#to flesh out the world or the other characters

[dalishious]

(I can’t believe I finished this so fast… I basically blacked out and then it was done lol… Anyway, please remember that this is all just my personal opinion, and if you feel differently, that’s fine!)

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review

Objectively speaking, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a fun game that the average player is going to enjoy, especially if that average player is coming in without any prior knowledge to the Dragon Age franchise. I believe this is a good jumping-in spot for people who are curious about the world of Thedas. But in contrast, I have seen a lot of criticism from other hard-core fans that I largely agree with. However, it just so happens that most of the criticism I have is not enough to prevent me from overall enjoying the game. That is to say, for pretty much everything I did not like, there was also something I thought was great… Unfortunately, that makes it a little difficult to give a review. So, I’m going to do my best to keep things as clear and concise as possible by splitting up the “good” and the “bad” aspects of DATV.

The Positive

The best thing to come out of DATV is the new cast of characters that make up your companions and supporting associates. While I do think that some of them could have benefitted from more development time to flesh things out further, just judging what we ended up with, is mostly great. I especially found Emmrich and Bellara to be stand-out examples of strong personalities to grasp onto, whose personal stories really touched me in an emotional way.

DATV also has fun with some returning characters. For example, now that Solas is no longer hiding his identity, we get to see a character that both believably honours his part in Inquisition, while also providing a new, refreshing side to him. There are also a number of characters introduced in Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights that appear in the game, like my personal favourites Teia and Viago, who are an absolute delight to interact with!

I think the three act structure is good, albeit with act three being quite short. There are a few sequences that are an absolutely phenomenal mixture of storytelling and engaging gameplay, like all of Weisshaupt! I also really enjoyed stepping out of the main story every once and a while, and into Solas’s backstory through the Crossroads memories – what ended up being extra special about these is how they mirror Rook’s struggle so well, by the end. They are a nice touch.

The locations are beautifully constructed with smooth interactions of climbing, zip-lining, and essentially parkouring your way around, making them fun to explore! They also came with such distinct flavours and character in themselves that influenced a sense of truly experiencing different parts of Thedas, with different cultures.

The mechanic of building up strength with the different factions, and that actually having a huge impact with the ultimate showdown in the end of the game, makes side quests feel far less inconsequential than in Dragon Age: Inquisition by comparison. That, and they number far less.

I like that the story mode actually feels like a story mode; there were only a couple instances where I really had to worry about death, and even then, I was able to just toggle off the death with the customizable gameplay mechanics and continue on.

Finally, it would be remiss not to say that the character creator for DATV is the best BioWare has ever put out. I’d go as far as saying it’s one of the best in any RPG I’ve ever personally experienced. From the flexibility in morphing a character’s head and body between custom shapes, to the little details like sclera colour, vitiligo, and top surgery scars, makes it a shining example of what RPG’s should strive for. (My only critique here is that it would have been nice to have more skin colours.)

The Neutral

I hated the combat for pretty much the entire first act of the game. I found it too hard to keep up with, and too much like Mass Effect bullshit. I can’t say that it’s completely grown on me yet, but I don’t hate it anymore. It’s fine. So, I’m giving this a special little spot before I get into what I didn’t like all the way to the end.

The Negative

As mentioned above, I do think that there is more that could be done with some of the characters to really achieve their full potential. Davrin and Lucanis—while to be clear I still really enjoy as they are—come to mind first, in terms of those who would have benefited from more development time. Most of Davrin’s screen time just revolves around Assan rather than Davrin himself, and Lucanis is so restrained that it takes a while to really crack him open. Both of these characters have intentional personalities that make them harder to get to know, I understand that, but I feel that it would have been all the more rewarding to have more time dedicated to their company after earning their trust and possibly endearment. Instead, it feels like their romance and friendship with Rook are only half-complete, and then rushed to finish.

There are some companion interactions that are just… cringe. There is no other word for it. Now, this is nothing new for BioWare games, but I feel like the “pulling a Bharv” scene for example, was hitting an entirely new low. (If someone misgendered me and then just started doing push-ups instead of just saying “hey sorry about that, I’ll try to do better” I’d be annoyed, not satisfied.) I also felt like most of the temporary rivalries between companions were artificial in nature, rather than organically part of their characters that actually served a purpose. We already knew Emmrich likes books and Harding likes nature; we did not need a whole cutscene with them bickering about camping. (The exception to this is Davrin and Lucanis, who genuinely had room to grow as people out of their multiple confrontations, not just a one-off scene.)

