#technically expy characters

[l-la]

Been having fun with some nerds. Tossed them in an AU where they're raising kids together, and teaching them magic. uwu /

[fedoraspooky]

Frank (formerly known as Felicity the Cat) and "Sailboat" Ollie Oxinfrey

These two were in an earlier toon ttrpg I was playing in, which was a modified version of Eat the Reich (we played old 40s-era cartoon characters instead of vampires).

They're basically that universe's Felix and Steamboat Willie, who both later got rebooted into noir-style private detectives (credit where it's due, I basically took this idea and ran with it bc I really wanted to see how it'd play out <XD).

[k423s]

sorry i think too much abt expys bc theyre such a fun narrative device im so enamoured by them <3

[s-t-y-x]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to hold or voice such a view but I love the creativity of the TWST OC community. I love seeing all the Disney media and/or folk tales that people draw inspo from for their characters. I especially love seeing multiple OCs based off of the same character or concept and yet still unique. I love seeing people look at the same template and take it in countless different directions. Give me all the Greek God OCs. Give me all the expies from the terrible-yet-great direct-to-video sequels and the underrated television series spinoffs. Give me the expies from 'it's technically owned by Disney' media. Give me the expies of inanimate objects I never would've thought of. Give me your fan schools, your fan dorms, your fan countries and cultures. I love seeing the sheer endless potential of all the creators working within the same sandbox.

[tyrantisterror]

Bringing Up Baddie (Working Title) Character Concepts

Hey, remember a while back when I made those posts about supervillain archetypes, one of which inexplicably became derailed to talk about different doctorates people wanted to see put to use as increasingly terrible supervillain pitches? Well that was for a thing! A thing that I'm currently conceptualizing as "What if we took the premise of the famous screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, wherein a crazy lady ruins a milquetoast guy's life in the best possible way, and did it with superheroes and stuff?" Well, supervillains, technically.

I was getting that list of archetypes together to try and make some pitches, and I basically took it and got some of the kids at the daycare to pitch power combos and motiffs for me, because who would know better what would make for a fun superhero, right? Anyway, here's some of the working character concepts so far:

Reptillion, with the enhanced powers of a million reptiles!

Just a down-on-their-luck schmuck who got roped into being a test subject for some evil super science while job hunting, Reptillion would be the Cary Grant figure in this tale. The power set was pitched by a child, I swear - for once it wasn't me who decided the protagonist should have a reptile theme! Reptillion is The Big Monstrous Guy archetype, a reluctant monster who will be forced into villainy by circumstance.

Scarlet Sidewinder, the venomous and villainous viperess!

The Kate Hepburn figure in this story was always going to be a Harley Quinn expy of some sort, and when a reptile theme was chosen for the protagonist, it felt only fitting that the deuteragonist would share it. Also, like, snake-themed Harley Quinn knockoff is very much in my wheelhouse. Figuring out her hairstyle has proved to be the biggest challenge - I tried a lot of looks that fit her punk personality, but they kept obscuring the viper eye-horns on her domino mask, which I feel are a more important detail (supervillains shouldn't downplay their motiffs!), so I ended up going with a pair of sidewinder-esque pony tails instead. As both Harley Quinn and Kate Hepburn's character in Bringing Up Baby were before her, Scarlet Sidewinder is The Wildcard archetype.

Scarlet Sidewinder is, of course, the test subject of an earlier version of the Reptillion super serum, one that only focused on snake DNA and didn't give broke shapeshifting powers to her. She initially wants the Reptillion serum for herself as a way to upgrade, but when the protagonist gets injected with it instead, she decides the next best thing is to have a partner in crime with those complementary powers instead.

Konglomerate and Dr. Gibbons, corporate apes!

I decided I want this to be the sort of comic book superhero pastiche that fully embraces how silly the genre can be, and one of the key ways to signal that is to just have, like, a LOT of apes running around. Like how The Umbrella Academy comics just have sapient/civilized chimpanzees make up around 35% of the background characters, and also one of the characters had his severed head grafted onto a space ape (both of these elements were downplayed severely in the TV show for those of you who've never read the comics). Two of the main antagonists would be Dr. Gibbons, a mad scientist who is trying to help humankind evolve into a superior species, and his boss/financier Konglomerate - they'd be The Evil Genius and A Normal Businessman archetypes, respectively, and the ones responsible for mutating both Reptillion AND Scarlet Sidewinder.

