#while making sure it doesn't sound hokey

[no-shxme]

Question if you could rework Talon how would you do it? Like, if you have complete and total control of the character, can change things as far as the beginning or just progress his story. You can do whatever.

What would you do?

OKAY so i actually typed out a long ass response but then it got deleted so this makes me very sad faklsdjkljsfd but im gonna try and repeat myself. Disclaimer ofc this is going to be very long and its also just my personal opinion. No hate if anyone’s ideal talon is different.

So i can divide the changes i would make into like, 3 categories.

Core design

In game

Lore

I’ll go ahead and put it below the cut bc i know its gonna be so long (sob)

CORE DESIGN:

Okay im pretty sure i’ve said smth similar before but i cant remember. Basically i think talon’s core design fantasy conflicts with his design to an egregious degree. Riot’s goal is supposed to be to make the champ design fit the fantasy, but we’re supposed to believe he’s this cutthroat, efficient, STEALTHY assassin, who can kill with no mercy and climb all over the map and yet he’s got this jingle-jangle cape and also a hokey, non-retractable armblade. (this pisses me off bc zed has a retractable blade. So they DO exist.) also wild rift pissed me off bc when they redid their design of him they didn’t fix any of the issues and in fact made the armblade worse. How is he supposed to climb? It fundamentally conflicts with what he’s supposed to be. Get rid of both of them both. banished.

Granted, both of these things make his design more unique, but i dont think talon needs them. In fact their existence makes his own thematic design worse, as someone who’s supposed to blend in, supposed to hide in a crowd and be a nobody. He’s supposed to have a generic design. Maybe they can fuck with his cape a lil bit, but he doesn’t need to have this super notable look to him. Look at akshan. He’s just a shirtless dude (in a repurposed sol uniform) but he wears it well fr. 

As a side note: talon’s design in ‘the name of the blade’ is pretty good as a starting off point but it still has the stupid cape.

To be clear they will never change this i think. Talon’s armblade and cape are too ingrained in his old design so they’ll never be fixed, and this problem with it not matching his fantasy will only get worse over time.

Also i think base leblanc also looks ridiculous and is in the same boat.

IN GAME:

A new model + animations ofc! Hood toggle, + extra animation variants when vaulting over stuff. (over thin walls, thick walls, and side hops.) an idle knife flip. (oh and new splasharts ofc.) a new voice!! My current problem with the voice is that imo he sounds too old and deep, and also he suffers from being old (i hc him as between 23-25) and having few lines. Tbh i think talon would rock a raspy transmasc voice, or at least a raspy voice, prone to cracking bc he’s not super talkative.

random voice line ideas

New interactions with katarina, swain prolly, sett (as a treat) and ezreal. etc.

New joke response: “i dont get it” or “you talk too much.”

New taunt response: “be quiet.”

“Leave me alone” or “you’re annoying” after killing someone.

“I can climb that” when seeing sett or other eligible champs, both masc and fem. bisexual energy.

Lots of vocalizations. “Hah,” hrmphs, occasional “hm.”

A focus on shorter, more straightforward sentences as opposed to long wordy ones.

he will trigger more voicelines when by himself (for eg: in the jg) as opposed to around other champions. (yes im dreaming big.)

as an 'away from people or in the jg' voiceline: whistling. not like a tune or anything, just a few notes.

LORE:

Okay this is the really big one. I’m just gonna go all over the place.

Step 1: make him aro. MAKE HIM ARO. it doesn't need to be a big reveal or anything. Actually it’d be better if all of talon’s lore was lowkey. It can just be smth mentioned or implied on the side, but canon nonetheless. I hc him as bi too but the aro is way more important to me. WHILE WE'RE AT IT. riot please release an aromantic pride icon pls. every year i foolishly hope.

Step 2: i’d also make him trans. This isn’t a hard need for me but it makes his story/character stronger. Also i think its great to have open lgbt rep but i would like rep for people who are stealth too. Talon would be that. He likes to blend in, he likes to be unknown and invisible, he doesn’t want too much attention and he wants to be perfect. It’s pretty on the nose. I know people would be mad bc like, noo he wasn’t trans before, but i just dont care. My ideal talon is trans or at least gnc/nb-coded if amab. Also while we’re at it i’d also either give him autism with my autism ray-gun, or i’d just make him autism-coded. It just fits him. I think he realistically has anxiety and prolly some other personality disorder, if not a touch of tism.