The music in DATV is, for the most part, forgettable and bland. There is one piece that really stands out, and that’s “Where the Dead Must Go”, which is a real banger. I am not a fan of Hans Zimmer’s OST otherwise; I think it is phoned in, just like most of his work. I deeply wish BioWare would have just stuck with Trevor Morris. The best parts musically in this game are just Morris’s work re-used from Dragon Age: Inquisition.

There are certain parts of disjointedness that separates DATV from the past games that are just… bizarre. This is especially the case when it comes to elven lore. For example, Bellara saying she is afraid that elves will be harshly judged for the Evanrus, or Harding saying that elves are “thriving”… as if modern elves are not deeply persecuted across most of Thedas. It made me question more than once if there just was not time in development to do a proper canon-compliancy check with everything, perhaps?

I want finish this part by bringing up again that the biggest flaw in DATV is that it feels very corporate. To repeat what I said in this post: It is as if a computer ran through the game’s script and got rid of anything with “too much” political substance, in an overcorrection to be “safe”. But now that the edges have been so smoothed down to make a block into a ball, it can no longer support anything.

Conclusion

It’s easy to see a lot of creativity went into the creation of this game… but it is also easy to make assumptions on how that creativity was constrained by development hell and corporate oversight. In the end though, Dragon Age: The Veilguard succeeded in being an overall good time, one that I will no doubt be putting just as many countless hours into as the previous installments in the franchise. 7/10.

[hellincarnation]

A Possible Theory on Why Some Fandoms Are More Popular And Long Lasting Than Others

So i was thinking the other day, why the hell are some book/movie/game/etc fandoms lasting for 50+ years and others die in a year?

I was comparing some of my favourite fandoms, the Percy Jackson fandom and the Harry Potter fandom and what I noticed and discovered is to make a good fan base, you HAVE to create a good organisation in your story/game/movie/book etc.

What do I mean?

In Percy Jackson for example, we have our main character’s home base. Camp Half Blood. It’s developed in the background throughout the whole series, there is a companion book on the Camp itself, and the whole area is relatively fleshed out and utilised throughout the whole series. It’s described in detail, there are official maps released, people love the camp.

In Harry Potter, we have, of course, Hogwarts. It’s by far more developed than Camp Half Blood, with detailed classes, architecture, art, story, lore, founders. And our main characters spend majority of their time in the building itself. Hell, even the villains of the story used to attend Hogwarts

Why does this matter? Why does world building matter?

Aha. Here’s my hook. Fandoms stay alive as long as fans stay connected to the community. And how else to develop the strongest connection possible than fans being able to build their own original characters or ocs and imagine they’re in the story?

Human imagination is a powerful thing, as soon as they have a world (Hogwarts and Camp Half blood) to build off of, they can create their own characters and imagine more stories building off the Canon to keep their love for the universe alive.

This is why role play communities are so popular, in addition to having your original character and developing a story for them, having a community to showcase and use your character greatly increases your attachment to this community.

Once you make your fans feel like they are part of your world, it’s the strongest connection. Because by default, humans are selfish, they feel more close to something if it’s like they have involvement in it.

Characters VS World Building.

It’s the age old question, what’s more important?

Neither.

No one is more important than the other, it’s just a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish.

With focusing on world building, you almost confirmed yourself a space for your fans to imagine themselves in. And you can have a lot of fun with world building! Creating your own original words, terms and concepts. Your own take on real world events and items and applying it to your story.

However you can’t focus on both so your characters might need to be limit to 2-3 main ones, to balance out your complex and intricate world.

With focusing on characters, you build yourself loyalty based on attachment to characters. This may not yield as much original characters/fan led creation as focusing on world building, but the perks are your characters explode into main stream. Art will be drawn of them, fanfictions will be written about them, headcanons, adaptations etc. By pouring effort into your characters, you create deep and meaningful bonds with specific characters that people will remember.

Maybe 10 years down the line, your fans may not remember everything about the story, or the environment or the world you created, but they will look back one day and go “Good lord, that was an AMAZING character that I still love to this day.” And that’s amazing for you.

This is exactly the case with Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. In my opinion, Hogwarts is wildly more developed than Camp Half Blood for obvious reasons. Hogwarts is a school and CHB is a homebase. Most of the time PJO characters are on quests away form their home base but HP characters are almost always in Hogwarts.

So how do you world build?

1. Of course create your organisation, base it off maybe a real life historical organisation with your own twist.

2. Build a rich and complex backstory, with specific historical figures that contributed to the creation of your organisation.

