#adding this one to the janmal pile

[greymouse42]

also one last one before bed: 11 for Mal. You just manifested him out of your brain and into your art software and now I'm curious if there was inspo

Me- "I am going to cherish & savor these for tomorrow, I am not going to spam."

Me at 12:46am- "Ehh I mean it's technically tomorrow!"

11. Faceclaim for the role

The faceclaim for Mal started out as Leon Kennedy from the Resident Evil remake mostly because I knew that'd crack the Handler up. The really intense eyes have stayed the same, but he's kind of morphed into an amalgamation (aMALgamation) of traits I just like drawing over and over. (Honestly the entire Knockoff Mystery Gang suffers from "mouse just likes to draw this sort of thing" to some degree.)

He does have a very particular voice pitch/tone and I WISH I knew where that came from or who I was basing it off of because it's very clear in my head. In practice idk if it's audibly all-that-different from the way I normally talk, but in my head he's always very direct, clipped, and even.

37. What they really think about themselves

This is a really delicious question. I think he thinks he's impossible and he's dual-parts terrified of and resigned to it. I think he also really trusts himself, despite that.

It's sort of a “heartbreaking, the worst person you know just made a great point” situation, but it's just him @ his own inner monologue and he's still insufferable about thinking he's right all the time.

27. Their guilty pleasure (Mal)

After Dark C&E who said that.

It's bad matinee movies and his arm around Jan's shoulder.

27. Their guilty pleasure (Evie)

Going on long walks without telling anyone where she's going or when she'll be back. I think this causes all the aliens a not-insignificant amount of stress.

[greymouse42]

so i definitely want to ask about Malachi's handwriting. and also! thinking about signatures made me think about credit cards which leads me to ask : after rent and groceries, what does Malachi spend the most money on? What does he think about saving up for, if he thinks about that at all?

This is the ask that actually made me Google how much the average LAPD officer gets paid. (Defund the poliiiiiiice ✨)

Anyway Mal’s handwriting is #bad, and he stashes all his extra income in a savings account that is making, like, 0.02% interest and he does not think about it at all, which I imagine drives Jan insane. His car is a money pit, but I feel like it's a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation. He never has to stop and save up for whatever part or tool he needs, but the project is just never done.

I think he spends a decent amount on restaurants, too. But I don't think he has any concrete financial goals. That'd require him to think about the future more than he does. Paul should maybe talk to him more about that sort of thing.

Same question about money spending back @ Jan, because it's a good one. 👀

[greymouse42]

A quick and easy way to wind up too attached to your Delta Green PC is to put them in a bizarre little ex-situationship with another PC and then trap the two of them in a car together for three hours. I'm sure nothing bad's gonna happen to either of them. :)

January Holtz (glasses) is @groovyaviator 's delightful creation. Mal (short for Malachi or Maladaptive-Coping-Mechanisms) Steadman is mine

[greymouse42]

let's get a little silly with it. 45 and 46 for Mal, and 32 for Hemlock

Answering these out of order... 🙂‍↕️

45. Their favorite celebrity

Close tie between Gordon Ramsey and David Beckham.

46. The person they most admire

‘Admire’ is a fun word, I don't think Mal really admires people on the whole, he admires them in highly-specific circumstances when they catch his eye and he goes “oh, you're doing that thing you do that you're really good at. 👀” and even then, I'm not sure it's actually admiration as much as attraction.

Wait that's a lie, he does admire his mom, like, very deeply. He admires her the most. They never talk.

32. Something guaranteed to make them smile/laugh

This is a such fun question!

The bleed answer is that I like giving my PCs similar senses of humor to mine because a) then I get to make wisecracks in-character, which I think I am physically incapable of not-doing B) if I'm laughing, then they're also laughing. So the answer is puns. :) Really bad puns.

The meta answer is that Hemlock's sense of humor veered a lot darker than initially intended simply because Astarion makes so many dry and/or off-color jokes, and at some point in the process of falling in love with him, Hem stopped startle-laughing at those and began actually laughing. Because yeah, sometimes the objectively-awful thing is actually very funny, and sometimes it's less objectively-awful if you can laugh at it. Also, sometimes it's funny to be a little bit mean.

Humor and specifically humor in the form of dialogue-choice selection was a really fun example (to me: game design nerd) of an NPC having a noticeable effect on my PC as if they were both real people influencing each other. Hemlock/Astarion are constantly making each other better and worse simultaneously. :)

All of which to say: puns, still, and also sometimes blistering, borderline-cruel levels of sarcasm.

[greymouse42]

okay but what dnd class is Mal if not a Paladin?

.... Okay okay okay. Like. I see the Oath of the Crown Paladin allegations, I see them. I am not even contesting them.

However, may I propose: Fey Wanderer Ranger

[greymouse42]

also bonus Mal question from our convo tonight - what battery does he keep his phone at?

If Mal's not working, his phone is completely dead, like, 33% of the time. He's very guilty of [right before leaving the house] "ah shit, wait, my phone's at 9%" and then he'll charge it for five minutes and decide that's good enough. There's no way he has a charger in his car unless Jan puts one in there.