Nebulord the cosmic conqueror, Killer Rabbit the pandimensional prankster, and Lugnut Louie the professional killer robot

Just going to throw these three (well, four I suppose, but ignore the Interceptor for now) together since so much of their concept art ended up sharing the same sheets. They're all... not quite allies of Reptillion and Scarlet Sidewinder, but somewhat helpful in their own way as fellow supervillains go. Nebulord is meant to be a big cosmic threat in the vein of Galactus or Darkseid, with the caveat being that in-story we'd mostly see him off-the-clock and dealing with petty day-to-day grievances. I wanted him to feel very Jack Kirby-esque, though I think ultimately it's just a shallow imitation of Kirby's style. He would be the Foreign Tyrant archetype, with a dash of the Planet Eater thrown in.

Killer Rabbit is a Mr. Myztptlk knockoff - I had listed "Killer Rabbit" as the archetype name (i.e. a villain who looks cutesy and nonthreatening but is actually terrifyingly powerful), but my students ran with that and suggested an Alice in Wonderland theme, which I thought was actually a pretty fun theme to play with for such a character. I mean, it's not exactly new ground - there are LOTS of Alice in Wonderland themed supervillains, most of which suck ass (including you Mad Hatter!) - but the whimsical surrealism with a dark undercurrent that Alice in Wonderland embodies DOES fit well with a pan-dimensional imp who uses their godlike powers to fuck with people out of boredom. To keep from retreading the MANY other supervillains who just stole Alice in Wonderland character names, I decided to make Killer Rabbit the name of this character instead of just their archetype.

Lugnut Louie is an old pro, sometimes working as his own boss, but more often than not as a high-ranking henchman. He's the Anything But Retail archetype with a dash of the Big Monstrous Guy, since it's hard for a big ominous murder robot to get jobs that aren't villainy related.

Queen Vespidious, leader of the Hive Mind!

To fill the Mind Taker archetype, I decided to go with the whole "hive mind" bullshit and have a bee/wasp-themed villainess who inducts civillians into her Hive with mind-controlling royal jelly. She also has a loyal second-in-command who'd be a spider-themed villain named Tyrantula - of course, being a spider in a relationship with a wasp, Tyrantula is very much the sub in this relationship.

The Copycat/shapeshifter archetype would be filled by Octomime, a woman with the color changing skills of a cuttlefish and the body-morphing skills of a mimic octopus. Octomime can copy anyone's physical appearance so long as they're roughly human-sized, but her inability to speak means the disguise only works so long as no one notices she's being eerily quiet. She's a deadly supervillain despite that flaw, though, in part because her durable body and deadly tentacles make her a force to be reckoned with even when she's been discovered.

aaaand I've run out of images for this post, so I'll add the more unfinished concepts in a reblog.

[pontata]

Played deltarune and I knew it. I always thought people latched on the concept of "chara" in undertale and... It is not a character. It has never existed.

It has always been "YOU". The player. In both games. That you give a name to.

That you have been controlling the Fallen Human or Kris, to either do good things or really bad things. In both games.

It's even more obvious both the Fallen Human and Kris(who seem like expys of each other) hated it , but likely in the example of undertale, will likely begin to embrace it.

I think people needed a "scapegoat" to excuse their own acts in game.

The parallels between both games is extremely strong, but then again, isn't Deltarune technically a game set in a parallel world? 🤫

[dcdreamblog]

Since we've mentioned fictional characters based on real superheroes before, and how the various trademark and copyright laws allow a fair amount of leeway--what are some of your favorite "fair use" fictional superbeings?

While "what if Superman was evil, actually" scenarios are way overdone, I do have a lingering fondness for Marvel Comics' "Squadron Sinister" a blatant one-for-one ripoff of the Justice League. It's interesting to see the almost but not quite origin stories the older Marvel Comics came up with.

