster. Stain suddenly realises that this is Songbird, talk of the underground, most wanted quirk by villains and quirk traffickers everywhere. This kid, target of villains everywhere, has put himself in their sights just to try and help people.

He thinks maybe Songbird might be one of the good ones.

Oh, an aside? People calling him Songbird sets off hella panic attacks because the only people who do that are people actively trying to kidnap him. And that’s what stain is calling him.

His monster form wavers and he tries to sing through tears and hitching breaths and Stain smiles because he's still curled around Native with his claws out.

Todoroki gets there first and helps defend Iida, Izuku is fighting to keep stain away from Native. The pros are on the way, Izuku is fading fast. Endeavour has been training them hard so he's exhausted and freaking the fuck out, while someone waves swords in his face.

Stain gets him, he loses the monster form. This doesn’t help Izuku’s panic, because now he can’t move and he’s felt this before along with grabbing hands, and dark vans and ropes around his wrists praying someone knew where he was going so someone might know to come for him when he doesn’t get home.

Todoroki sees that and he doesn’t know what to do. Izuku is panicking – the boy who seemed so put together and on top of things s falling apart at the seams. Iida feels horrible. He just wants to go to his friend he's never seen that distraught before.

Todoroki does the only thing he can think of. He sings.

He was never into music before, be after the sports festival he learnt Escapism -the song Izuku sang to him – and singing it back to him is the only thing he can think of doing.

It helps. It really helps, because if there was one thing that never happened when Izuku was taken – it was singing. He calms down just enough to breathe, which is all he needs to do.

The quirk wears off and Izuku throws himself at Stain, the words to Thunder by Imagine Dragons already pouring from his lips and electricity pouring from himself. If Stain touches him, he's toast, even if its via a sword. Izuku just has to avoid thrown weapons.

Izuku gets a hit, the quirk wears off Iida, who rushes in to stop Izuku from taking a throwing knife to the arm. The three of them knock out Stain just as the heroes skid into the alley. Izuku lets out a sob and crumples to the ground, Iida and Todoroki rushing over to him. They both honestly look like they’d bite anyone who got too close. Gran calls All Might who starts hightailing his way over there – Aizawa is also breaking a few traffic laws to reach his pack of injured kids.

They don’t get there in time. Shirigaki, furious that the hero killer went against him, orders Kurogiri to get Izuku. They take Iida and Todoroki for good measure. The heroes watch in horror as the children they were meant to protect vanish under their noses.

Headlines the next day: “UA sports festival finalists defeat Hero Killer – only to be taken by Villains seconds later.”

[ziracona]

What happens in Far Cry 5? I literally only know about it through your posts

Uhhh, okay so this is gonna be a little long but here goes. So, Far Cry games are always you (some PC, changes per game) vs some dictator/cult leader/mass gang leader type sitch. Apparently 4 also ends with an unhappy ending no matter what, but no other game ends remotely like 5 does, and 5 also is the only one to take place in the US or vs Americans.

So, Far Cry 5 takes place in Montana. Basically, there’s a doomstay offshoot-‘Christian’ extremist cult calling themselves Project at Eden’s Gate, following a white dude named Joseph Seed and his siblings (biological brothers Jacob and John, and adopted [kind of – more like recruited to fill a cult role] sister Faith). You play as a rookie deputy from rural Montana, going on this assignment with Deputies Pratt and Hudson, Sherriff Whitehorse, and US Marshal Burke. You begin the game headed to the cult’s center to arrest their leader, Joseph, because a guy in the cult livestreamed a little of a service secretly to try and expose them, was caught, and had his eyes ripped out by Joseph and then was killed on the stream, so you’re there to arrest him. Mostly law enforcement are afraid to go in because it’s several thousand radical insane Americans with SMGS in a cult in the middle of fuckall nowhere Montana, so yeah. Anyway. You show up and arrest Joseph, but a bunch of his followers (PEGies for project at eden’s gate) swarm the helicopter and you crash and the correspondent at the sheriff’s office is working with the cult, so all of you get grabbed initially, except the PC, who gets grabbed not by the cult but by a stranger. You wake up tied to a bedpost and confronted by the stranger who debates a second then decides to let you go and try to fight the cult instead of turning you in, and introduces himself as Dutch. He gives you a breakdown of what stuff is like here, which is, uhhhh, bad. Basically, the people here are trapped because they’ll get kidnapped trying to leave, but the cult comes for everyone eventually. John physically abuses/tortures people into accepting the whole cult “power of Yes” thing and confessing their ‘sins,’ which he then tattoos on their body, then cuts the slab of skin off their chest to staple to his wall, which is part of their initiation into the cult, as is the torture, forced baptism, and implied sexual assault by him as well. Joseph has given your coworkers to a sibling each, respectively, sans the Sheriff, who was sent to one but escaped like you did. John has Hudson, the only female deputy (unless the PC is playing as woman as well). Faith has the Marshall and was supposed to get the Sheriff, and Jacob has Pratt. You want to save your friends and Dutch wants to help, but also asks you to help the people in the community, so you do.

Basically, the cult has many ways of converting people, but also kill a fuck ton of civilians. There’s a lot of times you’ll be driving down a road and see a civilian tied up with their hands behind their back on their knees and two cultists about to execute them (usually someone who tried to flee whose car they ran off the road), and you have a very failable but potential chance to save them. A lot of these people can become your NPC companions as well and help you fight the cult if you do. I’ve gotten very good at sniping, because if a cultist sees you coming, they’ll execute any prisoners so you have no chance to save them. Definitely saved hundreds of people at this point, but it wasn’t easy. Anyway. Also you’ll see vans of prisoners being carted off (usually one or two from a house at a time), and you can shoot the driver and save them if you’re careful. But a lot of the time you show up to try to help people to find them already murdered, or hung up like a scarecrow in a field with flowers stuffed into their emptied stomach, being used for target practice. On an alter, or hung from a ceiling with deer horns tied to them. Staked through on the side of the road with a cult cross. Starved or shot to death in cages. It’s pretty grim.

Anyway, so you go around answering calls for help, doing your best to slowly track down your friends, but also help all the poor suffering people being murdered and abused by this awful cult. There are random NPCs who can be companions, plus specialists, who are more quest-designed-to-be-met characters. These include Jess, Dutch’s niece, who you find in a cage to be shipped to Jacob for psychological torture and brainwashing (I’ll get to him), a puma I loved named Peaches, a pilot named Nick who is just trying to get his family out of town and resist the cult’s attempts to steal his property or buy it out (they stole or bought land and stuff from /everyone/ and took advantage of/ransacked the whole community), but will stay to help you, and a puppy named Boomer whose family called for help that came to late and were shot to death in front of him. You find him in a cage being kicked at by cultists and save him, and watch him go cry over his dead family, then take in as your own.  

Stuff goes better, though, and you make progress. There’s a lot of strongholds you can help protect, like a little town where the resident preacher and the bar owner lady are trying to keep the whole place from being overrun by the cult, and a jail up east where the sheriff and a bunch of survivors/rebels are holed up trying to survive Faith. Basically the area is broken up into three districts, and whichever you complete missions in, you get closer to a fight with that Seed sibling (also you get kidnapped and have to listen to them monologue so much. Kill me).

So John will kidnap you and force baptize you, tie you to a chair and tell you how he’s going to torture (and implied assault) you until you scream out your sins, then you escape but he does all that to Hudson, who you can’t save for another chunk of time, and he punishes brutally and is super fucked up by the time you finally rescue her. She tells you that Joseph (the leader—thinks he is God’s chosen prophet and calls himself “the Father”) would come and watch her and the others be tortured and they’d beg for mercy and he’d just stand there and watch. She’s super messed up but alive, and you’re able to get her out and kill John, but not before he kidnaps you and the preacher, bar lady, and Nick the family man, then forces Nick to confess his sins (under threat of awful shit happening to his wife and infant daughter if he does not), and then be held down and have his chest flesh cut off by John and stapled to a wall. You get forcibly tattooed with a sin but escape before suffering the same bc the preacher keeps a gun in his bible. Anyway. Digressing. You eventually kill John and rescue Hudson.

Over in Jacob’s territory, people are inducted into the cult by being kidnapped, psychologically and physically tortured, and straight up mind-controlled to go into fits of rage at a specific song being played. They are pitted against each other in some eugenicist “only the strong survive, sacrifice the weak” bullshit. There’s a militia called the Whitetails there, fighting back. Before you meet them, though, you’re kidnapped by Jacob and strapped to a chair, then subjected to psychological torture to try to condition you to kill the weak. You wake up days later, barely alive, left for dead having seemed to resist/fail his trials, still strapped to a chair. Among a ton of other dead bodies. Some of the Whitetails show up, looking for survivors, expecting none, and find you. Though everyone else protests it is too big a risk and you might be brainwashed, one guy, Eli, orders the others to take you anyway and says he won’t leave you to die. You pass out and wake up again on a couch in a bunker, and a lady screams about you being a risk and needing to go, but Eli defends you again, then gives you something to drink and takes care of you/nurses you back to health and defends you from the more paranoid members. When you’re up again, he introduces you to the militia fighting Jacob’s people, and asks for your help rescuing some people in the same situation you were in. You then start to work with the Whitetails.

Periodically, your PC gets kidnapped by Jacob again and tortured each time/brainwashed. You escape with help from the militia and from Pratt, later, who was kidnapped and broken by Jacob, but isn’t gone, just terrified and fucked up. Deputy Pratt risks his life to rescue you when you’re in trouble and you try to escape together, but the brainwash song plays and he shoves you onto a convoy so you can escape, but doesn’t make it himself before snapping into a rage, and is recaptured, brutally punished and tortured by Jacob, and then left tied to a chair to starve to death in a cell for what he did. The player is captured again, and railroaded into, in one of the brainwashed fits of rage, killing Eli himself. : (  They then snap out of it, and infuriated and anguished, go to kill Jacob and save Pratt. Pratt is still alive, but super psychologically scarred. You kill Jacob.

I should note here that you can do the sibs in any order—for example, I did Faith’s first—but I am listing them in their kind of ‘suggested’ order. John, Jacob, Faith.

So, Faith. The way she gets people is drugs. She uses a compound she calls “Bliss” to drug people out of their minds. After you are drugged up enough, you suffer irreparable brain damage and cannot be cured. She does this to hundreds of people so that the cult can have “happy little slaves” to do all the hard work and meat-shield shit they need without ever fighting back or questioning it. You are kidnapped by her as well, multiple times. Or something??? With Faith you always hallucinate, so it’s really unclear and kinda bullshit. Anyway. You help the Sheriff and everyone holed up in the jail fight off a wave of cultists, keep doing your rescue poor civilians from awful deaths or lives as drugged up vegetable slaves. Faith keeps trying to win you over and get you to do her awful pilgrimage where people climb up a giant statue of Joseph and trust-fall jump off his bible to their deaths. This whole game and cult is really horrific. Eventually, you find the Marshal and save him, but he is really far gone. He’s hospitalized in the jail for a while after. Faith gets pissed at you after that and quits trying to win you over. Just drugs you and shows you how she’s mind controlling the Marshal, who is still under too much of her brain damage and control, into murdering one of his friends, then opening the gates to the jail so her people can get in, and then shooting himself in the head. The Marshal always does so and dies, as does one of his/your friends. And a ton of people at the jail. You run to try to save the Sheriff after helping the survivors at the jail, and fight Faith, who whines about how none of this is her fault the whole time after making the Marshal murder your friend and himself with her own hands while giggling at you about how it’s all your fault five minutes ago, and tries to get you not to kill her. You do, though, and she monologues about Joseph being the real deal, then dies. You find the sheriff almost drugged to the point of no return in a cell, going to hang himself to death while singing Amazing Grace while you can’t do shit to get into the room to stop him, but awake and himself enough inside to plead with you to shut off the gas pumps for the drugs before he hangs himself, before going back to smiling and singing and pulling up a chair under a noose. You run to shut off the gas, save him, blow up the bunker, and get out.

Joseph then kidnapps all your ally characters and drugs them with Bliss into being on his side and rants at you about how all their torture and death is your fault and you are awful for murdering his siblings, then offers to let people go if you walk away. You can do so, in which case your allies get in a car with you, only for the son that triggers rage and homicide in Pratt and the PC to play, implying before the cut to black that the deputy (and Pratt maybe) kill all your friends/each other.

If you resist Joseph, he shrieks at you about not all problems being solved by a bullet, and you have a boss fight where you save your friends/snap them out of it, then defeat Joseph.

Once he’s in cuffs, a nuclear bomb goes off because apparently in this world North Korea bombs the US just then or some shit, and you try to make it to Dutch’s bunker in time. You’re in a car crash and all the other deputies and the sheriff are instantly killed. You are unconscious and dragged away by Joseph. You wake in the bunker tied to a bed with Dutch’s body on the floor, and Joseph tells you he was a prophet and was right about the collapse and you’re his family now because his old one is dead and the game ends.

 That’s it.

And in the DLC for it, that makes not only that the canon end, but that the Deputy joins Joseph and is converted to a cult follower by him, and Joseph is now an ally character leading the remnants of his cult.