3. Build ROLES. Build divisions and department in your organisation. Think houses in Hogwarts and cabins in Camp Half Blood. Build specific roles your fans can imagine themselves as. Prefect, Head Girl/Boy, Head Counsellor.

4. Describe describe describe. You have all this amazing lore in your arsenal, now weave and intertwine your characters with them. Make your characters attached to the organisation and want to protect it. Mix your plot and story with it, make it so your organisation MATTERS to the story.

TL;DR

World building is hella important.

Heyyy, this isn’t proofread. Reblog or like if you enjoyed it. Or don’t.

Tags: ask to be added or removed

@lovely-rants-alot @shinchansbitch @jeahreading @totally-not-castor @unhinged-as-hell @sunshinerainbowsandlollipops @zeherili-ankhein @cafffeineconnoisseur @schrodinger-ka-billa @mireyaaaaaaaaa @your-dazzling-sun @daonedaonlyskh @iamgayforyourmom1510 @the-lying-heavens @abyssmita @mentallyunstablequeen101 @debacleofdaemons

[dust-jacket-analysis]

There's a reason why BakuDeku and Togachako have better writing in My Hero Academia than Izuocha. Spoilers ahead.

As I said last post, My Hero was never a romance anime. It was A Shonen Anime, with action at the forefront. It had social commentary on government flaws and Discriminatory Social systems. Everything is second to that, prioritized after all of that and Deku's personal journey as the protagonist.

Romance was never going to be the forefront of this series. It's prioritized in fandom spaces, because shipping usually is. It always will be. So people who think it's weird or cringe should get used to it if they want to interact with fandom spaces.

All of that said, Izuocha was never going to be as well written as the other ships as a result. Because while it only serves to flesh out both characters, the other two dynamics help bring forth one of My Hero's main themes: It's discriminatory social system.

The way quirks are used to determine a persons worth is always going to be inherently discriminatory. BakuDeku gives us a surface level look at that. Deku doesn't have a quirk, period. So on a "social hierarchy" based on quirks, he'd be at the bottom. With someone like Bakugou, a flashy and strong quirk, would be at the top.

We see Bakugou bully Deku seemingly because he has no quirk. I know there's more nuance added to their dynamic and why Bakugou was a bully later in the series, but in beginning this dynamic helps the audience grasp the social system of this world. Quirks good, no quirks bad.

With Togachako, we get a more deep dive of quirk discrimination. We see it isn't as simple as No quirk bad. It's some quirks are good, some quirks are evil and villainous, and no quirk bad. With a lot of discrimination towards the physically different quirk users. It's displayed to us throughout the series, but Toga's storyline puts it front and center too the audience. And Through Ochako's own understanding, the audience can also begin to see the deep rooted problems with quirk discrimination.

Both of these ships play an important role in portraying, explaining, and exploring quirk discrimination in the My Hero society. Which, as I've said over and over is a main theme of My Hero. So naturally they're much more fleshed out than the canon romantic ship Izuocha. This isn't to diminish that ship. It plays an important role in both characters stories and is just as valid as the others. But Horikoshi is always going to prioritize the themes of the story above all else, as most writers tend to do.

[sonic-au-collision]

SONIC AU COLLISION: ROUND 2

click to see full image

Sonic Ghost Hunters AU belongs to @sharks3ye

Heart of Chaos belongs to @hyper-cryptic [link to masterpost]

Explore each world below the cut!

Sonic Ghost Hunters AU:

Just as the title suggests, their entire thing is about hunting ghosts! The world was somewhat rebuilt to be a bigger focus on paranormal rather than how sonic's original universe would be. Changed to be more realistic than not — having powers isn't normal.

Sonic got involved initially for simply the thrill of it, Tails is there mostly to make sure he doesn't die or something and knuckles was essentially bullied into joining. Amy barges in later as a news reporter after finding out about them. They all thought of her as a nuisance for a long time before she officially joined the gang (Sonic and her still bicker to this day).

And yes many other characters also are too involved n stuff its not jst these 4 (人^з^)-☆

Heart of Chaos:

Heart of Chaos AU is formed around a prophecy made by Tikal, one about a hero that can balance peace and chaos, who will be accompanied by an equidna warrior that will treat them like kin. This au idea is based on the super sonic mural :]

Of this prophecy comes out Sonic, later renamed to Spikes, years later after Tikal's wish. The Master Emerald itself taking the form of a new life, a being of chaos energy and flesh. Spikes is ""born"" in a hidden chao garden in Angel Island, and is taken care of by Tikal's spirit, as she is connected to Spikes, but so is Chaos. Later, around when Spikes is 4yr, she entraps herself with Chaos in the chao garden's pond so that Chaos possibly create a doomsday even using Spikes' body. The pond becomes frozen solid where not even the hottest summers can melt it.