My favorite storyline with them was the "Squadron Supreme" storyline in which a cosmic entity "flipped the Squadron's morality switch to good" and they took over an alternate Earth to turn it into a Utopia only to have their character flaws and the natural consequences of their actions ruin it. Mark Gruenwald, the writer on that miniseries, said it was specifically a "take that" to people who think the Justice League should just become the government of Earth.

More recent stories have taken the Squadron Sinister in directions I'm not so keen on, but that's comics for you.

So, your favorites?

That's the first of many, MANY times that Marvel Comics has used superheroes of our real world as inspiration for the supeheroes they publish in their comics books. One could obviously imply that all of their superheroes are inspired by real life heroes after all and in that line of work its hard to not be inspired by the "genre work" happening right outside your window. Even through its canon in the Marvel Universe that none of our real world superheroes exist, probably just to simplify storytelling and not create confusion. On that note.

(The cover to Marvel's collected Squadron Supreme, with a cover by the always wonderful Alex Ross) This one is probably my favorite too just because it really took into account what it was writing about and why. The Squadron Sinister were originally invented so that Marvel could pit their heroes against villains resembling the real life Justice League. It was a cute little clash that skirted around, well, not copyright. See, its sort of always been an open question whether or not superhero entities. Their names, costumes, symbols and other iconography are even UNDER copyright in the first place. In most countries the answer would probably be Yes?* because copyright is extended when an idea is invented, not when its patented so any superhero in the world would be able to show that they thought up their own idea first and they would be entitled to it. What makes it a grey area is the obvious fact that superheroes don't sue for copyright infringement. Also they truly don't seem to care. We all own Superman shirts and Flash socks or whatever else and those items, while technically violating copyright are sold really openly because the superheroes themselves don't care and are more often flattered by the attention and support. Superheroes are in the public domain by functionality, rather than technicality. Marvel probably created expys for a few reasons.

Its more respectful that way. It creates a distance between their version and the real life person so anything that the character does can't be taken as some kind of accusation.

It provides them with creative freedom in the opposite direction. They can add or subtract details that better fit the story they wish to tell without it being taken as a mistake or a flaw.

For instance, the Squadron's version of the Martian Manhunter, named Skymax is a member of Marvel's fictional alien race the Skrulls rather than a Martian.

The story itself is REALLY well written, like you said taking an axe to the idea of the Justice League running the world and turning it into some kind hero-cratic utopia. For that reason it's actually been cited as one of the favorite books of superheroes themselves, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter have come out publically say they're fans. Though they do admit that some of the details are bit hard to read from their perspective, one can imagine that Green Arrow and Black Canary would rather not dwell on the way their pastiches were used even if they understand the creative flex.

And that's the way a lot of fiction does and should use the heroes of our world. Honestly it's a much more fulfilling than the way slasher movies bend themselves into knots to be set in Metropolis and make it so the movie doesn't just end when the final girl shouts for help at the sky.

[absurdly-overpowered-astronaut]

Milgram Expy… <3

Mostly Mahiru + kotoko

Sumiko felt like they couldn’t deal with deep hatred of the world / deep self hatred so thinks if they find a romantic partner they will have a cause to dedicate themselves to and they can learn to love themselves through that person and to love the world but they end up rushing into an unfulfilling relationship where they expect their partner to be their saviour and make them full/pure/able to love properly but ofc it doesn’t work so when the two of them become unsatisfied in their relationship she suggests they should commit suicide so they can find eachother in the next life and fall in love properly and in a better world. She wanted to escape the world through love and now she wants to escape the love through death so it’s escapism on top of escapism.

She believes that people are born bad/evil/cursed ect and that the only way to redeem yourself is to die and to be reborn so hates Milgram because it’s preventing her from moving onto the next life and keeping her in this cursed one.

Their victim is their partner and their murder is a lovers suicide

(I’m also considering the idea that they set up a double suicide and made it so they would live and only fake their death so they could try and cheat they own system by being technically dead like Sumiko died but I’m not Sumiko anymore I’m [fake name] sumiko died with her lover so I’ve technically been reborn and can love again properly this time! But then Milgram grabs her but idk if thats too extreme???)