 Needless to say, I am pissed. This is the /only/ Far Cry game where the villain wins regardless, as well as the only one where they suddenly decide to …??? stan??? the torturing abusive brainwashing serial killer? And of course it’s the one in America where the enemy is a hyper-religious Christian-offshoot cultist brainwashing vile serial torture murdering messiah-complex gaslighting abusive white man who thinks he’s God. I am beyond disgusted by that choice in this game and glad I found out before finishing it; wish I had never played any at all. I cannot adequately describe to you how horrific the cult shit is, and how like, gaslit by the company I feel for having played this game and being thrown that. I think this is legitimately the most upset I’ve ever been about a video game’s writing choice. What the actual fuck. Like, I cannot describe to you enough how fucked up this is you’d have to see the shit they do that’s getting pushed in a face-heel turn by the company as somehow justified and sympathetic like. As someone who has firsthand both experienced and seen trauma from an over-religious area of the US, and just a tiny % over-religious-lead-terrible-actions? I cannot emphasize enough how disgusted and enraged I am.

[musingmycelium]

god okay i info dumped on discord bc thats just who i am as a person so i’m cross posting it here in case anyone else is curious about my canon world state. under a read more bc its, uh, maybe a bit of a monster.

i've got a dummy complex worldstate for no reason other than i like to make things difficult for the sake of a good story i guess. for origins my canon warden is an apostate, ellanis tabris who in an 'accident' had his leg crushed and it never recovered, causing it to have stunted growth. he uses a cane to get around and his disability helped hide him in the denerim alienage since apostacy is probably one of if not the most dangerous crime for an elf.

he's only one of three, though. his best friends growing up are noure surana and attie nehrios. noure gets taken to the circle when they're 17 (and ellanis and attie are 15) and comes into play a bit later, while attie is a seamstress and budding red jenny.

as far as origins itself goes ellanis' canon route is deep roads - dalish - haven - redcliff - circle - redcliff. fairly standard stuff up until haven/broken circle tbh. in haven during the guardian's first trial instead of shianni ellanis sees noure (whom the alienage presumed dead when arrested bc it wasn't, ah, a clean arrest) as the ghosty thing and during broken circle ellanis finds noure again and 'conscripts' them into the wardens. really he just takes them with him and destroys their phylactery so they won't be followed. (noure's phylactery is stored in kinloch instead of the spire after their fourth escape attempt since it gave them too much of a head start to make the templars wait to get it) theres a lot of Feelings surrounding connor but other than that ellanis doesn't super change things there either. he does, however, not have any idea about the dr. which is the biggest break i have from canon in dao with the exception of my inclusion of More City Elves. instead of morrigan going to ellanis she, as his best friend, knows he'll refuse to do it and instead goes straight to alistair. morrigan actually never tells ellanis anything about the ritual, ever.

during unrest in the alienage ellanis meets up with attie again, who is already working to clear the slavers out herself, and she falls head over heels for morrigan pretty quickly. fast enough that when morrigan sets out on her 'nobody follow me' thing attie does anyways bc thats just who attie is as a person. and besides she can't stay in denerim now that she's maybe or not killed a nobleman for what happened during the wedding.

and now its awakening time 

ellanis meets up with anders for the first time and through him learns a bit more about noure's time in the circle. (noure and anders and karl were lovers for roughly three years before shit hit the fan hard) and fuck canon here because ellanis doesn't have time for this. plus the architect is interesting and yah maybe insane but he's in the place for a little madness. ellanis lets him live and strikes a bargain with him, they share research and any ferelden wardens who prefer to answer their calling not by fighting darkspawn but by potentially furthering the cure are welcomed by the architect. but after awakening ellanis leaves vigils keep in nate's hands and goes on 'offical leave' to work on his own cure..... and to live in antiva with zevran...... lkjkjlkjkjkj

noure, after broken circle and during awakening, goes to nevarra via orlais. it takes them a couple of months to settle but noure finds viuus (yes that viuus) who takes them on as an apprentice of sorts bc he's also in a bit of a jam. it works, sorta, noure learns more spirit based magic and reconnects with a part of themselves the circle tried to beat out of them. it only lasts for about two years, though, because templars find them, one a recent transfer from kinloch and noure isn't exactly a forgettable face. so!

well, its around the same time that anders leaves the wardens for good. and ellanis puts anders in touch with noure. they decide to meet in kirkwall, because rumor has it that's where karl is and thats gonna be the place they need to go first.

attie though, she's just hanging out with morrigan and stirring the pot in orlais as a jenny. she also works with the mage underground and defo either knows or works with briala as a kind of agent. her story is more foggy tho bc i haven't read Super much of TME or played some of witch hunt

da2 comes in and i've Recently, like as of last week i think, decided to swap my canon hawkes. william is now my canon hawke instead of the twins. he's an apostate who's magic is mostly clairvoyancy and a shepherd.. or he was until the blight. bethany dies during the escape and its only the Beginning of the sad times for william.

with his pretty suble magic william makes for a Superb smuggler, and lands the gig with bartrand quickly. he Also, gets a bit of a crush on varric while they're still going around raising money. he takes carver, varric, and isabela with him to the deep roads thinking that keeping his brother close will be safer. and, well, it isn't.

act ii is a bunch of horse shit anyways but william tries to keep out of things until isabela is directly threatened by it and only then steps in seriously. for the most part all of the things which go down with petrice are done with noure and anders. they don't like the qunari being in town either but they, at least, can use the situation to weaken the chantry and by extension the circle. even if its only a bit. during act iii the two of them build up the mage underground and start preparing to take direct action against the circle. william is, still uncertain but he doesn't stop them. his magic has never been a large danger to himself, it's suble enough and under control enough that he's never really had to fear templars. he feared them for his fathers sake, for bethany's sake, but not his own. not really. and well, we know how da2 ends but i hate the retcon of 'hundres of casualties' bithc! where! so no, only the grand cleric and a handful of upper level chantry people where inside when it went up and they deserved it.

ellanis is working on the blight cure during this time and makes it far enough that he and zev are surprised by twins (two girls named adaia and killian) but otherwise ellanis is mostly chillin in antiva

while attie is now definitely working closely with briala both as a jenny and as an agent

and we’re up to dai with my canon quizzy - da'ean lavellan, the clan storykeeper (next in line after his father) who only attends the conclave because idrilla was going to first and they didn't want to loose the clan first. i've got... way more canon deviance in dai than anywhere else bc dai Suxxs but its way too long but basically! 

da'ean romances both dorian and the iron bull bc im poly and i said so, idrilla comes to skyhold as magical advisor and she works where morrigan does in the game (tho morrigan still shows up she's not an offical position as much, which suits her and attie just fine). linayel, da'ean's nas'falon (qp) arrives with her and he slots in as an archery trainer. 

plus, ellanis is the warden contact instead of the many (some really wild??) canon contacts. leliana tries to contact him to be quizzy but he's travelling and misses it, and when noure contacts him on william's behalf and mentions corypheus (ellanis knows about legacy bc william brought noure and anders along) ellanis puts some pieces together and comes to skyhold. he'd already been working to figure out the weird calling (it is and yet isn't the same as the blight he remembered) so he's already a bit aware of the situation. william doesn't stick around for long, basically just long enough to get confirmation ellanis is on his way. even tho he misses varric this isn't his place

adamant goes down wicked different bc ellanis is the fucking HOF. by this time he's developed his magic enough he can pretty much take down all of the wardens within a good 300 foot range just nearly instantly. (a combination of his blight cure research and his natural entropic aligned magic hohohoho) so he makes it to clarel Fast. instead of falling into the fade ellanis (anyone else remember just fucking punching rifts closed in awakening? lol) works with da'ean to open up the rift in the main courtyard and suck the nightmare into the real world. and then he fuckin annhilates it bc he can

WEWH is also different but this time its bc of attie (and morrigan's different now too bc she's been dragged into things by her wife) briala's at the palace yeah, but now she's also got attie waiting in the wings. instead of getting stuck in place by the quizzy attie is able to manuever things to implicate gaspard and celene alone (mostly bc i hate the blackmail on briala it just doesn't vibe well with her character to me). so instead of the shitty options of 'gaspard rules with briala shadowing him' or 'celene and briala end up back together' its 'celene gets put in place by briala and now briala calls the shots'

idrilla romances solas, and as a dreamer she's sure something is fishy but can't figure out what exactly. (until trespasser that is, when she figures it out at the murals) but she provides a good foil to his asshatry and as offical magical advisor steers the inquisition with morrigan's info about the arbor wilds. she knows the rituals and the magic bc she's first and they make it through far faster than in canon, making a quick alliance with the sentinals and beating samson well before the canon battle area. 

(linayel romances cass but their story is still quiet and vague as of yet but linayel mostly remains in skyhold to help train and strategize)

then da'ean kicks corypshits ass soundly becase that fight Sucks Ass.

[gotatext]

by this point im p sure u all know the drill.... i’m nora, 23, she/her, gmt and tonight matthew im going to be greta o’driscoll, a terrible person but a hot one which frankly makes it almost ok. here is her pinterest..... this intro is literally just copied n pasted frm the last time i played her so soz if u’ve read it like 10+ times.... 

「 diana silvers. cis-female. 」have you seen greta o’driscoll around yet? i hear she decided to be in POTENTAS for their SOPHOMORE year as a CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY major. the 20 year old SHEPHERD is known to be tenacious, magnetic, capricious and evasive. ➨ the muse is written by nora, she/her, gmt.

was adopted as an infant. had two foster moms and two older sisters so always surrounded by women. lived in a boarding house, very much like the one in 20th century women, with lodgers coming in and out all the time, mostly artsy young women because her gay moms were both high school teachers trying to set up their own arts collective. one of her moms left when she was 4, n she doesn’t really remember her.

while living with entirely women made her super into catlin moran and the guilty feminist, as a teenager she often let boys walk all over her bc she just craved male attention jst bcos she’d never really experienced it. saw it as something aspirational, like sitting in the back of chad’s second-hand truck while he drove you to macdonalds and offered you and his five friends with identical haircuts weed was the height of being cool to greta, she wanted to be their dream girl, even if it meant compromising her beliefs

was always a really sporty bitch. it started with a junior athletics squad, which turned into athletics and cheer, which then became athletics, cheer and hockey until she basically was doing a different activity every night. she came to see her body as a tool that she could make work for her if she trained it up and this attitude’s always kind of stayed with her that as long as her body is strong she is capable of anything. runs every day. 

bubbly bitch but also massive snake. metaphorically and literally, always shedding her skin. loyal to few, ruled by none, out for herself, babey!! every place she goes, she becomes a new character, someone who’s a figment of her imagination, as if each city is repertory theatre and she’s a character actress, so as a result som ppl think she’s called rita, some ppl know her as margot, she just flicks through identities like nobodies business.

left school at 18 n went backpacking around the states making money in the casinos by being a shot girl (yeehaw) and trying to make it as a mysterious 1920s widow with a smoky voice, a dark secret n a heart of gold, looking for love in the big city. all she found was producers and acting agents who’d promise her stardom n actually just fuck her in a motel n then ignore her calls.

TW domestic violence, TW gun, her watershed moment came when she met luke in sioux falls while she was working at a strip club. he was a few years older and had a car, and they kind of went from seeing each other to being that super intense couple who are just necking all the time.

they got engaged like 3 months after they met n rented a flat together, much to her family’s annoyance but she was 19 so there wasn’t much they could do. their relationship was super super intense though, often really heightened and when they fought it could become quite violent, but she’d pass it off as just him being really passionate.

one of their fights got really heated and greta threatened him with the gun he kept in the glove box of his vauxhall corsa, but the safety was off and she accidentally shot him. she pleaded self defence in the trial n cos of the amount of times she’d been hospitalised for various concussions n things like ‘fallling down the stairs’ the police were like yea… pretty watertight evidence that he was a bastard who [chicago voice] had it coming….. 

she’s now under witness protection, rehoused in livingstone as a sports-scholarship student, due to the amount of police involvement in the area, it would mean should one of luke’s family members try to track her down, she’d be relatively safe

massive sports fanatic. plays tennis. on the cheer team. was a track superstar in her high school. honestly just that sporty bitch, you’ll see her doing lines at a party at half four and then on your way to your 9am lecture you see her running across the park like a fresh fucking daisy who is this bitch. maybe it’s maybelline, maybe its coke.

massive feminist. low key quite scared of powerful men bcos of her ex. wants to start a female only lesbian commune bc she misses her childhood in a south dakota boarding house and has endless support for women. honestly annoyed that she is attracted to men, would so be 100% gay if it was a choice. cuffs her jeans and can’t drive. is That bisexual. skateboards. wears backwards caps.  i hate her 

isn’t a foward-planner, however. greta prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manners so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.

has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning. 

not afraid to go after what she wants !! ambitious academically and romantically thirsty !! she loves the adrenaline of the chase. when someone’s easy to get, she becomes bored. very bisexual and very proud of it. feminist as fuck nd part of a queer representation in the arts group which holds fortnightly meetings to discuss lgbt representation in film, literature, art etc.