Once Knuckles and Spikes meet, when he is around 10 years old, this kickstarts the journey back to Angel Island, which gets rudely interrupted by Eggman releasing Chaos, and SA1 events happen. This is where Tikal and Spikes get reunited once again and she tells both Spikes and Knuckles in-depth about the prophecy and the war. She informs them the great danger that Spikes and everyone in Mobius is: if Spikes' chaos energy were to become unbalanced, it would corrupt itself, the chaos emeralds and everything in it's path, causing the destruction of Mobius itself as it would transform Spikes into an almost unrecognizable version of himself: Dark Spikes.

This is where I start jumping around the timeline and doing my own fun stuff with this concept.

Three important arcs in Heart of Chaos are SA2, Sonic 06, ShTH and particularly Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Forces. :>

[cripplecharacters]

I've been working on a world since 2019 and a few characters have had disability aides that are, like, full arms (haven't done legs yet for some reason, maybe because i drew a Lot of halfbody things for a while) but i have a dilemma that I'd like some advice on

so when a character is amputated/born missing a limb in my world they can choose to keep the amputation as is, or choose to get a 'robot arm' for lack of a better term. they aren't very advanced in technology in the usual way, but everything is kind of shifted to the left. it's been thousands of years and VHS players survived, but the video output hasn't, so now they have reprogrammed them to connect to lazers that show on the top of the box. they also tried cars (a very safe model that ran on water) but stopped once a couple died in a crash. they like pick and choose what they work on i guess

but! the disability part of this is: would it be alright if i have them create a synthetic limb that connects to their nerves (a VERY careful process) so it can still act like an abled limb, or would this just br a cop-out 'magic robot arm that is just like the flesh arm'? there are also alternatives to the ability aides as well; someone can get extremely tall mantis-like legs or get special made claws or whatever makes the person happy. i have a character i always think about with this since she's a tattoo artist that was born with her left arm amputated from the shoulder. so she could use the 'robot arm' to do the tattooing and use her other hand to hold the client still and move them around, but i don't want it to be the 'magic limb' thing again

if this is way too wordy you are more than welcome to tell me to try again, i am sorry, i just want to make sure everything is on the table and makes sense. hope you're having a lovely day/night!

Hello, thank you for your ask!

Note while we don’t have any amputee mods, I live with metal implants and will draw from that lived experience.

If you were to have a prosthetic limb be able to act just like a natural limb, it would fall into the ‘perfect prosthetic’ trope. This kind of character design isn’t disability representation, it’s just for the sake of aesthetic. Here are posts we’ve reblogged on the subject by amputees, I’d recommend looking at them [link] [same post but video format] [link]. These posts go much more into living with prosthetics, what to think about when making an amputee character and tropes to avoid that I ever could. If you really want the cool aesthetic of having a human with awesome robot parts, make an android/robot instead! You get all the cool visuals without peddling myths about disabled people that a surprising amount of people really believe.

As for having a character with an arm prosthetic that’s a tattoo machine, I think it’s fine! I’ve seen real world examples of that exact thing [link]. Just know it won’t act as a hand holding a tattoo machine, it’ll be stiff and to adjust the angle your character will either move their arm or manually adjust with their hand.

There is real world work on making prosthetics that connect to nerves, so I’ll talk about that as well. In previous posts we’ve talked about how most arm amputees don’t like wearing prosthetics since they tend to be heavy, uncomfortable and difficult to use, and that’s especially true for mechanical prosthetics. This article on the subject [link] [video that goes a bit more into it] shows a real world example of exactly the kind of prosthetic you’re talking about, though notably with zero feedback from the people who have one. It briefly touches on how the weight may be uncomfortable, how it needs frequent readjustments and practice from both the technicians and amputee to do things like pick up a block, and how the nerve sensors in it are dull, but I imagine that’s only a small bit of the real story. From personal experience, once a nerve is severed it is extremely difficult to ‘wake it up,’ and in some cases may be impossible. It took months of physical and occupational therapy for me to get back small motions and any physical sensation, and for a long time after that what I could feel changed from nothing to either dull, buzzy discomfort or electrical pain. Not to mention the metal implanted in the person for it to work would hurt [plus these kinds of prosthetic implants that go into the bone have a high failure rate due to the very increased risk of getting an infection, as the implant is both inside and outside the body]. If it gets too cold, if the air pressure changes, and just sometimes randomly metal implants become painful, and I’ve yet to meet anyone with implants with a different experience.