The only symbolism I’ve come up with for them so far are sea angels and the ocean in general

pronouns - She/her

idk age yet

Name - Sumiko/純恋/スミコ

First person pronoun - 私 / watashi

All of these ideas are pretty flexible/might change I’m still bouncing stuff around in my head but I think a character who veiws death as a redemption/that bad people can’t change unless they are reborn could be interesting if thrown into an environment like Milgram where the weight of death is judged because she’s either be like ewww horrible person who can never change ever how dare you you monster or they where just saving their victim they did nothing wrong why are you guys so meannnn!!!

It also makes her more of a Mahiru+Kotoko+shidou+amane combo which is funny to me

Design process

(Thank you Lemon for help with colours)

[zahri-melitor]

Batman v Ra's Al Ghul, by Neal Adams: A Bronze Age fever dream of a comic, written in 2019-2021.

Neal Adams caps off his over 50 year career with DC comics by...them letting him write a book for the first time in a decade.

Now, Adams is famous for his Bronze Age artwork, not his writing, and it's deservedly so: this is not the comic you would pick up if you were interested in award winning writing. But I have to say, it's actually something far more fun than 'good writing'.

I think the easiest way to describe the incredibly wild vibes of this title are 'Adams writes a multiverse Bronze Age time travel AU fic', where the cast technically consists of a modern set of characters (Dick is Nightwing and both Tim and Damian are Robin), but all of the characters are drawn, talking and acting like they just walked off a page in 1974 or so.

For assistance, that's: Dick in the yellow with the very 70s black vest; Tim in the blue t-shirt; Damian in the red t-shirt; and Bruce in the suit. You end up keeping track of them in this title by their haircuts.

Bruce and Damian here cannot remember anything about being Batman and Robin; Dick and Tim appear to have shown up with a fantastical story that cannot be proven (as I said, this has INCREDIBLE reality hopping AU vibes).

Some of the characters have been mindwiped. Some of the characters are robot duplicates. A whole list of characters Adams helped create show up largely because he created them (seriously Kirk and Francine Langstrom show up for a couple of pages mostly to give Dick and Tim an airlift into a difficult to reach entrance to the Cave). Nobody sounds particularly in character at any point, but that's not really a problem in this comic, because what it really is is a giant jolt of Bronze Age style writing nostalgia direct to the brainstem.

They don't make comics like this anymore and reading one written in the 2020s like this reinforces why.

Deadman's brother Aaron and sister Zeea show up; his brother is busy pretending to be an alternate Australian version of Batman called Marvin O'Hearn, and his sister is a psychic running around in the most 70s outfit imaginable controlling things and mindwiping Bruce on Ra's orders.

(And yes, if you too just asked 'Boston Brand has siblings???' the answer is 'kinda sorta but definitely not these two', however given Adams was writing Boston in 1968 at one point he's got as much right as anyone else to claim there are additional siblings)

There's a group who PRETEND to be the Court of Owls but secretly are a group of industrialists called The Money who want to control the world via paying for legislators, judges and industry (and yes I realise that sounds exactly like the Court's thing, but Adams was almost 80 when he wrote this, he can have an expy Court if he wants one).

Bruce pretends to be Matches for a good chunk of the back end of this comic and it actually acknowledges that Matches Malone was a real gangster before he died and Bruce stole his identity (something other writers and the fandom often forget), because Adams wants one more spin with the character he designed.

There's also a moment in the sixth issue where one of Ra's pet scientists tries to sell a panel of Gotham execs on a perpetual motion machine based on electrolysis as his replacement for the current Gotham power generators and at this point I lost it giggling at the portrayal of Ra's as a cheap charlatan.

(There is also a sneaky joke that only works if you know what British salad cream is; there's this sequence of the kids talking about Alfred making sandwiches with 'crappy salad dressing' instead of mayonnaise, only this tray has been made with mayo...and it's a hint that Alfred has been replaced by a robot. I laughed; I suspect it might be non-obvious to American audiences)

This is not a comic to read if you are interested in 'main continuity' or 'coherence' or even 'good writing'. However if you want some wild antics that feel like someone's 3am fanfic AU written in pure Bronze Age vibes and to see the last work of one of Ra's Al Ghul's creators? Give it a chance. You'll never be able to predict what's on the next page.