Conversely, I don't think his phone has dipped below 45% for the entire Ohio trip. With the amount of splitting up they're doing and the lack of radio communications, I think he's kind of obsessively keeping an eye on the phone-battery situation the same way he keeps checking door locks.

How does Jan manage their phone battery? 👀

[greymouse42]

💤30💤 for Mal, though I think I know the answer 👀

30. Sleeping Habits

Sldkjfjfn yeah no he does not sleep enough~✨

Mal wishes he was one of those people who could get by on 4 hours of sleep because a lot of the time he's running on 4 hours of sleep but unfortunately this is not at all in the cards for the way his body works. He needs 7-8 hours. He normally gets about 5-6. He compensates with caffeine and having anxiety.

Counterintuitively, I think he's really good at falling asleep despite his terrible sleep-hygiene, he just really does not enjoy playing Russian roulette with his subconscious once he is asleep, so he'll put off going to bed as long as physically possible.

He thinks he's a back sleeper but the reality is he curls up on his side almost immediately.

[greymouse42]

Malachi’s adjectives please! two goods and a bad (cop is not an adjective)

✨ Intuitive, Sharp-Eyed, Inhibited ✨

[greymouse42]

alright!!! What Malachi would do if stuck in an elevator with: -Myles -Maria -Skeeter -Jan Separately, and then bonus ask of the entire knockoff mystery gang! And then bonus bonus for Lyons. Sorry this is such a long ask but it's worth it i promise

HELLO this was very funny and I jumped on it immediately.

Myles → Myles has a multitool in his pocket and this is the moment that Mal goes “oh man I should really carry a multitool in my pocket.” They are breaking into the access panel within minutes, and I don't think they can get the elevator working again but they do have fun.

Maria → They have a really nice conversation. After pressing the emergency help button (like reasonable people), I think they both go “thank God, a break,” and sit down and Maria gets to explain the plot of whatever serial drama she's watching or has Mal commiserating over whatever latest conspiracy theory her nephew believes in. They both come out of it going “man we should grab coffee sometime, that was pleasant.”

Skeeter → same as Myles but Mal doesn't say a word the whole time and doesn't have fun, but Skeeter does actually get the elevator working again.

Jan → doesn't even make it to the emergency button… that's a meme answer — the actual answer is that it should be totally fine. Long silences with Jan are usually comfortable. But they're both usually doing something. The combo of “we're stuck” and “there is nothing to do” and “it feels like we should be talking but neither of us want to do that” and “it's hot in here—” could very quickly lead to…. /hand wave/

Knockoff Mystery Gang → Mal is wedged in the corner spectating/refereeing and pretending he's not as insane as the rest of these weirdos. He's on Maria's side no matter what she decides to do.

Lyons → 40 minutes of Lyons trying to talk Malachi out of climbing up the elevator shaft, interspersed with a few minutes of silence whenever she thinks she's successfully convinced her feral ferret of a partner to not climb up the elevator shaft, are you insane. Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object argument. There's only, like, 12 years between them but Lyons is feeling Every Single One Of Those Years for the 40 minutes she's trapped in an elevator with this man. She comes out of the situation thinking that Mal must be moderately claustrophobic. Mal was honestly just bored and likes arguing recreationally.

[greymouse42]

will pull from The List again soon, but i saw something from develop-your-ocs and i /have/ to know : how would Malachi describe his style? i know how you describe it, but if someone asked him, what would he say (besides “normal??”)

also what’s Evie’s aesthetic vibe? i know the pinterest board is Spookycore, but like, day-to-day styling choices?

Bold of you to think Mal would know a single style descriptor beyond "casual" / "formal." Ironically, he wears a formal uniform most of the time and he's totally happy with that, even though he'd describe himself as casual.

If you dragged him into a clothing store, I think he'd be able to articulate that he prefers close-fitting clothes in darker colors, and that he doesn't like wearing bright things or patterns or anything that could possibly be perceived as "loud." 😌 I realize this does not exactly answer your question but he is an idiot, your honor.

Evie in my head is solidly Midwestern-grunge lol. Like a windbreaker-over-a-flannel-over-a-faded-T-shirt with her snowboots on and her jeans soaked up to the knees. It's a little frizzy and haphazard, but equally loved and cherished in a distressed sort of way.

[greymouse42]

not a rush, just thinking about him and some temporal joys: 36, 38, and 44 for Malachi please!

And can we get 19 for Hemlock?

The way you group these questions sparks so much joy

36. Their favorite season

Spring. I think he gets a little stir-crazy if he can't get outside regularly. He likes California winters a lot, though.

38. Favorite holiday

If he had even slightly more of a life, I think he'd like Thanksgiving the most, because the holiday is pretty much just “make food for people you like,” which is his whole schtick.

That said, he currently has, like, maybe 2.5 friends plus whatever Jan is and 1.5 of those friends are back in the East coast, so his favorite holiday is currently Fourth of July, unless he's working. Beach and beer and fireworks (that he pretends not to see) are all fun to him.