Essentially, using this kind of prosthetic would be extremely difficult and would also be painful and uncomfortable, and any character with one would need to be very dedicated, not to mention have a lot of spare time to dedicate to learning to use it and money to afford it, it’s surgeries and the frequent appointments to get it to work.

I hope this helps!

Mod Rot

[lady-menrva]

It turns out that I'm pretty foolhardy, so here we have a fleshed-out critique of PJO! Percy:

Characterization:

Let's start with his flaws. As I've mentioned. before, PJO!Percy has a rather small set of flaws which are quite inconsistent in nature, or played for shits and giggles.

For eg- his 'silliness' is just a gag. He's quite practical in normal (that's a relative term) situations. Similarly his recklessness is invoked largely to move the plot along. Percy, in general, is actually really calculating, and a good planner. As for the fatal flaw, even the diehard Percy stans would agree it was an informed flaw for telling', and never quite made it to 'show'. The protagonist having actual flaws? Ho!that's writer's sin. /s

Arc & Development:-

When speaking of development, it's vital to remember that many factors like impact and weightage need to be considered. Anyways, development can occur in 2 main ways: (This is a very simplified explanation of course)

Intrinsic- A change in core personality traits.

Extrinsic- A change in worldview, goals, ambitions etc.

Both of these types tend to go hand-in-hand & influence each other.

The intrinsic part is easy to argue- Percy, at his core, does not ot show a change proportionate to his role as the primary lead. Changes in his personality are rather imperceptible. He remains rather static in this regard with regards to the page time & scope he had, which is important context.

As for the extrinsic part, things become a little moce tricky, as we have a semblance of extrinsic development:

You could argue that "All titans are not bad" is an important shift. On paper, certainly. But the way it was executed ruins a lot more than it fixes. (One word: Calypso.) Honestly, even if we ignore all my mythological context (not recommended) her interaction with percy was certainly very manipulative and a had an unnerving undertone to it.

"Oh, I supported the Titans because they were family" doesn't quite cut it, Calypso.

Even if we overlook this issue, I believe Percy's new found shift in world view should've had a greater focus. It should've influenced his thoughts(for example: made him wonder if he was acting for the greater good, or the lesser evil) & since that doesn't happen, this part seems anti climatic.

Now, moving on to the character arc analysis, i'd like to start with the opinion that his arc was more similar to wish-fulfilment than anything. I chalk this up to the opinion that his development was weak; to ensure that a character arc is noteworthy, development is very important.

To clarify this let's take a look at Meg & lester from ToA:On a surface level, Both of them mirror Percy's 'underdog to hero' journey. Yet the pivotal difference between the three is that the former two receive development leaps and bounds more than PJO!Percy, which is proportionate to their role in the narrative as protagonists.

Conflict of Interest:

I think that the overarching reason as to why Percy's character fell short is a conflict of interest between PJO's narrative, & Percy's existence as a character of his own. In my opinion the narrative's purpose (and Rick's wish) was to create of the perfect self-insert, a vessel so well- crafted that the reader feels the story in more than one way. As a result, Percy becomes a glorious self-isert - a charming hero, a journey of wish-fulfilment. Unfortunately, his own character remains in the background, with countable moments of true depth. A good vessel, after all, needs to be atleast somewhat hollow for use (i.e self-projection)

@cynicalclairvoyantcadaver a Percy critque

[ebenelephant]

@yummycookies233 Sorry that it has taken me several days to get back to you. Buckle up.

Okay so the basic premise is this: Sam and Dean got drunk and hooked up, probably when Sam was about twenty (yk how he says in canon that it's been two years since they've spoken even though he's on the 4th year of his course? yeah); both of them are disgusted at themselves and spiral in a variety of really unhealthy ways for several years, cutting of each other, their dad, and in Dean's case basically everyone who's ever known him; main action takes place close to present day, I'm thinking maybe in 2019 since that would be Dean's 40th, when John, now an old man who they both occasionally call, strolls in and says that he doesn't want to die with sons that hate each other, especially since he still doesn't know why, and especially especially since he's been playing messenger pigeon for the last 5 years and they both obviously want to know what's going on with the other. We're assuming that at some point in the background to all of this, John killed Azazel and restlessly retired – I'm ignoring every plotline after that because I simply don't want to consider them.