[susandsnell]

hey coco! hope ur having a good day! was wondering if u’d like to talk about why u like and what u find compelling with atton/exile? do u have a particular route or headcanon underwhich u prefer them or is it more of an overarching meta appreciation?

Hi, friend!

Thanks so much for the well-wishes. My day's kind of ehh due to continued Issues but the weather's nice and I'm feeling a little calmer. Hope your day is good!

Thank you so much for sending me this and enabling me shamelessly. I've been ride-or-die for Atton/Exile (which is M/F if you played the Jedi Exile as female, which I did and which is 'canon' but let's not talk about the latter lest we kick the hornet's nest) since summer 2011, which is almost 13 years now? Wild. Literally half my life. Anyhow, my reasons/headcanons have changed and evolved just as I've done a lot of growing up since the time I was first obsessed, but I'll do my best to synthesize/organize my thoughts! (Assume all the Restored Content is canon). More under the cut because 'synthesis' is still essay-length for me, God help me.

First off, I tended to play the Jedi Exile as light-sided and Revan as dark sided; I find the narrative of both games to be the most meaningful with these choices. This post basically puts into words why Revan works better as a Dark Sider, but the Exile, to me, as Revan's foil and mirror, works inversely best as a light sider. The game seems to want you to play her light-sided given how Kreia's best stuff/approval lies in that path. KOTOR II is one of the darkest entries to the Star Wars universe by far, but with a light sided exile, it's a story about how moving through life with an unyielding belief in love and justice for others in your heart will ignite that light in the people around you, and repair a broken world/galaxy.

Enter Atton.

KOTOR II is great in that you technically have such a wide range of shipping dynamics/options, and exactly none of them are functional, largely because it's one of the Star Wars media entries with the most harrowingly realistic depictions of war and its psychological impact on the people it touches. Atton Rand happened to be my favourite of all the love interests at the time because of his voice and his snarky meta-jokes (I was a Daria fanatic almost 2 decades too late, what do you want). Nowadays, I love him because his character basically took the Star Wars expanded universe requirement for Han Solo expys and went off the rails with it, making his 'scoundrel' archetype half-his charming and humorous personality, half-a facade to cover severe and quite realistically portrayed war PTSD as well as his actions as Jaq, the torture-happy mercenary. It's "what if the self-serving charming rogue during wartime archetype was brought to its logical conclusion" and I am here for it.

So first you have the parallels and contrasts - both committed atrocities during the Mandalorian wars, but while Atton was loyal to Revan after their fall and never faced justice for his wrongdoings, the (light-sided) Exile turned from Revan and still was scapegoated by the Council. Atton is a character mired in his own bitterness and cynicism, and you have the option to choose to play the Exile as a character driven solely by her morals, even when she'll suffer unconscionably for them, and it is through this unflinching clinging to her morals that she gains the idealism necessary to survive everything she goes through. Atton once sought to rip freewill away from his victims; the Exile unconsciously, slowly saps it through the cipher.

As a young teen, I admittedly was starry-eyed over the 'sheltered good girl manipulated and hurt by so many meets sexy bad boy recovering from his own past and they protect each other as a power couple' archetyping, but it does go a lot deeper than that. Their dialogue options have easy, natural, sexy chemistry that draws you in, but I do think my appreciation goes deeper. This isn't a simple 'fixing the bad boy' because of the narrative device of the Force cipher meaning you quite literally have "I can fix him" and "I can make him worse" as your game mechanics, lol. You get your surface-level fun of their interactions between the proper, well-mannered Jedi and the flirtatious rapscallion, but you also have two people who, for the reasons I outlined above, fundamentally understand each other after harrowing lifetimes spent alone in their pain and trauma.

I'd go so far as to say Atton is the best-placed of anyone to understand the Exile; the Sion ship is compelling and squee-worthy to any Phantom fangirl worth her salt (as I was), but she's everything he couldn't be or fathom, Visas may have felt closer to the pain the Exile did over Malachor V but her worst actions were committed under duress as a captive of Darth Nihilus and not of her own volition (so I argue she's a lot more morally innocent than Atton or the Exile), Mical/The Disciple is the innocence and warmth of the Exile's upbringing untouched by how the Mando wars reforged her and while Brianna/The Handmaiden is excellent as a potential parallel for specifically the Exile's abuse at the hands of the Jedi (Atris in particular), she's still similarly sheltered to Mical. Bao-Dur was with the Exile during the war but the game didn't develop him enough and understands that aspect of her, but they canonically per the dialogue emotionally distanced themselves given the circumstances, and Mira the Bounty Hunter is cool sister-zoned, but I suspect her family being victim to Malachor V would drive a wedge no matter how much forgiveness the game preaches.