Step 3: make the timeline of events around when he was adopted all the way to the kat comic more definite. Like how old was he when he was ‘adopted?’ (imo at least 13 but i can explain in a not already super long post pfpfpf). Retcon some of the kat comic. I think the most annoying part of it is how much he talks. I think riot thinks he’s like, a boring character, but he’s not. He’s just a NUANCED character. There are many different assassins in league that fit specific niches. (zed is evil shadow ninja assassin, akali is rogue wildcard assassin, pyke is the crazed executioner, yone is righteous, fizz is silly, katarina is proud and showy.) talon is already supposed to fit the most typical ‘assassin niche.’ like assassins creeds. Just let him be that. You don’t have to make him talk a ton, just amplify what’s already there. He’s a perfectionist, he does things in the most efficient way, he’s got layers and abandonment issues, and i think something that’s overlooked by riot is how he’s prolly a victim of manipulation and abuse. In fact i’d make that very clear, even by revealing that talon can’t read. That would already mean smth is up.

In terms of the kat comic: Cut out the whole part where talon monologues like an idiot at the end. While we’re at it, have kat kill the king, not that other guy. I think its a more interesting tie in and adds more character conflict. I actually hate how ‘good’ katarina was in the comic like she can afford to have more awfulness and then visibly grow out of it. Idc. continuing, i’d make it so that talon really thought marcus left, and then marcus returns just before the kat comic events and manipulates talon into trying to kill her. Idk this makes so much more sense to me i dont know why they had talon know about it the whole time, as if it didn’t kill his entire story that we’d been following for years. Like it was such an easy change to still respect what story he already had??? IT MAKES ME MAD. It also allows talon to have more obvious conflict with killing kat, bc their sibling connection improves in marcus' absence.

ALSO i like his scar in the kat comic but i’d like it differently instead of straight down. I feel like eye scars are pretty like, they all look the same yk. Can we vary it up or maybe give him a few more. He’s so pretty in the kat comic but he deserves more scars.

Also, in his high noon story i would not have fucking talon dish out the expository dialogue again. I love that story but it makes me mad how he just word vomits this whole story. Just put that shit at the beginning and leave him out of it. Or maybe find some way to explain that doesn’t involve clumsy paragraphs of expository dialogue. Sorry, no hate to the author but i think a character reciting a whole fable to someone is amateurish, lazy, and a disservice to his character. I would also make him and Yone the protagonists of high noon gothic as an au. Ive been meaning to make a post about it but they parallel each other very nicely. A demon going holy and a good man going hellish.

If i could i would legit canon-ship him with sett or with akshan. But thats ofc very indulgent and relies on setup.

uhhh extra bits that im thinking of:

retcon the going to shurima after failing to kill kat bit. i want him to fester. i would rather him be totally lost for a second and observe the wreckage of his lost family.

imo he never meets cass or soreana, because he enters the family in his teens when they're both already in shurima.

i think a really cool way to deliver talon's lore would be via other champ lore that happens to have him in it. with a consistent voice you'd be able to piece him together while still maintaining the theme of him being on the outside, lowkey.

OH I'D CHANGE HIS ICON BTW. his character icon doesn't look like him. dear god. dark brown hair pls, amber eyes. let it be so.

if i could i would strengthen the anarchistic themes he has going on in his skin lines. yeah let him go apeshit why not. let him be a thorn. let him break apart.

im pretty sure he's canonically short (looked the same size as kat in the comic) but if not. he is now. sorry bud.

oh as a final note. right now his parents are just Gone. but i would make sure that they abandoned him. its the strongest way to cause him to attach to marcus.

there's probably more but i really can't remember rn and its already so long. my god. thanks for this ask tho it was very fun to answer omg. if i ever become a famous author id beg riot to let me write smth for him. a novella or smth like garen first strike.

and ofc to reiterate, these are just my opinions. people can have their own versions of talon for sure, its all ok!

[dumbass-tumbler-cryptid]

Maybe Faith would be a match for Quaritch I Paz's daughter? Or something similar to the mother's name like Topaz. Although I think Ada also fits. The name Gunner didn't really suit me, but maybe that's because it sounds weird in my native language haha

Could you ever write more headcanons about the twins or the life of the Quaritch-Socorro family in general?

Personal I headcanon that Quaritch is an atheist so I don’t think he’d name his daughter Faith even though that does seem like a southern name to me. Maybe if he was religious he’d go with that. I also considered the name Hope thinking about how she would have been saved after her mother was killed but then I thought that was too hokey.