Dean will be the central character because all things considered, Sam has actually managed to pull his life together. Sure, there's that constant feeling of guilt gnawing away at him 24/7, but he's got a wife (Jess) a kid (not Jess's, product of said spiralling, much loved) and a job he's good at. Dean, by contrast, hit rock bottom at twenty-five and scraped his belly along the floor for the next decade. I think he decided to be a firefighter like he wanted to as a kid, partly because he genuinely wants to save people (and has a massive complex about it) and partly because it's an easy out. No one is surprised when a fireman dies on the job. He never stays at a place long, going through five firehouses in those first ten years and refusing to put down roots or make connections – you could hardly call him reserved, but after he leaves people tend to notice that they never actually knew anything meaningful about him. Captains are always sceptical to take him, but no one can deny that he's excellent at the job.

By the time he gets to the 118, he's sort of trying to turn himself around. His goal at AA isn't to cut out alcohol entirely; simply to cut back, so his liver stays mostly in tact and he doesn't get fired. He's been there a few months (and outlasted three captains) by the time Bobby Nash blows in and bets on himself lasting. And then he blows into a meeting, and completely by accident, they end up as friends when neither really wants one. Dean finds that he can't leave.

As I suggest in my tags, this is not a very healthy friendship. It's the one person in the world (other than a priest) with whom they can be honest; that honesty is ugly and angry and cruel. When Bobby tells Dean that he plans on killing himself once he's made his amends, Dean doesn't try to talk him out of it. What he does do is let him sleep on his couch on the nights he feels like reaching for the bottle, so he never gets the chance to repeat his worst mistake. Dean has had his bisexuality on lockdown since 2003 due to some unhealthy and misinformed views of himself and what happened, but he is later free to admit that if Bobby had been anything other than straight and mourning, he might have fallen a little bit in love. As it happens, they instead forge this deep, deep understanding of one another.

I would like to clarify that this isn't even that important to the story? The actual bulk of the story will be focussing on the familial reconciliation, the pain of missing loved ones, John's failures and successes as a father that led to this, and the decision that they would rather have each other in their lives, even if it's only over the phone because they don't trust themselves or each other with anything more. You know. Heavy stuff.

But I've been fleshing out the background relationships that shape the Winchester men: Sam and his little family, and the wounds he's scared he might reopen; John's profound loneliness after the realisation that he never stood a chance of being a civilian again; Dean's looming fear of letting anyone know his monsters, all the while seeing how opening up brought him the one good friend he's had since his teen years.

Other 911 relationship moments: relating to Buck's impulsivity (emotional regulation whomst?) and Eddie's anger and toxic masculinity; being genuinely really proud of Bobby when him and Athena get together; talking about parentification with Maddie; he really likes Hen but it terrified that his proximity to her nice, healthy family will destroy it completely; Chim doesn't really know what to do with him since it takes them like five years to have an honest conversation. Also, he would've known Tommy. I don't know what I'm going to do with that information, but it's kinda bouncing off the walls in my brain. Lowkey I also think that one of his past stations should be the 126 in Austin, because I would frankly love to see Judd's reaction to a new and improved Dean several years after they last knew each other. Maybe a spinoff?

Anyway, if you were wondering anything else/have any suggestions I'm all ears because this fic idea is consuming me just a little bit.

in my sam-and-dean-fuck-during-stanford-era-thus-ruining-their-relationship-and-causing-them-not-to-talk-for-almost-twenty-years-in-which-time-dean-becomes-a-firefighter au, dean and bobby nash are really good friends. just, fyi.

[starryeyed-seer]

me: I'm not a bat

Mr pages: (stuffing novels under its robe): I must abscond

[334iwatchshit]

y'all think bkdk supporters know that they are a watery version of sns

[ourtalechara]

I also want to know what everyone thinks of each other. The problem with this song is that the characters are fleshed out enough to make you feel like there must be canon answers to these sorts of questions, but doesn't give you enough information to actually figure out what those answers might be. And so your left grappling at details, writing your own answers, and still feeling like you somehow must be wrong. I think that one of the few solutions to this debacle is access to more information about these characters via supplementary Neath! material. Stupes. Please give us supplementary Neath! material. The fans crave your Fallen London fanfiction.