old soul in a young person’s body. all the shit that has gone on has kind of aged her. she’s quite cynical about everything now. always smoking smoking smoking. very edie sedgwick in that way.  little girls skirts bought for next-to-nothing at the market because she’s skinny enough to get away with it, barely long enough to cover your bum, and then the ugliest baggy sweater you’ve ever seen thrown over it.

likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramphone because “The Sound quality is Better” kfdsjj.

super into pop art and andy warhol. puts female friendships above everything but at the same time, would fuck her best friends man

her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk.

aesthetics:

a bubble of pink gum on chapped lips, mom jeans, a beaten up pair of adidas, denim jackets, strawberry laces, knee-highs, chapped lips, peeling sticky plasters, split knuckles, bruises you try to cover with concealer, stick and poke tattoos, hot coffee, sleep caught in your eyes on a lazy afternoon, kissing girls, cigarette smoke shrouding you like a veil, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, the red string of a thong peaking out purposely from jeans, leonine arch of your back and that stellar smile that says ‘you have no idea who you’re dealing with’, a rucksack permanently packed for the move, a streak of red across your lips, roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your mom wouldn’t take you, kate moss posters lining the walls of a teenage bedroom, his name scrawled in rage across the pages of a diary, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

wanted plots

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sports rivalries ! sporting friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!! 

since greta literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships

 girls from the cheer team who she’s like, weirdly intimate with like the shower together but its not a Thing cos the other girls straight !!! what do u mean !! aha just fun !

and I want like, fellow criminology students who are like?? how is this bitch still passing?? i swear she goes out every night?? 

she works part time at a fast food restaurant, i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry. 

ppl she did a few modules with ie. art history, bio-med, film studies, before changing course and somehow sort of remaining in touch with

 ppl who she runs track with. 

someone she’s trying to make a zine with. 

here’s a list of plots on her old blog if u want any of them w her.

would love plots of any type, throw them all at me please, i cnt wait to interact w all of u. like this if u want me to message you about connections / plots! xo

full biography if u can be bothered

trigger warnings: drugs, domestic abuse, gun.

you never meant for it to happen. you’d heard the stories, of girls who let their man walk all over them, and thought to yourself “i’ll never be one of those girls…” the kind that eat low-fat yoghurt and drink slim fast to shred a few extra pounds because he said she was getting round in the tummy, or the ones who spent their evenings tied to a kitchen sink drinking wine while him and the boys played poker, wishing god, if only I could get out of here. not you, not you raised by strong women, four bright shining beacons. single mother with her hard-as-nails attitude and her stony glares, elder sisters (twins) one ginger, one blonde, one doctor, one lawyer, both determined to take a bullet to the brain and a hammer to the patriarchy before they let a man touch them without asking. you were always so inferior, so insecure and small, like a bird (like a sparrow) with blonde plaits down your back sucking tropicana whilst your busom buds sucked dick, their lips permanently ripe with stories of their sexual exploits, fake tan and glittered nails whilst you sat in the unbroken egg of virginity wondering what it was like to be loved. one day you found out.

lily milligan’s parents gone and a free house for the night, bottles of ouzo and tequila swiped from your mother’s liquor cabinet thinking she wouldn’t know (she always knew) your legs, hardened from pep squad, slut dropping on a kitchen table because the boys thought it would be fun to get the quiet girl drunk. you’d never had a sip before that night. band t-shirts, denim shorts and the split soles of rotten converse that you refuse to let go of, you still clutched with both hands to your youth, but in a tube top now (borrowed from alice carmichael who had a sister in college) and a short tennis skirt, your feet not in trainers but in thigh-high boots. uncomfy as hell but lily said you needed to look sexy. you didn’t know if you wanted to be sexy. you didn’t know what kind of girl you were, if you were even a girl at all. but robbie looked at you like he knew exactly who you were, like he knew you better than you knew yourself, and his lips had the pink cupid’s bow of a movie star, and his hair was dark locks, curling like a mane. his hands were soft, and suddenly on your waist, and after three more shots his lips were on yours and his name was the only sound in your head and on your lips as you lost it in lily’s college sister’s bedroom beneath the glare of a T-Pain poster. you bled for what seemed like hours, his hand still in yours, kissing on the sofa as truth tellers and dare devils continued to spin a bottle of unprecedented youth. you thought it was love. robbie was the one. he loved you, you knew it, how else could someone be so soft? but soon he grew bored, scrunched up your paper heart and set it alight. then came the tears, the hatred, the ‘fuck robbie, in fact, fuck all boys.’ and that you did.

you were known for being easy. any boy could be yours for a night, as long as he promised to love you for those few short breaths and pants before you cried yourself to sleep. you felt poisoned, but poisonous as well, as if by ensnaring these young boys you were gaining power over them, and not the other way around. soon it started to work. they’d want more, but you’d deny them it, sick of sucking off silly schoolboys, they’d call you a tease, a vixen. maybe you were, but you couldn’t help but want older men. you got the history teacher first time, him bending you over his desk to sneak a hand up your tennis skirt as the after-school clubs carried on next door, unawares. love didn’t exist, not for you. it was nothing but a game for pretty young girls to play, bubble gum in their canines and a hand tugging at the hem of their cheer skirt.

there was so much anger inside of your small body, ‘beware of boys and their hook-like words’. hockey helped. there was something formidable about the feeling of a stick like a weapon in your hands and the thwack it made against thighs in the heat of a scrum - “slipped, sorry!” - you’d utter with a snakeskin smile, millicent quinn knowing that you’d hit her on purpose because she shagged robbie at that party last week. she couldn’t prove it, cobbled acne on her forehead turning green with disgust. ben came into your life like a car crash. two years your senior, with a baseball jacket and shoulders like a god. he became your personal hero. on the pitch, he was lethal. together, you could bring anyone to their ruin. each day after last period he’d be waiting in his car. you’d leap into his arms like a girl-half starved, love me, love me, love me, your heated kisses the envy of every junior girl. he was yours for three blissful years, utterly yours, and you were his, his star-spangled girl, and he was your knight - you were both the same, playing games, always difficult to predict. it was a shock to all when he proposed, high-school sweethearts find love in south dakota.

the engagement was a bittersweet affair; three months – you barely out of your gingham print skirts and into a graduation gown, him, a surly quarterback towering above your sisters, cigarette at his lips and a scowl like a fart in a lift. they hated him. so did you. but you were eighteen and in love, and he fitted the cookie cutter mould. everyone wanted him, and you had him. you had him and you were happy, happy, happy, and he loved you. he said he’d give you the world, anything you wanted hand-picked and given to you. instead, he gave you a jack russell terrier and a flat you couldn’t swing a cat in, wallpaper peeling like the rotten bits inside of you, the bits that only he knew. and you got tireder and tireder of the sad excuse of a life he’d picked out for you, him out doing god knows what to pay the bills, and you dancing on tables to pave your way to stardom, and this was love, this was real, until the shine wore off and your fresh-faced, dimple-cheeked cheerleader facade faded and the ugliness started to reveal itself, the whining, the petulance, the sharp-tempered cruelty, the mind games, the need to always win, win, win. he was dull, he was boring, he was nothing like the boy the girls had said he was and no chiselled six pack could hide his lack of anything remotely interesting, your patience wearing thin until it snapped like rubber, a rucksack on your back, running shoes on your feet and the joint bank account emptied into your eighth grade birthday wallet.

you built your small fortunes working the casinos of sioux falls, a crimson dress and an attitude to match. bookish archie with his little dipper freckles was fun for a month, before he became just as dull and dreary as the rest. a three hour bus and you were in minneapolis, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh meat ready for the pickings. a hostel here, a friendly co-worker’s sofa there as you made what you could by taking off your clothes and shaking your ass like you were back in pep squad, doing what you did best. you met your fair share of creeps, and soon it was back on the road to escape a wide-eyed stalker and a restless itch for more. milwaukee, chicago, you made the roads your own. log cabins and lodgings, and the occasional motel, a beaten up pick up truck purchased at a scrap merchants – you got a few miles out of it before it bit the dust, and when you finally set it alight after nights spent lounging across the driver’s seat, a parka tucked over you as a duvet, you were sad to see it go. you’re nomadic by fault, never attaching to place, people or things, creating a new personality in every place you go like a character actress; each town is a different repertory theatre, and you’re the star. a compulsive liar, you even fib about your own name, to some you’re ellen, nineteen, bookish, a law student who likes smoking and cosmos. to someone else you’re rita, you’re twenty five and look young for your age, like smoking, comics and fucking in public places.

in the bright lights of michigan, you found charlie, sweet charlie, too good for you, though you let him spoil you while he thought you were the small town girl of his dreams. next came abigail, who was fun until the jealously kicked in, and then luke, gorgeous luke, dangerous, exciting, who despite his temper, despite the fights, despite bruises down your spine and your teeth marks on his arms, loved you with the strength of a wild fire. there was destruction in your wishbones, a savageness from the field, from the pitch and now somehow in his arms, you were godly. he was cruel, he was careless, and he refused to fall at your feet like so many other boys had, which only you made you want him all the more. you were rage incarnate. you hated him so fiercely you thought you might kill him, so he played the only card you wouldn’t predict; proposed.

the house you shared was a backstreet flat in detroit, you making your name as a downtown singer while he footed the bill with pills. they had a drug for anything these days, to dull the senses, to pick them up, to drive you to insanity or pull you out of the madness hole. the two of you lived like criminals on the run (you never told him that you were, living out your days as the enigma he wanted you to be), you with your voice like caramel and fishnet legs. you were his and his alone until his hand was at your throat and the gun was in your hands screaming at him to stop, stop, stop, until a bullet stoppered his brain, crimson staining linoleum as you cast yourself out like lucifer. self defence was decreed the moment they saw your violet neck, black tears and headlight eyes and mind screaming red, red, red like the pom-poms you shook so willingly in school and the insides of his skull. you were gone, and “you” was born, renamed “greta”, boxed, shipped-out, and next-day delivered to livingstone where under witness protection you were a student, blank slate, fresh-faced in a place where no one knew your name, doing what you always did and starting again.

[juliawickereds]

Hello there! I need to hear everything about this soulmate AU of yours. Just searched through the blog and all I could find was the fact that there are platonic soulmates (BIG LOVE) and I am starved for feels please and thank you

ok i said i wanted asks abt this but then my laptop fell apart and then i lost internet for a few days so this is super late and i’m sorry bUT!! soulmate au. this isn’t anything coherent and has zero (0) plot but it’s smth i made that i really enjoy so here we go folks

the rules of this ‘verse are basically that you are born with black and white tattoos that symbolize something to do with your soulmate (if your marks reference the same thing, the stronger your bond is. similarly, if your marks are on the same area of your body, the stronger your mark is). the soulmark tattoos turn in color when you first meet your soulmate, and it’s possible to have multiple soulmates and also platonic soulmates (quentin and julia and margo and eliot are both pairs of platonic soulmates in this au). so without further ado, here’s the kids(tm) and their soulmarks

quentin’s soulmark tattoo is a giant map of fillory that stretches across his entire back. specific places reference his specific soulmates. his mark for penny is where the virgo blade was first used/talked about and/or the swordsmith's shop. his mark for eliot is the beach where they were crowned, castle whitespire, and the mosiac area. his mark for alice is the wellspring, and all other parts of fillory are his platonic mark with julia. he and julia know they’re soulmates from p much day one, bc they’re childhood friends, and they're 5 and have no reservations so they know they're soulmates from almost the moment they meet. they date in high school, julia realizes she's a lesbian, they come to terms with it being platonic. quentin and alice realize they’re soulmates the morning after he saves her from niffining for her brother, and they’re both fairly sure this incident is what alice’s soulmark for quentin is referencing, so their ‘bond’ isn’t super strong (spoiler alert: it’s referencing her death so their bond is actually fairly strong). penny and quentin first realize it when penny gets stabbed by the virgo blade. quentin gets excited that he’s found another soulmate. penny rolls his eyes and asks quentin to concentrate on the fact that he's been fucking stabbed. quentin and eliot realize they’re soulmates the night they have the threesome (which is Less of a deal here, partially bc at this point alice knows quentin and eliot are soulmates, and instead, she’s more mad at margo — who is one of her soulmates — for sleeping with quentin). alice and margo figure out that quentin and eliot are soulmates before the two of them do. mostly because the two of them aren’t weenies who don’t want to talk about things (unlike quentin and eliot).

eliot has two soulmark tattoos, which is the lowest number of soulmates i think anyone in this au has, tbqh. he has quentin’s mark on his left wrist, and it’s a goblet on his left wrist, overflowing red wine, with a peach and plum behind it. his marker for margo (arguably the strongest mark in the entire series, ftr) is her high queen crown wrapped around his upper left thigh. during the trials, eliot and margo share soulmarks and pasts, and they realize their crowns match and changed color on the same day, eliot says that he's gay so margo doesn't get any illusions about their relationship, and it works out.