I considered the name Aiden instead of Gunner and others have suggested that name to me as well. Gunner isn’t really to my taste either. I do prefer the name Aiden actually. But I’m not naming my son. I’m naming this hypothetical son of Quaritch and I still think he’d go with something like Gunner. That name just sounds harsher to me. I can feel the weight of it when I say it if that makes sense. Aiden just seems too nice to me.

I wrote a bunch ideas for a cabin in the woods sibling au here so I'll do a part 2 of that now.

 

So fast forward. Spider has been living with his dad in his childhood home for the past three years. He's fifteen and while he would love to have a normal life he's made peace with the fact that this is the best he's going to get until he turns 18

I'm going to say Quaritch isn't as controlling of Spider in this au. Because in Cabin and Blood Brother's Quaritch needs to break Spider's world view and will to get him to fall in line. Spider is willingly staying with him in this au and so thing are much easier between them

In this au Spider got his nickname from his mom calling him "her little spider monkey." So Quaritch doesn't have as much of an issue calling him Spider as a pet name, only using Miles or Junior when he's being serious.

Quaritch is so happy to at least have one of his kids that he's less of a military dad with Spider, letting him wear ripped jeans and band t-shirts, and letting Spider keep his hair on the longer side. Quaritch thinks his eldest looks likes a punk and would prefer it if he "took more pride in his appearance" but at the end of the day who cared. His son is happy and healthy and that's all that mattered.

When not doing school work, Spider skateboards around their property (they live in the middle of nowhere 20 minutes from town so there's little danger of someone seeing him) draws, or plays video games.

His old friends don't realize it but Spider is actually playing his games with Lo'ak and Kiri and talks to them over chat. Quaritch doesn't know who Spider is talking to but does approve of his son getting some form of social interaction.

Spider "visits" his siblings with his dad pretty often. They don't have set days, they just go at random times to never attract suspicion

Spider does not like Hunter adoptive parents. He thinks his timid brother would be infinitely happier with him and their dad but at least he gets to live a normal life.

Spider thinks the twin's moms are awesome though. They're very involved in there kids lives, let Ada and Gunner express themselves however they want, and are always loving and accepting. Spider low key envies his youngest siblings but he is genuinely happy for them.

He's gotten to interact with his siblings a couple time. After a particularly large growth spurt (Spider could barely get out of bed his body hurt so bad. His dad called over his uncle Ja to make sure he was okay, and he was, he was just growing really fast. After a couple of months he was significantly taller, his voice had dropped, and his jaw line was more pronounced) his dad agreed that he looked different enough to make a few public appearances as long as they weren't seen together, and Spider made sure no other adults were around.

Spider talked to Hunter a few times outside of his school. Hunter's parents were always late picking him up from book club. Spider would sit and talk with him under the guise that he was waiting for his younger brother to finish up with tutoring so they could walk home together. it took time for Hunter to come out of his shell but once he did he could talk for hours about all his interests. Spider loved every second of it, the way his brother's eyes would light up and he'd get more animated as he talked. And then one of his parents would pull in and that light would die. Spider would have to quickly say goodbye so Hunter's parents wouldn't notice him, but Spider would still watch as Hunter got into the car, his shoulders slumped, all the life drained out of him

Spider played soccer with Gunner a few times while he waited for his coach and teammates to get there for practice. Ada had to be at dance at the same time Gunner had to be at soccer so he'd get dropped off long before everyone else and would just play on the playground. Spider and him would have a great time together, kicking the ball around, chasing each other around the field.

Spider didn't get to interact with Ada as much. She wasn't really left alone like her brothers were. But she liked to draw just like Spider, and had even been in a few kids art shows at her school. Plenty of other older siblings were at the elementary school art show so Spider didn't look out of place walking around admiring his sister's work. Ada caught him looking and had excitedly skipped up to him to talk about it. She was a little motor mouth but Spider didn't mind. He actually found is really endearing.

Every interaction made Spider so incredibly happy. But then he'd have to leave and he'd feel his joy crash and burn. It was unfair that his family couldn't be together. But he had made his peace with it. His dad would never get back custody and besides his siblings were settled in with parents that loved them. It'd be cruel to rip them away from that.

Summer approached. Spider and Quaritch made there usual cross country road trip to their cabin. This time though they made a real road trip out of it stopping at a bunch of tourist attractions instead of driving straight there like they usually did. Spider didn't think much of the change. He just figured since he looked older now, and they where away from their home town his dad felt more comfortable going out in public together.