I don't think that Byron says weird things to Cassie. I don't think that Byron's ever really talked to Cassie, and if he has, he probably hasn't said anything revealing. It seems to me like the only reason he's willing to open up to you is because you're from the ministry, and perhaps, (*puts on the jester hat that Deltarune theorists wear when their theory is just a little slightly absolutely bonkers*) he can sense that you're not from this world either, that you're someone viewing Fallen London through a screen and aren't really part of the world itself, sort of like he is, so he feels that he can divulge these secrets to you.

Neath! fans (or The Stupendium fans in general), how do you think Cassi feels about Byron just sitting in the Singing Mandrake just watching people?

I honestly feel like she doesn't gaf but at the same time she probably would be a little concerned

I don't know a whole lot about Cassi to give the most accurate/canon answer but that's just my headcanon.

[jamandjazz]

I’ll never get ppl that get mad when others point out flaws in their favorite characters like bbg that’s my favorite part???? I LOVED and ADORE flawed characters to my very core because of how real they are. If someone comes on here and starts doing a good well written character analysis on why my favorite characters (dally mainly but it goes for anyone in the gang and other things I like) are bad people or maybe even badly written I won’t get mad. In fact I’ll read it, nod along, if they aren’t completely misrepresenting the character I’ll probably even agree but it has never crossed my mind to get upset.

[e-adlirez]

Do you have any thea stilton ocs yourself? tell us abt them!

Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *awkwardly stares at my little OC closet*

Okay so two things about me: 1. I am not typically an OC maker, and 2. I thrive better on bouncing ideas off of other things instead of trying to create characters from scratch. Both of these mean that I don't make OCs particularly often, and the ones I do make mostly end up being antagonists or villains (as I find it easier to make a foil to a protagonist than a protagonist that everything will be bouncing off of). Soooooooo with that preface, allow me to show you my tiny, tiny, tiny collection of TS OCs ^^

The first one is a guy who was made for a concept where the girls go to China for a student exchange and have to deal with China's.... cutthroat education system, to say the least. This character was cooked up by me and my friend @starlight-4eva, and the name he's most known by is "Yi", or "one" in Mandarin. (He does have a proper Chinese name, that being Wáng Wěilóng (王伟龍))

Now, Yi is essentially a product of the aspect of the Chinese education system where everyone is publicly ranked so there is a motive to excel (but also to be super-toxic to those in lower ranks). He is extremely cocky, arrogant, and unfortunately very intelligent. He was in the same school as Violet in China, and he competed extremely fiercely with her for the position of top-ranked student in their class (if this sounds like two kids fighting over a video game leaderboard yeah it is, just imagine it in a school setting and the score is their grades). The rivalry is very one-sided but also not really kinda, since Yi is actively trying to mess with her in their competing, while Violet is mostly just trying to survive in school (and by that I mean bringing her A-game to everything). No cheating in exams though-- Yi is way too good for that! Besides, why cheat when you have psychological warfare?

For the longest time, Violet dominated her class's leaderboard with Yi hot on her heels, but the entire time, Yi wasn't bitter. Named "Er" at the time, he knew that all it took for him to take the top spot was a single screw-up. A single mistake. A single millisecond where Violet let her guard down. And it happened.

Violet fell from first rank to second, and he, now taking the rank "Yi", was ruthless in letting her know all about it, giving her the name "Er", which in Chinese means "two", but also has connotations of inadequacy, worthlessness, and lack of intelligence. He never failed to gloat about it, and as a rattled Violet attempted to regain her top rank, Yi was more than happy to watch "Er" struggle and fail, all while holding an iron grip over his new title.

Violet was able to recover from her fall, but she was never able to regain her top rank. Even in her gaokao, the infamous college eligibility exam, she missed the chance to overtake Yi by 0.1% in score. 0.1% too short.

Mouseford was a good place to heal and open herself up to new people with different ideologies, but in this student exchange, some old wounds burst back open as she finds to her horror that she is not only having the exchange in the same school Yi is studying in for university, not only is she in the exact same class as Yi, but Yi is just as arrogant and smug as ever. He is a walking, talking red flag (a male green tea bitch, if you will), and he does everything he does to make Violet as uncomfortable as possible (down to mild sexual harassment. Nothing too crazy, just him being an unfortunately smartass delinquent who constantly says he and Vi are "tied together by Yue Lao's Red Thread of Fate and flirts with her, knowing full well how uncomfortable Violet is with it. Hey, anything to throw her off her game even by just 0.05% of her 100%. A small number like that is enormous in an exam that's worth 33% of their entire grade in a single subject, right?).