margo has four marks. wrapped around her upper right thigh is eliot’s high king crown. she has a white shorthair cat winding its way around the back of her right ankle for alice’s mark, which they figured out whe margo corners alice and gets her drunk (the scene with the wine) and convinces her to share her soulmarks. also they talk about charlie's unrequited niffin fire soulmark. when margo sees the cat she just kind of knows it matches her cat and they start dating. she’s got the spatters of blood across her face from when micah was killed as her mark for him (though i haven’t decided what his is for her yet), though they know they’re soulmates instantly as they instantly turn red when she meets him, which....is a really ominous soulmark. she also has a simple wolf silhouette for josh, but i haven’t decided if her and josh’s mark is platonic or not, or when they discovered it bc the two of them are a new season development lmao sorry.

alice has three marks — one for quentin, which is niffin fire curling up from under her left armpit and over her left breast with the last tendrils of fire reaching her collarbone (they think it's since they first met because of her brother who niffened but it's really referencing her death and that means her and quentin's marks were stronger than they first thought), one for penny, which is the bad whiskey they were drinking when she had sex with him the first time on the back of her right calf (they figure it out the night they sleep together and penny jokes about how he's glad it wasn't margo or eliot), and one for margo, which is a sleeping cream persian cat curled up at the base of her neck.

penny has three marks — one for quentin, which is what looks like scars from the virgo blade but over the entire right side of his torso, one for alice, which is an empty emotion bottle on his left ankle with the necklace chain wrapped around to the front of his ankle and up some (like three-fourths of the way up his calf is where the necklace ends), and one for kady, which is ropes over his wrists like the trials, which represent the first time he really let kady in (both of theirs are so obvious they know pretty much the first time they meet. they don't realize what they mean until later, and penny’s for kady actually get sliced right through when the beast severs his hands and are scarred/parts of the mark are missing afterwards).

kady only has two soulmarks, but both are romantic. she has one for julia, which is lighting from that whip she used to save julia beginning at the top of her hip and going across her stomach and curling up under and beside her right breast (they realize it after julia is helping kady get out of the shower after the heroin den, and she asks when kady's changed, they talk about the dates their changed after the shower and start dating but don't realize the significance until the bank heist), and one for penny, which is battle magic/hedge witch symbols all up and down the inside of her arms and over the front of her shoulders and the front of her throat (representing the first time she let penny in).

julia has two soulmarks. one is her platonic mark with quentin, which is a map of the outer islands and the edge of the world that adds on to quentin's fillory map if they stand next to each other spread across her back. her mark for kady is on the back of her left thigh, and is the wooden spoon the monster kady saved her from was made from.

disclaimer: i didn’t include josh and fen in this au originally and the penny mentioned is original penny (penny 40) because i made this au ages ago and haven’t been bothered to go thru and change things really but like. they still exist and if there’s interest i can add their tattoos in as well !! but this is already super long so. if anyone has any more questions feel free to hmu i love this au. also sorry this is so late !! thanks for asking lovely

[blacknovelist]

I want some cute/fluff things to go awww for from the BNHA Ageswap AU, so let me here 'em! Tell us about some funny or adorable things that happened before the Canon of ageswap between the friends/former classmates/teachers when they dealt with younger siblings & brotherhood, a fire spitting baby and a telekinetic green haired girl that just lost her parents. Maybe not in that order. Chronological, if that is manageable. I want some dorky friends being friends and dorks while trying to manage.

bless your heart, fluff sounds wonderful right about now! :D Forgive me if this answer turns out entirely too long and incoherent, but I really like thinking about this stuff. 

so, like the Ageswap heroes, a lot of them when they graduated were more on line of like, just regular old friends. But there were certainly groups of them that were good close buddies together (i.e the Dream Team of Ageswap Uravity/Ingenium/Deku, who absolutely were besties, and also Kirishima and Bakugou were pretty alright with each other come grad time). Once their hero work started in earnest, it turned out their ties to each other was beneficial from time to time, so it drew them much closer together! Within just a few years of graduating, they’re much closer to the Family UA we know and love, but it isn’t until just a bit later that they get that final push.

(Putting the rest of it under the cut because while I answered your question and gave you some Fun Times, on a whole this answer turned into every conceivable fact and detail about the history of the Family UA squad and their adventures in childrearing, and also general silly things about Inko, Enji and Tensei because I could. Sorry - I hope you don’t mind, and that I more or less cover the stuff you’re really looking for!! This is going to be a record-setter as far as length goes, oh jeez.)

Most of the Ageswap Heroes work as just heroes for some time following their graduation, making names for themselves and rising through the rankings. Their jobs at UA don’t happen until a little further down the timeline, which I’ll elaborate on later.

Inko is the first to join the Ageswap UA fam, actually. Deku had been fighting some villains, a group they’d been tracking down for a good few months now - it’s the first time they’d been able to pin these guys, and it’s now or never to bring them in. Still, even in a two-on-five fight, Deku’s no pushover. It’s all going well until one of the villains whirls around, swings wide past the two heroes, and launches a hit straight at a building nearby. 

Someone screams. One of the others follows their comrade’s lead and takes potshots at people on the street, and the whole block just starts to crumble.

On that day, the pro-hero Deku breaks his self-imposed quirk limits (which are in place more for the protection of others than for his own sake at this point in time, in order to quickly subdue the villains so that he can call in rescue squads because they have civilians they need to save right this damn minute, come on!

He works in tandem with the rescue teams for hours. It’s the low burning kind of physical activity, the careful shift of debris and following the desperate yell of people, trapped and afraid and god, if only he could’ve ended the fight sooner-!

It’s not his fault, not entirely - he can’t be everywhere at once, with some villains engaging him and others going to wreak havoc, but though this isn’t the first time there may be casualties, it’s still hard. They’d been fighting in an area with plenty of offices and apartments, and though some had managed to evacuate, others had been unable to do more than lock themselves into their homes and hope for the best.

Deku sees something incredible and terrible, in the ruins of one of the apartment complexes. A married couple, crumpled cold and together beneath rubble, unseeing eyes locked on the ruined door frame. Above them, in the room they diligently guarded, chunks of wood and plaster and tile float harmlessly among stuffed toys and dolls. It’s like some kind of morbid baby mobile to entertain the slumbering infant, still unaware of the world around her.

(”Esper-like quirks,” they tell him later. “They used their quirks before death and tied them to the baby, and the strength of it caused their quirks to linger. We’ve never seen anything like it, but you found her just in time - the effects wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”

“That’s not true,” Deku doesn’t say when they leave, baby tucked into the crook of his arm, safe and sound and fast asleep. “I didn’t find her fast enough - her parents would still be alive if I had.”)

Izuku takes Inko in, after, because of a sense of duty. It was his fault, in a way, not stopping the villains fast enough, not finding Inko and her parents fast enough. When he returns home, the first thing he does is call Ochako, and explain everything. He wasn’t sure who else to call, he admits, and there’s probably someone else they know who would be better to call about this, but there’s a sleeping baby with dead parents in his hands that he’s just asked to have temporary custody over and dear god he’s got absolutely NO CLUE WHAT I’M DOING PLEASE H EL P ME

(he wants to do right by this baby, by god, but he’s not exactly built for this.)

Once she’s done laughing, Ochako pulls Tenya aside because as it turned out, she’d been with him at the time. Between the three of them, Deku buys a shit-ton of baby supplies, goes over the procedure for gaining legal custody of Inko, tells everyone that “yeah sorry I’ve got a kid now! ….surprise?”, and gets so many visits from everyone at this time like “damn, man, lookit u growing up so quick :’)”

The first year is an adventure, man. This is the first kid of the Ageswap UA squad, so, no one has any clue what their doing. Izuku gets lots of little “care packages” in the mail from everyone containing stuff that’s supposed to help him (by the second month he’s got two whole cabinets devoted to diapers, and he tells everyone to stop sending them already because god, guys, she’s one baby, come on). Eventually, with lots of trial and error, Izuku settles into something normal-ish with Inko, the custody goes through, and everything’s fine.

Then a year later, Tensei is born! Tenya, for his part, is ecstatic at his little brother’s birth, because of course he is, it’s his little brother! Everyone is invited to come meet his little bro, but only a few people can really make it - Uraraka comes, and though Izuku can’t make it in person, he skypes in with Inko and sends his love and wishes. Todoroki drops by with his significant other (who, for reasons, we aren’t elaborating on. I don’t really want to fridge them, but right now, that’s mostly what we’re doing with them), as well as most of the class at varying times because they need to travel to arrive where Tenya and his bro are, and sometimes that kind of time just doesn’t happen for a while. By the time Tensei is a year old, though, everyone has visited at least once! Bakugou’s visit only lasted a few minutes, but at least he showed up.

Tenya does his best to help his parents look after the newborn Tensei as the Iida fam figure out how to balance their hero duties with taking care of the baby. For a time, the Iida family ducks out of the limelight in order to focus on Tensei. When they have the time, the others come in to help after their first visits. It’s sporadic, but the Iida’s appreciate it a lot! Tenya and Izuku end up swapping a lot of tips and things between them at this time. 

So everyone’s time is like, majorly divided now. There’s hero duties to uphold, kids to look after, media hounds to dissuade from invading all parts of their personal lives, it’s a bit of a mess. Everyone wants the world to slow down a little at that point.

Which, of course, is exactly why the world decides it’s a fantastic time for Todoroki Enji to come into this world, screaming his little baby head off many miles away. It’s all a bit of a mess, really, because Inko is just barely past one year old, Tensei was born weeks ago, and now there’s little Enji in on it too! Poor Ageswap UA squad. 

As mentioned in a previous ask, it’s some time before the three babies meet each other face to face. But, that hardly means a thing in the wake of our favourite thing - CHILDREARING SHENANIGANS.

To make this quick, I’m going to provide slightly chronological details and anecdotes about these kids growing up and in general, about the Nineteen Adults who are Completely Winging This Every Step of The Way (feat. Tenya’s parents, who do know what they’re doing, Tsuyu, who also knows what she’s doing thanks to her siblings, and the sporadic and spread out conversations @guardianlioness and I have had on the subject of Fam 1-A raising the children):

Kirishima is a blessing to everyone throughout everything, honestly, he gets along so well with the babies and his power with toddlers is comparable only to Deku’s own power with them.

Tsuyu is wonderful at looking after babies too, and is a godsend whenever any of the three need to be looked after

Uraraka loves to come by and spoil Tensei and Inko with laughter and toys and playing and liberal (safe) use of some zero g’s when he was first born. 

Also, when Inko’s quirk manifested into her small-object attraction, Uraraka was ecstatic bc it’s a very floaty quirk.

Uraraka splits her time between visiting Tensei and Inko and Enji basically all the time, once Enji is born, and is a close second for the status of go-to babysitter (Tsuyu is admittedly in first whenever she’s in the country, because she’s just got good experience about it)

Tensei as a baby, for some reason, is quite fond of Sero! Though he tends to visit a bit less as far as the regular visitors go, because of, you know, hero-ing.

Dark Shadow takes a shine to Inko when Tokoyami passes through to say hello. He swears up and down Inko (who at the time was like, maybe under a month old) babbled something that sounded suspiciously like “birdie” and no, of course he isn’t happy about that, he’s no common bird! (Try telling that to Dark Shadow though, who is perfectly content with the nickname)

On the reg, though, because I’m tired and describing how every baby reacts to everyone would get repetitive real quick, it’s just facts that basically everyone gets along with the children well enough? There really isn’t anyone who doesn’t help out at some point or who was bad with the three kids, and all of them love their many aunts and uncles (even if some of them won’t acknowledge or admit it)

Tensei, surprisingly, was fussiest as a baby, though he mellowed out with age. He’s followed by Enji and Inko as far as baby rankings go. Enji was a damn hellion during the toddler stage though, and Inko had some trouble around the same age.

Frankly, and pardon my language, everyone fucking loves Inko basically instantly once Izuku takes her in, even if they first meet her over video call. She’s cute as a button when she’s a baby, all rounded face and tufts of long hair and lots of smiles and laughs and gosh, how is it possible for a baby to be this adorable?? We Just Don’t Know.

Once he’s over his panic, Izuku does well by Inko, though he’s still a bit awkward. He’s nothing before the power of a baby, tbh but compensates through sheer Dad Ability. When it comes to little kids and toddlers though?  Izuku is a literal godsend. His wonderful skills were definitely put to a lot of use around the terrible toddler times (often through video call for Enji, though there were times he would drop by and visit in person if he was in the area while on the job.)

Izuku’s ability with kids and toddlers has a lot to do with Enji’s respect for his uncle actually - he’s one of the few people Enji listens to on a regular basis, and whose opinion he trusts, and one of the only people he’ll actually listen to (which causes trouble during his time at UA, but that’s much further down the line)

Everyone has had a go at babysitting each of the trio at least once in their lives, to varying degrees of success. 

On related and unrelated notes respectively, Aoyama and Hagakure aren’t allowed to babysit without at least one other responsible person present at the time. Also, Sero and Kaminari aren’t allowed to babysit Tensei as a kid without supervision (together or individually), and Enji goes through a minor phase where he refuses to allow any of his uncles to look after him for completely unknown reasons to everyone else

(it’s because he’s worried that if his uncles look after him too much he’ll start treating his aunts funny like how the stupid kids at school treat girls funny sometimes for child logic reasons, and Enji is too smart a kid to think that treating his aunts with anything but respect is a bad move. As a result, during this time, he spends as much time with his super strong aunts as he possibly can to remind himself to never go down that road, until he realizes that of course spending time with his uncles wouldn’t change anything, duh! They’re just as afraid and respectful of the women in his life as he is, and with due reason. And so, everything returns to normal again.)