Really Quaritch was giving Spider a last hurrah before trapping him in the cabin for the foreseeable future.

So they're at the cabin for about a month when Uncle Fike shows up to apparently babysit Spider for a week while his dad "attends to some important business" Spider is confused but doesn't ask to many questions.

a week later he wake up to find his dad is home- with all three of his siblings laying unconscious in his dad's room.

after getting over his initial shock Spider starts screaming at his dad. Because how could he kidnap them! how could he tear them away from their lives.

Quaritch waves him off "you cant kidnap your own kids. This was the only way our family could be together."

Spider tries to physically fight him but gets subdued, Quaritch sedates him and putting him in bed with his siblings

So all the kids wake up together, with ankle monitors locked to them. Quaritch does his little blood brother spiel. All the younger siblings recognize Spider and he mostly tells them the truth. That he ran away from his foster home and took every opportunity he could to see his siblings but he leaves out the part were he's actually been living with his dad for the past three years.

Lyle and Z stay with them for the first few week to help get the kids under control.

Spider raises hell at every opportunity, constantly fighting with his dad. He'd never admit it but this whole situation hurts him deeply. What his dad did was totally unforgivable. He wants to hate him but that's still his dad. Spider tries to convince him to give up his siblings. He'll forgive him if he does the right thing, he'll stay if his dad does the right thing. Quaritch blows him off, "you've got no power here kid. I'm holding all the cards, you've got nothing. Besides you'll come around. You can't pretend like this isn't everything you've ever wanted."

Hunter is jokingly dubbed the "favorite child" because he's the most well behaved. really he's just too terrified to try anything

Ada screams- a lot. and bites. and kicks. She screams every time an adult tries to tell her to do something. she bites when any of them tries to touch her and she'll kick at every opportunity.

Gunner is worse. He doesn't really speak unless spoken to but he's so stressed that if one of the adults so much as breathes around him then he starts throwing things, trashing the place like a bull in a china shop. It's so bad that after a few days Quaritch turned the hallway closet into "Gunner's Quiet room." Gunner bangs his fists against the door and Spider, Ada and Hunter, shout and beg for his release but Quaritch refuses until all the kids are calm.

I have to end it there because i'm about to hit the character limit but I hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you want a part 3 💞

[lunarsilkscreen]

The Whims of Fate

I've always been a child of that great will people call "God the Father". Or Fate. The Force. Or the Path.

It sounds hokey and implausible because it's inherently a thing that can't be measured; something beneath random chance, something bigger than the world.

Something; that shows you where to look when you're not quite sure what to look at.

"oh you believe in magic?" Or "Fate", or whatever.

It makes sense, because with the tool we know as logic, we can create measuring tools and objective goals to meet.

Ways to rationalize the world. But every individual measurement must be taken out of the context it exists to be measured, and it doesn't even cover how we obtain knowledge and intellect in the first place.

Non-intellectuals exist in this world. People who, despite living in it, haven't really developed a skill set. But they always seem to know where to look for their next meal.

How does that seem to work? Necessity some say.

Always follow the exact same logical steps. Perfectly overcooking every piece of meat because "if they don't, they could get sick."

Still knowledge of some kind, but not the kind of chaotic ingenuity it takes to figure out how those steps were developed in the first place.

Yet true masters of craft find and harvest the chaos. Finding greater perfection when they follow what is "common sense" calls "imperfect."

This thing, this underlying drive doesn't just go as far to help develop new processes, but can get you certain intuition.

An anecdote; My grandmother brought me to a casino on my eighteenth birthday.

I don't like gambling, though I've been had by a gatcha or two, and I have a fondness for skill based games like BlackJack.

So I'm just wandering around this casino because Grandma gave me twenty to spend on the virtual slots. And I'm just feeling it out, looking for a machine that pulls my interest.

One machine stands out from the rest. It has a different visual motif than the the twenty or so in the same row.

--That was designed on purpose to catch the eye of people like me.

That wasn't it, the seat was warm. And something else underneath what casino wanted drove me towards it.

And on the first spin, BAM; Won twenty bucks.

Every once in a while; I get a gut feeling like that and it's rarely ever wrong. I try to reproduce it logically, feeling things out, tricking myself into thinking I feel that feeling elsewhere... Nothing.

"So you're saying [God] wanted you to win twenty bucks?"

No. If it was a purposeful action, it was to help me understand that feeling which is separate from logic.

It's happened plenty of times in consignment shops and at the bargain bin for good video games and movies.