(Here's some old doodles I did of him and Violet in 2021, something something I headcanon that Violet is Year of the Steel Dragon while Yi is Year of the Steel Serpent, something something Chinese dragons are unable to fly when injured on the crest of their head according to some site I don't remember rn, something something allegory to how Chinese communities is basically like playing socially political 3D chess constantly)

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The second one is a bit weird, but you're gonna have to hear me out on this one. If you've seen him in my Artfight, then yes, he technically originated from a Thea Sisters fic concept.

Du Yaoguai/DYG is a snake demon (Chinese demon, not Western), and while his Artfight profile says all, I do have to give a little bit of extra context.

He was supposed to be an antagonist in a fic scenario where the girls, in a Seven Roses Unit thing, crash-land into a fantasy world based on mythical China, and because it's not supposed to be kid-friendly and because the Heavenly Court put a "VIP pass, no VIP no entry" sign in front of the world's barrier, outsiders are to either be killed or kicked out as soon as possible, whichever happens first. DYG, being a human-eating snake demon monster, has his eyes on the girls and would like to have them for dinner, and he's willing to use every trick in the book to get them to fall into his trap. Mansplain, manipulate, manwhore, if you simp I'm not stopping you, but my Artfight rules do apply to him even outside of Artfight

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And finally (for now), this is Olovo.

"But E, I can't make heads or tails of this crappy concept sketch!" Oh, I know.

You'll get to know him eventually :]

Anyway that's it byeeee--

[scootatwoni]

The strongest warriors are those that love botw but don't ship zelink (me its me I'm the strongest warrior)

[deadbeandrop]

"average camp lazlo fan has 5 camp lazlo OCs" factoid actualy just statistical error. average camp lazlo fan has maybe 1 or 2 camp lazlo OCs. tumblr user syd deadbeandrop, who lives in cave & has at least 43, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[quaranmine]

random firewatch au detail that has basically no impact on the story unless you want to psychoanalyze fw!grian even further than i did as the author, but it's very intentional that i always refer to both of mumbo's parents but only grian's mom. did i give him daddy issues? i guess so, but not in a way where i really deeply examined the implications as meaningful to the story. it was just a detail i stuck with from the beginning as a way to keep fleshing out the story's background subtly. the idea behind grian's dual citizenship was always that he was born in america to an american dad and british mom, and that his mom moved back to the UK when he was very young since she wanted to be closer to her family. perhaps his dad didn't go with them? or perhaps his dad did, and then later they split and he went back to america? whatever the cause, grian never even mentions his dad in the story, and it wasn't because i intended him to be dead (because that would have come up in a story about grief) if you get me

[dragontamer05]

No lie I can't recall the last time I did like just one long continuous thread.

Like sure still doing small side stuff, asks ect but just idk but also letting muses grow and develop through one long continuous - and not always having to say resort to completely dropping if whatever currently is going on has run its course and instead just time skip with it but let it keep going.

And I say this as some one who is also 100% happy to time skip and jump around.

And hey you want to go back in time and explore a scenario that could have happened earlier in their relationship / knowing each other

or jump forward to something way later or even just explore a what if scenario that doesn't have to happen but could depending how things go/ how we feel about it ect

Hell yah love it all - trying to have some time line consistency is good obviously and as long as we can agree on even a loose idea of How they got to Y or where X fits and what not then sure.

Am fine with even the longest of threads eventually getting a wrap up if things simply happen to feel right in the moment and is what gets decided, doesn't have to be an infinite thread - certainly not about to force one to go on if its reached a point it kinda feels dead but idk call me easily attached but there's sometimes where I can still find / feels like their might be still potential to be found in a thread and all it needs is a bit of tweaking.

The chapter came to an end but the book isn't over kinda thing. Maybe all it needs is a small time skip / scene change but there's still things to be explored within said plot/scenario / whatever is going on with the characters - that would still also work/fit within said thread instead of separating.

Similarly but kind of reverse is I am equally as happy generally to return to threads that were long previously dropped/abandoned. Whether cause someone wasn't feeling it any more or simply we ran into a writing wall and at the time were lost on how to continue it so was better not to force it. But if something new comes along be it from plotting / just newer interactions or simply with having time away from it whatever the reason if a spark suddenly arises and hey suddenly what if we connected - old thread to new idea - or any other reason to want to answer/continue go for it.

idk mostly I this is was just a really long rambly way of saying how I miss long threads. Short quick snippets are fun and fine but 9/10 I promise i am very much interested and fine with carrying a thread for as long and far as it'll go.