Inko’s quirk is the first to come in at the tender age of 8 months, and caused a little bit of chaos when it did. It starts with her picking up the teddy bear that fell out of her bed while Izuku is bending down to pick it up for her, which scares the shit outta him. He’s extra careful not to leave small and potentially dangerous things (like screws or something) lying around where she might be able to pick them up with her quirk.

Second is Enji, who gains his at one year and two months. His manifestation comes in the form of him completely setting his head and hair on fire, leading to a long fifteen minutes of confirming Enji is perfectly okay frantic phone calls, emergency skype video calls, the copious use of google, and Shouto frantically trying to get his son to put out his quirk without hurting him before his son accidentally burns their entire house down (which he barely manages).

incidentally, Enji only loses control of his quirk as a baby - his control doesn’t waver after that, until many, many years later when he’s attending UA.

Tensei’s quirk manifests a bit before his second birthday in an uncontrollable burst of exhaust that sends the little boy’s face into the early birthday cake the Iida family bought in a rare moment of free time for all of them. Bless his heart, Tensei only laughs as they clean him up and deem the cake salvageable (and they send many profuse thank-you’s to everyone who had the foresight to send them tips on how to cushion everything and send their boy plenty of helmets)

They start learning self-defense when they’re around five years old each, though mostly minor basic things that wouldn’t hurt them or anything, you know? Everyone wants to make sure they can take care of themselves, whether they go on to be heroes or not. (This is why Inko’s prowess in fighting can match that of 1-A when quirks aren’t involved).

The first time Inko and Izuku visit her parent’s graves, Inko is three. She brings a handful of flowers her dad let her pick at the park (and one of which they bought impulsively after seeing it in the window of a shop), and spends hours laughing and telling them stories about her day, and how much fun her aunts and uncles are (”Auntie Ocha taught me how to a somersault in zero gravity last week!” “Wait, Ochako did what-”) and how much she loves her dad. Izuku swears he isn’t crying when he tells Inko’s parents about Inko and her studies and what a wonderful, beautiful daughter they’ve managed to create and how happy he is he can take care of her, really.

that’s a lie, of course he is, really, who do you think we’re talking about here

Inko has always known that she isn’t Izuku’s biological daughter. Izuku has always wanted to be very open that he loves her so, so much and is sorry he couldn’t save her parents when she was a baby, because it was important to him that she know about the two noble people who spent the last moments of their lives making sure she survived. 

When Inko is four, just before they move to one of the wards closer to Enji and Tensei and everyone, Izuku asks Inko about her taking on his last name and him officially adopting her (at this time she’s his ward and he’s only got custody/guardianship of her). He refrained from just going through with it because he wanted to be Inko’s choice, instead of making it for her. She accepts immediately and affectionately refers to the night her paperwork went through as “Family day” (which instantly becomes a shared Ageswap Fam Holiday and day of celebration, naturally)

Tensei and Enji have no clue that Inko isn’t Izuku’s biologically and don’t actually learn this detail until they’re students at UA. In their defense, it kind of wasn’t their fault (though they’ve got their physical differences, Inko and Izuku share an uncanny resemblance for sharing absolutely no blood whatsoever) as everyone forgot to tell them in general, but it doesn’t make a difference because Inko is still family, after all. 

Though, it does explain Family day a little bit, when they explain that it was the day he legally adopted her way back when.

Tensei is a bit of a mischievous little spirit, he is, but I’m sure we all know that. Left to his own devices, his curiosity and desire to do really awesome cool things (in traditional kid form) lead him into some pretty ridiculous situations.

He and Enji grew up in about the same(ish) area, so as toddlers they spent a lot of time together, which did help. Sometimes, they’d go out and get into the kind of dumb situations only kids can get into except twofold because there’s two of them to lead to extra trouble, because of course they would 

both refuse to disclose the details of what is loosely referred to as “the cat and chick incident”, and since the only thing any of their guardians ever heard about it was the aftermath… god only knows 

Enji, as a kid, was very standoffish and very prideful over his quirk. He was cordial with Tensei and Inko, at the least, and both have his respect, but man, was he ever bad at making friends.

Still, for all his vices, he was still a kid. It’s not often, but if you ask Shouto at the right moment in time, he’ll show you all the photo albums he’s kept of his boy growing up. A fan-favourite series of pictures is of Enji having fun at the fair with all the cotton candy and ferris wheel and roller coaster rides his little heart could ever desire. Enji vehemently denies the legitimacy and existence of those photographs at all possible times.

Inko and Tensei get on like a house on damn fire, the devil duo they are. Not that any of their parents ever learn the full details of their antics, since Inko is much better at hiding her tracks than she really has any right to be frankly

The only time they were caught is the time they were going to have Tensei distract some bullies while Inko floats water balloons over their heads, to trick them into thinking they were haunted and maybe get them to stop being jerks. Instead the water balloons go to the noble cause of becoming ammo in a massive water fight that they somehow manage to drag Tenya, Enji and Shouto into, and the parents get some tips that lead to stern talking-to’s and the end of bullying in their area. It’s great all around.

The reason why Inko wants to become a doctor focused on hero medicine is because of the aftermath of the ShigaDeku fight, in pre-canon. Izuku had to go through a great deal of physical therapy and impose a limit on his use of One For All because of the results of the fight and, well, Inko of course took it upon herself to make sure her dad took good care of himself in the aftermath, you know? Eventually she realized that if she became a doctor, she’d have the knowledge to better help her dad along with all the other heroes out there keeping them safe. Thus, doctor Inko was born!

A lot of the Hero squad associate with UA and became teachers for the kids, tbh. Seeing them grow up right before their eyes… it kind of puts things into perspective, how they grow and change and work towards their dreams just like they all once did! Still, not everyone was suited to teaching (and some of them have specialties that are in high demand in the hero industry), which is why some of the squad only really come on as guests and substitute teachers from time to time (such as Ochako)

Once in a blue moon, Shouto and Enji will spend the entire weekend together. These weekends are difficult, sometimes, as their relationship is rocky, but Enji will never admit how much he treasures the times he gets to sit down on the couch with his dad and fall asleep there, knowing he’ll still be home when he wakes in the morning.

When Inko is old enough to cook, there are times Inko and Izuku will argue over who gets to make breakfast that morning. It’s a toss of the coin as to who wins each time

Tenya and Tensei don’t get to hang out often, but one constant ritual between them is when they slouch in the living room and do pretty much whatever. Sometimes Tenya will have paperwork and Tensei will be playing video games, or Tenya will be texting Ochako (who is inevitably bothering him about hanging out with him and Izuku sometime soon) while Tensei eats dinner, and that kind of stuff. It’s nice to bask in the presence of the other and when Tensei feels negative/volatile but doesn’t want to be in his room (or doesn’t want to be alone), he’ll gravitate to the living room automatically.

Tensei’s greatest hero has always been and always will be his brave older brother, who always follows the rules and is full of nothing but enthusiasm and the desire to see the world thrive by saving lives and keeping others safe.

The one and only time Inko, Tensei and Enji teamed up in any sort of incident-slash-adventure was when they were about eight years old, in which they discovered a sturdy but abandoned shopping cart in an alleyway one day. Naturally, they decided Experiments Must Be Conducted and subsequently learned that when all three of their quirks are paired together, they’re freaking unstoppable

(the gist of what happened is Inko would move or topple obstacles over so the cart could make it past them, Tensei would power them forward uncontrollably, and Enji would use his fire to let them make sharp turns or brake sharply since Tensei’s quirk didn’t let him do that. They may have unwittingly made local news in the process and gotten into so much trouble afterwards, but it was totally worth it.)

[artdjgblog]

Innerview: James Hoskins / World of Forms

April - August 2011

Art: Jean Fouquet / The Taking of Jerusalem by Ptolemy Soter / ca. 320 BC

Note: I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed by James Hoskins several times over the years, as being a live-in designer for his Kansas City band Elevator Division back in our basement dwelling days. These nuggets in particular are fairly significant in my initial retirement / death of DJG Design and transition into personal art. The following is a two part interview for a blog feature. The first part is via email Q&A, the second morphed out of a discussion over coffee a few months removed.

PART I:

1) What do you feel are the biggest challenges to working a "day job" while being an artist? What are the benefits? Has maintaining a day job affected your art in any way, positive or negative? If so, how?

Anyone who has something cooking at home base is applicable to the challenges of a day job (I'm certain the interviewer can attest to this). And I think it's easy for one to think he or she has something special waiting on them while in the monotonous thick of the daily grind. But, you have to keep a level head. I believe in a healthy balance of being a human first and an artist second. If right, you can mix the two. Sort of a "Have Brain, Will Travel" mindset. Anything and everything is good meat and day job placement should be no stranger. I am always a working artist, yet I don't wish for myself to be the work of art nor play God with it. 

As an artist in an office or cleaning an office (the two climates I've been kicking at the past decade), I try to intake what I can, smell what roses I can find and bring back home to the table inspiring meat. Of course, as a janitor, I was literally bringing things home! (Probably not so much fun for roommates or wife, me thinks.) Anyway, my nature has always managed to maintain employment or casual servant/observant at places where I'm still able to keep locked inside, somewhat. I've just never had any means to climb another man's ladder. Rather, I show up, stay on the ground and help out the best I can while still tinkering within. I believe every man is wired a certain way. I'm a starving artist in the sense that I am always hungry to create and nothing can stop me, not even a day job.

Of course, owning up to a day job doesn't come without trials. As I grow older the major seemingly stackable factors are time and energy. A year, even five years, is sucked away so fast now and I can no longer do the all night artistic marathons like I could at 22. But, at a younger age I was also dealing with design deadlines for clients. Something that isn't a factor now that I've gone the route of solo artist. I'm still making as much stuff, just on my own time 'n' dime and staying smart with getting to bed early/getting up early. Still, there is never enough hours in a day or life span to amount for what I'd like to leave behind in this life. I guess I am content but there can always be more content! 2) Why the change from graphic design to visual artist? What led to the change? What is your new vision/direction? Lack of time and energy, the want to develop and explore elsewhere, loss and change of who I once was to who I am now, poor business skills, the soul sucking of self-promotion and marketeering, the changing of the design guard, technology takeover, everybody being a designer now, personal betterment, a shift in heart/gut...many factors stack up to my decision. I explain further in a letter to the public on my web site. It was a grueling three year process and those close to my calls can now nod collectively. Though, as the human I am, I'm no stranger to inner struggle and I'm a pretty emotional being. I guess that's why my voice is what it is in speaking through art? I realize now that all the inner back 'n' forth from 2007-2010 was the result of something dying within. And when I kind of came-to around the first of February 2011, I found an immense feeling of freedom. I guess compared to most in my position as a graphic artisan for hire, I displayed an unlimited amount of freedom in the last decade. Just something inside me was shifting and I had to listen and let it take shape or be consumed completely. It's hard to explain and most people are either genuinely supportive or sorta saddened and confused by it. I'm feeling good about it and really it's not that drastic of a deal this side of the decision. Also, my stuff will still be seen on a few things here and there for others if it feels fit and my voice is right. Everything I've ever done has been leading to this. I'm excited. I'm still making art. I always will and always expect there to be many a shift in me. Ultimately, my goal is to make art full-time and I'd like to eventually have an agent or someone to help me in the areas I lack so I can better focus on what I should be doing. But, for now, my goal is to not think and just make. From day one I've never set restrictions on how I make art. I do have certain ideas I've been kicking around for a long while. My back burner has become a bonfire the past 8 to 10 years! We'll see though, as it's a process that can't just be point-click-ship and I don't really like to leak out too much beforehand. I'm currently piling things up and plan not to reveal much for a while. It's nice to just sit and play mother hen. Though, I can say I'm working on exhibitions, books and online printing/purchase shops with the work that I've produced up to my artistic shift. Just chipping away at the boulder, mostly. What I don't want to be is the guy who lives in the future on past merits. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but there is a lot of gas left in my tank and I'm looking forward to a hopefully long and fruitful life in and outside of the arts. It's nice to take a breather though and sorta have a time out. It allows a man to slow down, see and appreciate what he's already got and the foundation to the black and white up ahead. 3) What advice would you give to other artists? It could be practical, artistic, or spiritual. This is your chance to wax eloquent. I believe in just following your heart and gut. And if you have to work a day job, do it, and don't stop creating. Turn frustrations into fruit. So many people give up or are all blow and no go. Even if time/energy/life doesn't budge, do what you can and when you can. Document everything and leave your dots down here. Find the tap and drink from that. There is a vast, unlimited reservoir there for the taking. There are so many things going on and on top of each other right next to you. Be true. The best and most pure art is of the moment and can't be repeated. Crawl back into why you began creating in the first place. Listen to yourself or your elf...or that thing ticking and walki-talking above you. Ear wax eloquence. Amen. 4) If there's anything I didn't ask that you really want to say, say it! If you're happy and you know it clap your hams.

-djg

PART II:

0​1) "One's passion can become a monster sometimes."