44. Their happiest memory

Mal drove out to the west coast with his dad when he was, like, 17 to look at schools. He didn't wind up going out there (he stayed on the east coast for a number of reasons), but the road trip itself… I think his dad slept through most of Wyoming and Utah and that day — just, like, driving on his own like that — unlocked something in his brain and he felt like an actual adult person for the first time.

I think that whole road trip is very fondly remembered but that part in particular is especially happy for him.

19. Vices/bad habits of Hem’s

/waves hand at the whole vampire juicebox habit/ Hemlock canonically spent most of the game with the Bloodless debuff because he liked it and because I didn't realize you could cure it with Lesser Restoration. I think it's funnier if Shadowheart just gave up on him after a while.

An actual bad habit of theirs is… definitely biting off more than they can chew, and thinking they can solve every problem in the world if they just fling themself at it hard enough. (I love when paladins gets self-righteous to their own detriment and ooooh boy did Hem get humbled in that regard at the Grymforge.)

[greymouse42]

weird bounce from your wisdom teeth question, but if Mal were to come up from anesthesia, what's his Thing? Like, getting into arguments with doctors, cracking jokes, very sappy, etc?

It's probably related to how he is when he's sick (but I feel like I've asked you that one already...?) but subtly different.

I'm still chewing on the other questions but I know the answer to this one!

✨ stupid and giggly ✨

[greymouse42]

Lunch and Drinks : Questions 21 and 41 for Mal!

/gently holding the theme of this question/

21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)

Straight black coffee, if it's not burnt. He likes medium-dark roasts. He learned what a black eye is several years back and now enjoys ordering those a) when he's trying to impress someone b) when he really really needs the extra caffeine. The amount of times these two things overlap is statistically significant.

He'll drink pretty much anything you put in front of him, but I think all of his favorite cocktails are vodka-based.

41. If they could have lunch with anyone in the world (living or dead, from any fictional universe or the real world), who would it be?

Kneejerk response is Jan or Harrison Ford. At this exact moment he also really wants to pick Agent Rosenberg's brain about a couple things.

For real for real… If he actually thought about it, I think he'd pick one of his grandfathers. His parents had him pretty late, and his family was very nuclear — I don't think he ever got to meet either of them, but he's seen enough photos and military medals at least in his dad's side to be curious.

[greymouse42]

some late night kindness to Mal : 35 + 47 (cant include current or alleged previous job)

Mal deserves some late night kindness honestly.

35. Their idea of a perfect day

It's sunny. His car's broken but he doesn't need to drive it anywhere. Maybe Jan deigns to talk to him in the driveway for a bit while he fixes it. He doesn't even need to get it completely fixed: just tinkering in a positive direction feels nice. His muscles are sore and the day is slow and lazy and he does not go to bed at a normal time.

47. Their dream job

VERY rude to stipulate that it can't be his current job, because what he's doing now (police detective) (unfortunately) really suits him. 😔

I don't think he's ever considered what his dream job would be, but in terms of what he likes... He likes the variety and relative freedom in his current day-to-day, he likes that he's not stuck behind a desk all the time, he likes feeling he's using his brain and like he's contributing something to society... I think there's also something about the occasional High Stakes and the act of putting on a uniform that confers some authority that appeals to him too, but he wouldn't ever admit either of those things, soo...

He could've been a really good investigative journalist in another life, I think.

[greymouse42]

28 for Mal and the Knockoff Mystery Gang!

It's the best group name. I adore that Mal's Velma. I am stealing your 5-star rating system.

Skeeter- 2/5

is breaking soooo many laws all the time, which annoys Mal, and also is diving way too fast into all this Project stuff, which freaks Mal out.

He's wicked-smart and has gotten a lot of good leads, though, so Mal mostly just grits his teeth through the heeby-jeebies (what a sentence) and pretends not to notice all the felonies.

Myles- 3/5

Silvering-fox / local-watering-hole alcoholic is actually a retired Indiana Jones?? On paper Mal falls in love with him immediately. In practice, they went into a basement and got... irradiated together? What are they?? I think Mal at least kind of respects whatever Myles is doing.

Maria- 5/5

Mal wants to keep working with her sooo bad. She's professional and no-nonsense and she also, like, physically dragged his body out of a cave, which is a fact he keeps rotating in his brain and can’t figure out what to do with.

Jan- [[dial up tone]]

sure is someone to him.

[greymouse42]

#I swear good things happen to Mal sometimes#like.#2002-2012 was a good decade for him#I promise lol

prove it. name two happy memories from Mal's time in the aughts

(the tone of this ask is joke combative, but also i am asking with love and kindness)

had not thought about this; enjoyed thinking about this

He was on an intermural sport team in 2005, so he actually had a bunch of folks to go out with for his 30th birthday.

He finished a long-term restoration project on a super banged-up 1970 Jeep Cherokee in 2008ish and wound up in a weird-but-pleasant penpal situation with the older guy in Arkansas who bought it off of him for a few years.