Plenty of times I walked into GameStop, saw two games I was *pulled* towards and had to pick up a third game to get the buy 2 get one free deal.

And that last one didn't give me drive to really pick it up.

This was before I knew every game being released at all times; When I didn't really know what I wanted to buy at the store before going--I just wanted to find some good games.

The same way one might browse the "New Releases" section on one of the Gaming Store Platforms online these days.

"nah, not EA garbage, why are there twenty 27 EA releases today? Oh... What's this quaint looking indie title?"

All anecdotal, all illogical anecdotes.

For certainly the good games just always had a good Cover Art development team. /s

The will has driven me to do things I did not want to do, but had to do; like accepting medical discharge to leave the military and returning to my home town to try to catch up with family I had not been able to keep in contact with despite technological innovations these days that keep *EVERYBODY* in contact.

"well how do you know it's a real thing and not some malevolent force, or that the government installed a chip in your teeth?"

I haven't figured that out yet.

The simplest way to explain it would probably just to tell you to go watch or read "Dirk Gently" because that's the most obvious depiction of what I'm talking about that doesn't sound religious.

Maybe it's just the bacteria in my gut controlling my actions.

[project-aphelion]

12.23.2021 - Chapter 3 (again)

Word Count

> Chapter 3: 7180

> Total: 16845 (including a bit of Chapter 4)

WAHOO first update on this blog!

So what’s been going on? Let’s see...I took a massive commission, and that basically took up most of my free time, which meant I barely had time to write. (I don’t mean to sound ungrateful since I Am getting that cashmoney; just explaining what happened.) And THAT is the reason I haven’t updated since........September. Wow.

But added to that, this chapter was also stumping me. Lots of worldbuilding, lots of dialogue, plus it’s just a longggg chapter. Now, I’ve technically already made an update for this chapter, but that was only the first pass revision. I gave it a second revision (which ended up changing a LOT), and then a polish pass. It’s still not perfect, but hey, it’s workable!

So here’s what’s up:

What’s Different?

Chapter Summary: Shelby (Bee) and friend Idan escape from hitting Cay in the head and have issues over the fact they basically left him to die. Bee receives a job offer that seems too good to be true, but she refuses it. Which ALSO leads to issues between her and Idan.

Added:

> A more thorough description of Mortimer, the person attempting to hire Bee.

> Better explanation of the war and the disaster that made Es the sad little planet it is.

Changed:

> In revisions, a lot of my focus is on adding emotions. But in this particular chapter, I actually toned down the emotions. Originally Bee reacts terribly to the job offer, shouting “What?” and freaking out, but after ruminating over why the chapter isn’t really working, I realized she should be a lot more jaded. Her reaction now is more like a “.......wtf.”

> That being said, I also upped Bee’s homesickness to her home planet.

> Speaking of her home planet, I changed its name from Bolerre to Bi-Xing. I just wanted a little Chinese pizazz in there :<

> Okay, this one was kind of a net neutral. Originally, Bee and Idan live on Bee’s ship. In the first pass revision, I realized it wouldn’t make sense for Bee to still have her ship (her ship is dead. What’s she going to do, hire a crane operator to lug it around for her? She’s BROKE. She’s an ILLEGAL CITIZEN. anyway), so I changed it to what’s basically a homeless shelter. But then I realized I needed there to be a ship for climax purposes, so I changed it back to a ship, except now it’s IDAN’s ship. (Or his uncle’s, but whatever.)

And now, an excerpt.

She waggled the picture. “You said you didn’t know why he was chasing you.”

“Does it matter?” Idan said with all the venom of an angsty teen.

Bee guessed it didn’t. She let Idan grab the photo back and give it to Arada.

“Thank you, Idan,” Arada said, and incredulously, Bee thought she detected a hint of warmth in her voice. Then she turned back to Bee and her expression went cold once more. “Well. I would ask you to go back and grab more stuff, but we have a job offer for you.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me. My friend.” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the other side of the hatch door. “Offer. Do you want to hear it or not?”

Bee blinked, still caught on that one word—friend. Arada had a friend, and somehow that was harder to swallow than the Alabast bomber hiding in a ghost town with a child. Who in their right mind would choose to be friends with someone so sour?

The disbelief must have shown because Arada was slanting her a needled look. Bee quickly schooled her expression. “Offer. Right. Yes.” She almost added please, but managed to bite it back.

I love writing Arada, btw. She’s so mean and cool.

Anyhoo c’est tout au revoirrrrrr

-Emily