No matter what you're doing, there are certain limits. There is a monster in all of us and we feed it in different ways. A practical discipline and taming comes into place. There is one monster in particular people are especially over-feeding, the online world. Kids of the future will never have their umbilical cord cut. We're all becoming our own iCons of self-promotion and iBrand building. I'm guilty to a degree (I have tons of stuff online and am slowwwly thinning things up a bit) and there have been times where I've tried to take a step back. It's hard. One big thing that has helped has been making art and nesting up on it and not immediately putting it online for those few that care. It's become the norm to constantly be beating brows but I'm less and less impressed with where we're headed and I tend to butt heads with it. I have to take it in small doses as an overload of focus on "me" takes away from the purity and intent of creating art and community. I guess it depends on the individual, and again, the balance. Some people are good at it, but I wasn't wired for it. I have noticed myself doing better with it since retiring my DJG DESIGN name and approaching things differently. I love sharing my art as much as the next guy, but sometimes the artist can become the work of art as opposed to the bigger thing they're channeling. That's a dangerous beast I'd like to avoid. ​0​2) "I never want to be someone who milks the same cow. Because I'm changing every day, and it would be untrue to myself for my art to stay the same and not reflect that change." Though I try not to set rules, there's probably an umbrella of look and feel to the way I'm creating. But, I've never been concerned with that as what shakes and bakes the viewer, or me. Ultimately, it's up to them if they're up for opening up to it. If not, no big deal as we can't all see the same way. We all see through different shades and with our own set of wiring. As humans we should be evolving yet never enveloping and I find that whatever mood or feeling I'm in per given day, that's what is fueling my creativity and how I make. It's all part of the process. Even still, I wouldn't feel right doing the same thing artistically every single day and/or finding the spaghetti that "sticks" and always waking up and doing that. That's what day jobs are for, I guess?! I tend to find it odd when artists have detailed artist statements already mapping out what they do, what they intend to do and what it all means. Some are cool and all but there are many days out of the week where I'm not impressed by them. Boxing in a corner can pigeon hole or suck fun and discovery out of art for me. That's just never been on my personal radar or to-do list.

​0​3) "With technology, anyone can be a designer. That leaves me without a place. I wanna make art with my hands."

I'm not against others exercising their creative chops and I'm not against advancement in the art of computer graphics. There's a place for it and I use a computer as a tool when need-be. But, there are times where technology (and just because it's there, accessible and convenient) takes over causing other areas to be void. It can put an artificial filter on things. It can also cause everyone to undermine and undervalue art per our era of instant commentary. Everyone is a professional commentator and judge. There also seems to be founder's rights flung across quickly in a world where everything has been done under the sun/son. I want an experience that lends time to chew on before sending it out to the world and I don't want one in which it's critiqued, commentated upon and microscoped within the first 5 seconds and then moved on and buried like the road out west. But, that's just the way of the beast that many people find is best these days. We can't just accept that "E.T." came to Earth like Elliot did and form a special bond and find love in that, in him, we have to roll in and put him under with our holy thunder. We're reducing everything down to a science and I dont think everything needs to be put under, tagged and bagged. You can scratch 'n' sniff everything down (but I would love to see true scratch 'n' sniff technology on something like an iPad!). But, why not just make things because you feel something hit you a certain way or came down on you and out and leave it at that. I appreciate an exploration and searching with childlike eyes and pouring out what needs to be said within while transmitting something much bigger. And sometimes I can tap into that with digitally slick oil spills. However, when approached like a business man because he's got a machine to desktop decorate, it typically has the greater ability to lose something, at least to me. I guess I've never had a business man's mind? But, there are always two sides and there are some who are great at business and art with heart. "Have heart, will translate and travel", isn't working as much as it once was. I guess the happy medium I'd like to see more of is still in the shop. There are some out there finding it and that's great. And I don't think I'm too far off with all of this falling somewhere in the, "What if God instantly installed within us a machine-like activation button to love and instantly know a tangible Him and make the purest of choices in His name and all that." I'm no scholar, artistically or Biblically, but that's some meat I tend to chew on a great deal. We're swiftly headed towards an age of the union of man and machine and that scares me. Interesting though as it brings to mind the fascinating dichotomy of a movie/character like WALL-E, a man-made machine who also has a heart. I found myself in WALL-E and his little world as it reminded me of my own...until the humans came along plugged into their machines. Personally, I don't think they should have gotten Earth back. But, I guess this is a morale tale to maybe trigger something within us? Or, maybe they're showing us that we can smash our cake to the ground and still eat it too. I believe in forgiveness, rehabilitation, a second chance and all that...but I've my own ending in mind for that one. I'll just make my own director's cut. ​0​4) "I like to notice squirrels and butterflies - these little worlds that are buried beneath all our junk. That's a theme in my art - the human element buried in 'junk' - found objects that others have thrown away." It amazes me what we pass by every second, even in our own homes. There is so much to our daily landscapes, inside and out. There is so much buried on top of each other and many different worlds interacting and conversating. I feed off much of this junk (natural and man-made) and try to tap into it as much as I can on my journeys or while in the act of making art. I don't really consider myself a political or "message" artist by putting the amount of found objects and trash into my work like I do to prove a point. I just see the potential or beauty in something and run with it. Naturally, I miss being a janitor because I got paid to rummage physically and mentally. Our things are our souvenirs. The documentary "Wasteland" fits in well with all this...art/trash/life/love/God. I grew up in rural Missouri. Animals were at my feet. Living in a big American city, it's nice to get this when I can and mostly with squirrels playing, butterflies flapping and the occasional praying mantis buzzing by or quietly creeping. Walking to work is a big plus for bookending my day job life stuck inside artificial air. I'm thankful for the shelter, but I just can't help but think it wasn't meant to be this way. But, we should also smell the roses when and where we can. About a year ago something in me said to take a different pathway home from my day job for the first time in over 5 years. Because of this I happened upon a tiny, sightless baby squirrel on the sidewalk on one of the hottest days of summer. He must have fallen from the tree nearby but I couldn't see a nest or any other squirrel activity. He was scared to death. So was I. I was conflicted though on what to do in the whole nature vs. nurture category. But, I couldn't let him suffer or become food for another animal or even stepped on or ran over by a human. It was quite the emotional experience (for both the squirrel and me) but I brought the little guy home and my wife took him to an animal rehabilitation center the next morning. I still wonder a great deal about that squirrel. A few months ago I was walking to work and apologized to a tiny bunny in a tiny patch of yard because we had built all this concrete and junk in his way. I told him to be careful. The next day around the same spot I saw a smashed bunny in the road. It was sad. Were we in his way or was he in ours? ​0​5) "With the squirrels, are we in their way, or are they in our way? The same with the Internet, is it in our way or are we in its way?" I love watching squirrels and other critters. Especially in the city. It's a treat. Though, I can't help but look at both perspectives of it. While driving long distances my wife and I love to play "Hawk Spot", the art of spotting hawks on the side of highways. It's interesting to see them stoically surveying what we've built. There are so many just sitting there, watching us driving to destinations. We should probably take a good look at the information highway the same.

0​6) "I'm not anti-technology, but I've never been completely comfortable with it. I just need to put some of myself into my art." I'm a fan of hands-on media. Just the other day I was watching an '80s horror movie and loved the tangible effects created. "Woah, Freddy just totally crawled out of that dude's body!" Today, more than likely, these would be computer generated. It's not that I don't find an esteemed art or appreciation in computer imagery. I think there definitely is when it's done well. But, it's becoming so easy now to do it that after a while it starts to dumb and numb everything down. I prefer something I can tell a human made it. I'm both excited and a bit bothered that another "Jurassic Park" movie is in works. And my only bother is the possible loss of the late Stan Winston's wonderful ideas with the dinosaur puppetry. In design school (Missouri State University) I was placed on a computer and I just couldn't get passed the screen barrier. I struggled so much that I considered changing emphasis, perhaps even a retreat from the arts altogether (which, I had no clue what would be). I stuck with it and eventually had to rediscover myself and my love of creating in the first place. I had to crawl back inward, get my hands dirty and only see and utilize the computer as a tool. It helped too that my instructors all came from Eastern European/Russian backgrounds and with a great push for art/design history. All of this inspired and influenced my work as well. I began seeing and tasting differently. I found my former self again, the boy who just enjoyed making art and fused with a whole new sense of discovery. I was hungry. I still am! However, I didn't feel comfortable with consuming a life in an actual design company as another person behind a computer shuffling images around like a desktop decorator. They're not all bad guys, just not for me. I would come back from visiting design firms with a complete sense of failure and disgust. It just wasn't for me and I had to listen to that. I wanted to make my art and my way and without anyone owning me. I wanted to lock myself in a room, pour myself into the work and pour the work out...make art and share with people in a different way. I've always looked at design as an artist first. I've never really considered myself a designer. And of late I've morphed and felt more comfortable with just going the way of the visual artist. But, I don't really care for the classification of "artist" either. I just do as I do. My recent morph has confused a lot of people but I don't see much of a change. I will still do design if it's a good fit for both my voice and a client's. I just need to be a healthy human first. ​0​7) "Our collections help us see our own timeline of growth and development. We don't have that with the Internet. Everything is electronic-instant-throw away. Everything's a la carte. Maybe that's good for the environment, but it's bad in another way." I can see positive aspects in technology with the hunting and gathering of culture. Blogs and online areas of round-up are like lockers of curing meats. But, I'm so thankful to grow up when I did as kids growing up right now don't know a life without the internet or instant gratification or instant audiences. I'm also thankful to grow up where I did in rural Missouri, yet still have have access to finding pop culture and not to mention parents who allowed me to do so. In the end, it's not the culture/media/things that get man across his or her desired county line, but there is something special about them. There is no denying the things we love help define us. I just never want that to be why and who and what I'm living for. But, when there are unlimited resources at man's side all the time, they start to become the controller. Something to chew on... My parents have many Amish families/communities living around them now. Apparently, they use more technology than my dad does. I'm slowly warming up to the idea of music floating in space, the mp3. Though, I still don't find a connection to it like I do with something in my hand, with art accompanying...the total package and the intent of the artists who made it. There is something special about that. I like that there is more access to music that I may not have heard otherwise, but after a while it becomes too much of a good thing. I listen to something and then forget about it because I've got so much to eat. "I haven't quite absorbed that one yet." is a great line from the movie "High Fidelity." I've a big appetite for consuming culture, but I still find myself not spending enough time with things like I used to because there is so much and/or I know it will always be there so it's easy to put it off and just keep eating because I can. Also, I'm getting older and there is more in a day now than there once was, yet the days are so much shorter. I love and appreciate how a band like Radiohead can all of a sudden come from behind their computer curtains to drop a new album digitally the day after they reveal they've even got a new one to drop. But, it actually stresses me out and knocks some of the fun out of it for me. There was something special about saving up money, cutting a college class, driving to the record store salivating after months of wait and cryptic campaigns, making my purchase, sitting in my car, cracking the seal, looking, listening, smelling, smiling, going home with it, making popcorn, getting under the covers, hitting PLAY...making something special of it. And then seeing your own timeline on that album years later and seeing the ebb and flow of the musical landscape in your head, in the air. The complete package. I have fond memories of many albums (and movies). I still try to get the hard copies from certain bands (Radiohead definitely), but there is something missing...maybe that's a theme they're embracing and experimenting with all-around in their music and marketing too? Also, the idea of the album is being pushed and pulled these days. I think there will always be a place for the complete package, regardless, but I'm still iffy about where things are headed. And I'm not even going to get into the loss of the video store generation, something that has a deep grain in my formative years and still helps fuel my art today. I realize that every generation changes or breaks the mold and what we have serving the majority now will be obsolete very soon. But, I just personally prefer a want to be in an impressionable age of real user activity, not an impressionistic one. In the end all of this stuff means nothing in comparison to people starving to death from actual food (not cultural food). I've too much to be thankful for. ​0​8) Difference b/w being force fed music and art and being hungry and finding "food." I slipped into the poster business at a unique time right before social media boomed. The passing of information via poster or tangible object isn't completely dead, but it is out in the cheap seats as people receive and share information online and/or have it force fed to them instead of satisfying a hunger in what I find to be a more meaningful way. Almost like an angelic stumble. It is fascinating the number of people you can reach and share with a single item of imagery and information online. I get that. Still, too much of a good thing isn't a good thing. It's overload in a new way to where so much of it is just filler. But, I can flip the coin and see there is so much filler in the window or bulletin board of a coffee shop. But, I love it when something substantial can smack a person out of the flesh of day to day overload and touch them in a certain way that becomes more personal. This creates a more special kind of world wide web to me. I guess it's like when a bunch of seeds are cast into the wind and only a small percentage of those "take" and sprout future seeds. I just find the experience of a poster or piece of art in person to be more genuine. I used to come away from places like Urban Outfitters so frustrated for pop culture and discovery. There's been a nostalgic branding of what is deemed cool and hip. I've come to accept it. I just don't get it and maybe I do when for convenience's sake. Maybe I'm just mellowing out more the older I get with these filters of cool. It's just not worth it in my typically short-changed day to be so concerned with it anymore or even trying. I'd just rather blow holes in my own jeans because I wore them out. Satisfaction guaranteed! ​0​9) "I can't get attached to music as much when it's floating in space. I like having it in my hand." I like going to a museum to see art, not downloading a PDF of it." I'm slowwwly warming up to the idea of the mp3 or movies on demand. I appreciate it but still find it odd and at times very fleeting. It's easier to forget about something when it's downloaded out of thin air and stored in a data bank and there any time you want it like a self-serve drive-thru. I finally got home internet and instant Netflix this year. Really cool and all, but I find that I still don't get too jazzed by it as it is always there waiting. I can see circumstances where vehicle video monitors would come in handy. Though, more and more I see parents switch them on for short distances. We're numbing ourselves straight out the chute. After attending a live musical production recently the parking lot was suddenly illuminated even more by screens on the backs of seats. Are we that bored? Just the other day I saw a truck drive by with a whole batch of little dogs stretching necks to look out. It was quite something and touched me more than most humans do. We don't seem to appreciate the air we breathe or recognize a blue sky unless it's in a Pixar cartoon on the back of the seat in front of us. 10) Almost born at home b/c of a blizzard. Mom had to be transported by a tractor through snow drifts. Hometown: Chillicothe/Wheeling, MO/Farm. Why am I here? What's my purpose? These are questions I've always asked myself. 1979, my birth year, seems like an old world compared to now. I guess a far removal from any day and age has such a haze. Same applies to the melting of a big blizzard. But, as far as I can tell, we're all the same coming in as we are going out. As in, we all get the bite in the same. I'm fascinated by coming into the world. Actually, it perplexes me more than the being here and going out. Maybe because it's a memory that can't be weighed? Why me and why that time and place? Yeah, you can boil it down to a mom and a dad, but there is something more to it. Something kinda freaky-beautiful-mystery. It all adds up to who and what I am now and I still can't make much sense. I'm nobody special, but I was made and I made it and I'm making things to counter react. That's saying something. We've all got something to say. I don't know. Most people seem to go without bothering about this stuff. They just put on their boots and start marking or mucking up their timeline. Not a bad way to go about it, I guess. But, I've always carried this stuff. I guess it lends to why I do as I do and the next guy does as he does? I was in line at Target and the cashier was well "with child" as her stomach hung over the counter and the scanner area. Pregnant women are intimidating, but this was also fascinating. All I could think about was the little thing inside hearing a part-time to full-time parade of "beeps" and "blips" and odd mumblings about prices and products. What a weird thing before you have to come out of the comfort. 11) "Art is my way to communicate what's going on inside.... I don't know if I really believe in cliches, cause their all true. It's like guilty pleasures." For a long time I've felt something inside of me and around me that I've needed to say and I say that with my art. And if it doesn't make much sense to the viewer, then no big deal. If it sounds cliche to the viewer, then good for them. I wasn't blessed with a vocal personality on the outside. I've always adapted more with the back row corner crowd. I don't know, art is my outlet for sharing. It's weird though as I've had social phobia since I was first put around other humans yet spend so much time alone making art that it causes me to have more social problems. But, the art actually helps me. It's a weird world I live in. Eventually, I'd love to do art for a living, but in the end it will never be about that. I will be making art no matter what until my number is up. I don't believe in the term "guilty pleasure" unless it's really affecting your life and others in the process like an addiction to drugs or other activity. If you like the new Katy Perry single because it's catchy pop then so what? Why feel guilty about that? It baffles me that we have to put up precursors of cool to protect and project our cultural DNA. I think there is truth in cliches and at some turn they can become classic. I guess my main beef is when people go for cheap shots, lowest common punches or don't push themselves or their own voice intertwined. But, then again it just depends. I still giggle like a schoolboy when people get punched where it counts in movies. 12) "I'm a believer in God, and I have faith through Him. If anyone is creating, they've gotta believe there's something bigger than all this, whether they believe it's God or not. I've always liked the idea of finding God through childlike eyes, and that I can tap into that through art and discovery." My favorite and most purest of makers are folk artists. There comes a truth in that with the connection to something bigger in their work. They have something to say, are typically prolific and hardworking, art oozes from them. I see a very special kind of balance within to Him. One that is seen worked out through images and the act of creation to help further an understanding and taming. They have to create and say what needs to be said. I'm no folk artist, nor anywhere near, but I find a kinship with these kinds of creators. The way a child creates, looks at the world and plays is vital resource material as well. And not just for an artist, but for everyday living/profession. We should all be more like children. I can't connect with much of the adult world. Even as a child it didn't make sense to me. I was so freaked out about dating and marriage in the first grade. It's sad to me when we get caught up in games that push purity away. I'm no purist or saint. I think we're all tainted at birth. We come out of the cannon and are instantly thrown into the thicket. But, art and looking at things with a spiritual lens just helps me reconnect and see Him a bit clearer. I can't not see Him. Anybody channeling something within to make something on the outside is tapping into something big. There's a reservoir out there that all of our individual reservoirs are connected with. It is there. I'd be another wreck on the highway if it wasn't for my belief in all of this. 13) "I grew up in a very white bread church with no instruments. A lot of artists chuck their childhood or religion to the curb. I'd rather tap into it. You learn a lot of important life-things in your early years." I won't go too far into this, but it's weird when we set man-made restrictions upon the simplest and purest of things like worship. I've never understood that. God can be found in everything and the world isn't painted black and white. Again, this is like putting a microscope to it and staking a one way flag. Stuff like this causes many a more colorful outlook to run. I've never understood how people can just stop being childlike or creative just like those that decide to bury their past. It's kinda like knocking the foundation out of a building. I wouldn't do as I do without those early years. But, I can admire those who can re-invent themselves with what they've built. I love playing Legos. I just find it sad when we chuck things to the curb. But, I can also see why as life and other lives can be pretty darn hard on some folks. 14) "I love the idea of a timeline through my art - to see how I was developing and growing." It's important to have a human identity, to say something of value in art and that goes with anything we're pursuing and leaving behind. And it's neat to see this physically in something like a body of work with art. I look at stuff from years ago, heck, even last week, and think, "Wow, what inspired me to do that? Something was thumping in me and had to come out like that!" I also love how each thing leads up to the next, like marks on a height chart or a traveled map. Everything in life got me to the end of this interview... -djg

[ziracona]

anon that asked about Nov '19 here! thanks for the answer, its amazing how much thought u put into it all!! i also wondered about freddy, since he got to quentin when he fainted in trials, & wasnt able to get him in ur oneshot in annas realm, would quentin have been able to sleep fine at the campfire, or is their realm different? also, freddy was able to influence other killers' dreams right? he couldn't do that in the oneshot i think, so did his powers grow or r there different rules in ILM?

Good questions! And thank you. : )

ILM and Half-Life are based on the same core world system (so is all the DbD stuff I write for myself—although I make small tweaks sometimes from ficlet to ficlet). So, in both Half-Life and ILM, Freddy would be able to get into his dreams for real if he fell asleep in any unprotected realm. This includes the campfire, all trial areas, and some killer areas. The Entity puts up different barriers for different killers (for example, Myers can’t go anywhere and is completely isolated, but Philip could go to the MacMillan Estate, or to see Sally. It’s based on who would kill each other. Evan wouldn’t disobey the Entity, and except for when he doesn’t have amnesia, neither would Philip, so even though they are not friends, it’s not dangerous for them to be in a realm together. Freddy is one of the most dangerous and a loose canon, so he’s blocked—has been stopped—from physically manifesting in any places but his own🤣. The Entity did not know he could kill Quentin for real if he fell asleep at the campfire (Freddy & Quentin didn’t either until he finally fell asleep), or it would have set something in place to make that not happen. The reason for not putting up barriers everywhere is twofold—one, it helps killers go longer if they’re social and allowed some small amount of ability to speak to each other—it doesn’t want all of them completely mad. But also, it’s just energy. A lot of the mistakes the Entity makes are based around being the opposite of the “The Man Who Sleeps With a Machete is a Fool Every Night But One” tweet—it’s like “why would I waste so much energy maintaining safeguards that are literally never challenged? That’s Inefficent. I want to use it for other stuff, and I’m already running a complex system here. Unfortunately for it, that means the one night it would like to be metaphorically sleeping with a machete, it is not. It doesn’t really think about logic the way a human would at all though. Which is great for the humans!

In Half-Life, Quentin is mostly just lucky. Anna is one of the most territorial killers, so she, like Myers and Max, is completely barred from other spaces. This also means that, though in the Entity’s mind it is mostly for their own safety—no killer can get in. The protection is so strong, nothing could even get in enough to alter her dreams (or subsequently, those of anyone with her).

Freddy doesn’t have enough power to kill any other survivor in a dream (right now anyway—he could try to change that I suppose, but it’d take work. His ability to manifest is directly correlated to the strength of the victim’s fear and memories of him. Unfortunately for Quentin, part of what fucked him up/let Freddy get into his dream, was specifically the fear/belief that he would), or to kill another killer, but if he tries hard, can manipulate their nightmares or talk to them that way. He cannot, however, enter Anna’s. Her safe haven is too safe. This is why his interference late in ILM had 0 effect on Anna—he didn’t chose not to try to mess with her, he couldn’t get to her. In ILM when he enters a dream of Quentin’s for the first time, Quentin is “at” Anna’s, but only kind of. Because they’re not actually in Anna’s realm, just a trial that looks like it, unlike in Half-Life, where he makes it to her real home area, and unfortunately, her home base protection doesn’t extend to semi-real trial replicas.

So, sadly for my boy Quentin, in ILM he actually coulda walked over the border to Anna’s and taken a 48 hour coma nap, but the poor kid had 0 way to know that was the case and every reason to expect it wasn’t, so he never found out. There are probably a couple other places he could have fallen asleep too—I haven’t had to know, bc it hasn’t come up, but I for instance expect Legion’s place is specifically anti-Freddy warded, considering their ages (and they were also not influenced or attempted in ILM, unlike Sally, who got Nightmares, and just went >:-[ at them and chose to ignore/get mad instead of listening). Anna’s is actually probably the single “safest” place in the whole damn realm, except from her and the Entity, because the barriers it had to put in place were insanely strong (as Anna is the only killer canonically able to straight up snap the Entity’s connection to her). Thanks for asking! I love talking about realm mechanics. If any of that’s as unclear, lemme know. : )

[gotatext]

claws my way out of the dirt like the goblin i am ..... hello thots, its nora, once again bringing you a revamped version of a muse i played yonks ago n some of u may have even written against... here is her pinterest.....

this is margaret greta, she’s a whole can of trauma spaghetti plastered over with a toothy grin and a lot of dad jokes. the only reason she’s in gifford really is bcos shes been put there as part of a witness protection program cos lots of police r monitoring livingstone so its deemed relatively safe.... haha... anyway she changes major all the time. she started off doing fine art but since then she’s done modules in architecture, film, bio-chemistry and is now dabbling in medicine. 

CIS-FEMALE — ever hear people say GRETA O’DRISCOLL looks a lot like DIANA SILVERS? I think SHE is about 21, so it doesn’t really work. The MEDICINE major is a SOPHOMORE that is from DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA. They can be +CHARMING, but they can also be -EVASIVE. I think GEE might be SHEEP. They are living in YATES. ( nora. 23. gmt. she/her )

this bitch is the most restless creature u ever seen. before she came to livingstone, she’d lived in 8 different cities in 3 years. 

was adopted as an infant. had two foster moms and two older sisters so always surrounded by women. lived in a boarding house, very much like the one in 20th century women, with lodgers coming in and out all the time, mostly artsy young women because her gay moms were both high school teachers trying to set up their own arts collective. one of her moms left when she was 4, n she doesn’t really remember her.

while living with entirely women made her super into catlin moran and the guilty feminist, as a teenager she often let boys walk all over her bc she just craved male attention jst bcos she’d never really experienced it. saw it as something aspirational, like sitting in the back of chad’s second-hand truck while he drove you to macdonalds and offered you and his five friends with identical haircuts weed was the height of being cool to greta, she wanted to be their dream girl, even if it meant compromising her beliefs

bubbly bitch but also massive snake. metaphorically and literally, always shedding her skin. loyal to few, ruled by none, out for herself, babey!! every place she goes, she becomes a new character, someone who’s a figment of her imagination, as if each city is repertory theatre and she’s a character actress, so as a result som ppl think she’s called rita, some ppl know her as margot, she just flicks through identities like nobodies business.

goes through phases of being intensely feminist and tweeting “men are trash i don’t need them” before flipping into being lonely and needy n wanting male attention again. tends to gravitate towards men who are just pieces of shit tbh like her friends are always like hun.... pick a nice boy..... but no.... she’ll go for the boxer with several arrest records for gbh or the small-town drug dealer just trying to hook her onto pills for a little extra cash, or the reformed sinner who thinks he’s being protective by reading all her texts and always knowing where she is..... n she always finds a way to spin it so that they Just Care About Her and aren’t a p.o.s 

left school at 18 n didn’t go to uni, moved in w her boyfriend of the time instead, but soon got bored, n then went backpacking around the states making money in the casinos by being a shot girl (yeehaw) and trying to make it as a mysterious 1920s widow with a smoky voice, a dark secret n a heart of gold, looking for love in the big city. all she found was producers and acting agents who’d promise her stardom n actually just fuck her in a motel n then ignore her calls.

TW domestic violence, TW gun, her watershed moment came when she met luke in sioux falls while she was playing bass for a country n blues band. he was a few years older and had a car, and they kind of went from seeing each other to being that super intense couple who are just necking all the time. 

they got engaged like 3 months after they met n rented a flat together, much to her family’s annoyance but she was 19 so there wasn’t much they could do. their relationship was super super intense though, often really heightened and when they fought it could become quite violent, but she’d pass it off as just him being really passionate. 

one of their fights got really heated and greta threatened him with the gun he kept in the glove box of his vauxhall corsa, but the safety was off and she accidentally shot him. she pleaded self defence in the trial n cos of the amount of times she’d been hospitalised for various concussions n things like ‘fallling down the stairs’ the police were like yea... pretty watertight evidence that he was a bastard who [chicago voice] had it coming..... also this happened in 2017, he was mixed race and greta is white so naturally the police totally took her side. she’s now under witness protection, rehoused in livingstone as a sports-scholarship student, due to the amount of police involvement in the area, it would mean should one of luke’s family members try to track her down, she’d be relatively safe

 massive sports fanatic. plays tennis. on the cheer team. was a track superstar in her high school. honestly just that sporty bitch, you’ll see her doing lines at a party at half four and then on your way to your 9am lecture you see her running across the park like a fresh fucking daisy who is this bitch

pretty easy to get along with (provided you don’t anger, provoke or question her too much) because she WANTS your character to be enthralled by her and will do whatever it takes to win them over. she wants everyone to love her

is That Girl who always knows where the parties are, and is always there, on the sofa, talking about institutionalised racism and trying to coerce you into a game of beer pong that she’ll definitely win. doesn’t really have one solid group of friends, just kind of on good terms with everyone and social butterflies about

has changed her major so many times. decision? who is she. currently studying medicine, but doesn’t rlly enjoy it. she’s very unmotivated and lazy and probably wouldn’t ahve bothered going to uni if she hadn’t been placed in one by a witness protection program. will probably change on to history or gender studies soon n just make up the extra credits by volunteering

 massive feminist. low key quite scared of powerful men bcos of her ex. wants to start a female only lesbian commune bc she misses her childhood in a south dakota boarding house and has endless support for women. honestly annoyed that she is attracted to men, would so be 100% gay if it was a choice. cuffs her jeans and can’t drive. is That bisexual. skateboards. wears backwards caps.  i hate her

plays bass guitar, has a teal green fender and it is her BABY. it’s covered in stickers about saving the planet and ending fracking and going vegan. she’s in an all-female punk band w agnes (n mayb jade i think) n they play gigs every now n then in grotty club basements full of druggy sweaty college kids

PERSONALITY: easy-going, sociable, observant, blunt, amiable, nihilistic, self-serving, laid back, independent, unmotivated, charming, lazy, impulsive, alluring. ESTP and a leo

LIKES: art, music, john wayne movies, black mirror, philosophy,  cowboy chic culture, DC comics, arcade games, candyfloss, deep red lipstick, marijuana, dogs, karaoke, Kate Moss, late-night strolls, zip-lining, chemistry, suspenders, cigarettes, herbal tea, gallows humour, cold coffee, long showers, brown eyes, tchaikovsky, dr. seuss, boiler house DJ sets, magnolias, decorative lamps, worn-out furniture, twangy electric guitars.

DISLIKES: bananas, coffee, Woody Allen, mental mathematics, children, Trump, institutionalised misogyny, the imaginary future, french literature, Wes Anderson films, spoken word poetry, the general mentality of cheerleading squads (despite being on one)

aesthetics:

a bubble of pink gum on chapped lips, mom jeans, a beaten up pair of adidas, denim jackets, strawberry laces, knee-highs, chapped lips, peeling sticky plasters, split knuckles, bruises you try to cover with concealer, stick and poke tattoos, hot coffee, sleep caught in your eyes on a lazy afternoon, kissing girls, cigarette smoke shrouding you like a veil, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, the red string of a thong peaking out purposely from jeans, leonine arch of your back and that stellar smile that says ‘you have no idea who you’re dealing with’, a rucksack permanently packed for the move, a streak of red across your lips, roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your mom wouldn’t take you, kate moss posters lining the walls of a teenage bedroom, his name scrawled in rage across the pages of a diary, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes. 

wanted plots: since greta literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships, and girls from the cheer team who she’s like, weirdly intimate with like the shower together but its not a Thing cos the other girls straight, and I want like, fellow medicine students who are like?? how is this bitch still passing?? i swear she goes out every night?? she works part time at a fast food restaurant, i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry. ppl she did a few modules with before changing course and somehow sort of remaining in touch with, like she did a few art modules, a bit of film, n some architecture before switching to medicine, though she’ll probs switch course again soon. ppl who she runs track with. someone she’s trying to make a zine with. here’s a list of plots on her old blog if u want any of them w her.

would love plots of any type, throw them all at me please, i cnt wait to interact w all of u. like this if u want me to message you about connections / plots! xo

full biography if u can be bothered

trigger warnings: drugs, domestic abuse, gun.

you never meant for it to happen. you’d heard the stories, of girls who let their man walk all over them, and thought to yourself “i’ll never be one of those girls…” the kind that eat low-fat yoghurt and drink slim fast to shred a few extra pounds because he said she was getting round in the tummy, or the ones who spent their evenings tied to a kitchen sink drinking wine while him and the boys played poker, wishing god, if only I could get out of here. not you, not you raised by strong women, four bright shining beacons. single mother with her hard-as-nails attitude and her stony glares, elder sisters (twins) one ginger, one blonde, one doctor, one lawyer, both determined to take a bullet to the brain and a hammer to the patriarchy before they let a man touch them without asking. you were always so inferior, so insecure and small, like a bird (like a sparrow) with blonde plaits down your back sucking tropicana whilst your busom buds sucked dick, their lips permanently ripe with stories of their sexual exploits, fake tan and glittered nails whilst you sat in the unbroken egg of virginity wondering what it was like to be loved. one day you found out.

lily milligan’s parents gone and a free house for the night, bottles of ouzo and tequila swiped from your mother’s liquor cabinet thinking she wouldn’t know (she always knew) your legs, hardened from pep squad, slut dropping on a kitchen table because the boys thought it would be fun to get the quiet girl drunk. you’d never had a sip before that night. band t-shirts, denim shorts and the split soles of rotten converse that you refuse to let go of, you still clutched with both hands to your youth, but in a tube top now (borrowed from alice carmichael who had a sister in college) and a short tennis skirt, your feet not in trainers but in thigh-high boots. uncomfy as hell but lily said you needed to look sexy. you didn’t know if you wanted to be sexy. you didn’t know what kind of girl you were, if you were even a girl at all. but robbie looked at you like he knew exactly who you were, like he knew you better than you knew yourself, and his lips had the pink cupid’s bow of a movie star, and his hair was dark locks, curling like a mane. his hands were soft, and suddenly on your waist, and after three more shots his lips were on yours and his name was the only sound in your head and on your lips as you lost it in lily’s college sister’s bedroom beneath the glare of a T-Pain poster. you bled for what seemed like hours, his hand still in yours, kissing on the sofa as truth tellers and dare devils continued to spin a bottle of unprecedented youth. you thought it was love. robbie was the one. he loved you, you knew it, how else could someone be so soft? but soon he grew bored, scrunched up your paper heart and set it alight. then came the tears, the hatred, the ‘fuck robbie, in fact, fuck all boys.’ and that you did.

you were known for being easy. any boy could be yours for a night, as long as he promised to love you for those few short breaths and pants before you cried yourself to sleep. you felt poisoned, but poisonous as well, as if by ensnaring these young boys you were gaining power over them, and not the other way around. soon it started to work. they’d want more, but you’d deny them it, sick of sucking off silly schoolboys, they’d call you a tease, a vixen. maybe you were, but you couldn’t help but want older men. you got the history teacher first time, him bending you over his desk to sneak a hand up your tennis skirt as the after-school clubs carried on next door, unawares. love didn’t exist, not for you. it was nothing but a game for pretty young girls to play, bubble gum in their canines and a hand tugging at the hem of their cheer skirt.

there was so much anger inside of your small body, ‘beware of boys and their hook-like words’. hockey helped. there was something formidable about the feeling of a stick like a weapon in your hands and the thwack it made against thighs in the heat of a scrum - “slipped, sorry!” - you’d utter with a snakeskin smile, millicent quinn knowing that you’d hit her on purpose because she shagged robbie at that party last week. she couldn’t prove it, cobbled acne on her forehead turning green with disgust. ben came into your life like a car crash. two years your senior, with a baseball jacket and shoulders like a god. he became your personal hero. on the pitch, he was lethal. together, you could bring anyone to their ruin. each day after last period he’d be waiting in his car. you’d leap into his arms like a girl-half starved, love me, love me, love me, your heated kisses the envy of every junior girl. he was yours for three blissful years, utterly yours, and you were his, his star-spangled girl, and he was your knight - you were both the same, playing games, always difficult to predict. it was a shock to all when he proposed, high-school sweethearts find love in south dakota.

the engagement was a bittersweet affair; three months – you barely out of your gingham print skirts and into a graduation gown, him, a surly quarterback towering above your sisters, cigarette at his lips and a scowl like a fart in a lift. they hated him. so did you. but you were eighteen and in love, and he fitted the cookie cutter mould. everyone wanted him, and you had him. you had him and you were happy, happy, happy, and he loved you. he said he’d give you the world, anything you wanted hand-picked and given to you. instead, he gave you a jack russell terrier and a flat you couldn’t swing a cat in, wallpaper peeling like the rotten bits inside of you, the bits that only he knew. and you got tireder and tireder of the sad excuse of a life he’d picked out for you, him out doing god knows what to pay the bills, and you dancing on tables to pave your way to stardom, and this was love, this was real, until the shine wore off and your fresh-faced, dimple-cheeked cheerleader facade faded and the ugliness started to reveal itself, the whining, the petulance, the sharp-tempered cruelty, the mind games, the need to always win, win, win. he was dull, he was boring, he was nothing like the boy the girls had said he was and no chiselled six pack could hide his lack of anything remotely interesting, your patience wearing thin until it snapped like rubber, a rucksack on your back, running shoes on your feet and the joint bank account emptied into your eighth grade birthday wallet.

you built your small fortunes working the casinos of sioux falls, a crimson dress and an attitude to match. bookish archie with his little dipper freckles was fun for a month, before he became just as dull and dreary as the rest. a three hour bus and you were in minneapolis, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh meat ready for the pickings. a hostel here, a friendly co-worker’s sofa there as you made what you could by taking off your clothes and shaking your ass like you were back in pep squad, doing what you did best. you met your fair share of creeps, and soon it was back on the road to escape a wide-eyed stalker and a restless itch for more. milwaukee, chicago, you made the roads your own. log cabins and lodgings, and the occasional motel, a beaten up pick up truck purchased at a scrap merchants – you got a few miles out of it before it bit the dust, and when you finally set it alight after nights spent lounging across the driver’s seat, a parka tucked over you as a duvet, you were sad to see it go. you’re nomadic by fault, never attaching to place, people or things, creating a new personality in every place you go like a character actress; each town is a different repertory theatre, and you’re the star. a compulsive liar, you even fib about your own name, to some you’re ellen, nineteen, bookish, a law student who likes smoking and cosmos. to someone else you’re rita, you’re twenty five and look young for your age, like smoking, comics and fucking in public places.

in the bright lights of michigan, you found charlie, sweet charlie, too good for you, though you let him spoil you while he thought you were the small town girl of his dreams. next came abigail, who was fun until the jealously kicked in, and then luke, gorgeous luke, dangerous, exciting, who despite his temper, despite the fights, despite bruises down your spine and your teeth marks on his arms, loved you with the strength of a wild fire. there was destruction in your wishbones, a savageness from the field, from the pitch and now somehow in his arms, you were godly. he was cruel, he was careless, and he refused to fall at your feet like so many other boys had, which only you made you want him all the more. you were rage incarnate. you hated him so fiercely you thought you might kill him, so he played the only card you wouldn’t predict; proposed.

the house you shared was a backstreet flat in detroit, you making your name as a downtown singer while he footed the bill with pills. they had a drug for anything these days, to dull the senses, to pick them up, to drive you to insanity or pull you out of the madness hole. the two of you lived like criminals on the run (you never told him that you were, living out your days as the enigma he wanted you to be), you with your voice like caramel and fishnet legs. you were his and his alone until his hand was at your throat and the gun was in your hands screaming at him to stop, stop, stop, until a bullet stoppered his brain, crimson staining linoleum as you cast yourself out like lucifer. self defence was decreed the moment they saw your violet neck, black tears and headlight eyes and mind screaming red, red, red like the pom-poms you shook so willingly in school and the insides of his skull. you were gone, and “you” was born, renamed “greta”, boxed, shipped-out, and next-day delivered to livingstone where under witness protection you were a student, blank slate, fresh-faced in a place where no one knew your name, doing what you always did and starting again.