Meanwhile, Atton knows and/or loves not pieces of the Exile, but as she is; the battered and betrayed veteran with a lifetime of wrongdoing to atone for that he recognizes in himself, and the naive Jedi she was before that the charming flirt in him likes to tease. And although his backstory is a revelation, and a harrowing one to the Exile, who sees what she might have become had she stayed with Revan, this is what their relationship is; seeing someone in their totality, and loving and honouring the worst with the best. Despite knowing what the Exile's done, Atton values her enough to still care about how she views him that he begs Kreia not to tell her the truth about his past. The two are instantly drawn to each other on Peragus, not just out of necessity but genuine, instinctive protectiveness, attraction, and a deeper sense (be it Force-Assisted or not) of understanding. Atton refers to it in his death scene (if you count that) as love at first sight, and while there was probably initial infatuation, I think there was just such an instant magnetism that grew and grew between them through shared experience. "Don't give up on me now, dammit!" and "You want her, you get through me." come to mind. Atton is the only party member that asks her to train him in the Force, whereas she has to prompt and convince the others into their awakening. He's deeply scarred by his experiences with the Force, not to mention it's actively dangerous to train as a Jedi due to the Exchange, but he's willing to face that for the Exile - he tells her that part of why he wants to train as a Jedi is to be better able to protect and fight for her. One of the first things he does is teach her to play Pazaak in her head to prevent from psychic attacks through the Force/harm through Kreia's force bond - the exact weapon he wielded against others. The tragedy of any Jedi Exile ship is the constant insecurity created by the force-wound/cipher; how much of anyone's choice to follow in their footsteps or love them is their own free will? What power dynamics, unspoken or obvious, arise from it? But Atton's fierce independence and selfishness almost serves as the clearest answer to this. He willingly reawakens himself to the Force to connect with her, to be better able to fight for her. He chose her, a thousand times over, and whatever role the Force Wound plays, he accepts her influence out of admiration for that steadfast-to-a-fault morality I talked about before.

This isn't some corny gender essentialist "she is his redemption" nonsense either, although redemption is a major theme of a light-sided KOTOR 2; by training Atton and others as a Jedi, the Exile is actively doing the work to heal the galaxy she helped to break. By protecting and teaching and bonding with the Exile, Atton is regaining his own humanity through recognizing hers, over and over, the way he failed to recognize those of his victims. They're together in this, in their recovery, in how they've experienced all extremes of morality. Love, in this story, isn't about fixing someone or breaking them, it's about meeting them where they are and walking alongside them, hopefully to someplace better than where you were when you both met. Is it any wonder that he's the one she walks away with in the end? (As if he'd let her walk alone ever again.)

With all this being said, and to address your question, while the route/headcanon preferences I prefer for Atton/Exile create, I think, the richest narrative with what's there, I've definitely got an overarching meta appreciation for them too. I spent my teen years eagerly eating up every possible iteration of them as a couple, and much of what I described above can hold true in a different aspect if people prefer to play them dark-sided, if people hold the tragic dying in your arms ending as canon, and so forth. They're compelling any way you slice them.

[lucabyte]

Does lucabyte horse have Lore? Very nice horse btw

Thank u for the hompliment (horse compliment)

And surprisingly, not really? Not in-universe lore anyway. That said it does have a weird lineage and weird trivia.

First of all: funny trivia. I think the thing uses different pronouns to me. no i dont know whats up with that. I just realised one day that I habitually it/its the horse despite it Allegedly being my fursona. I do not use it/its pronouns . but i guess the horse does. good for it?

I'd mostly chalk this up to the fact that the horse is only a sona *sometimes*. The line here is blurry obviously but it mostly comes down to if im characterising it as a thickheaded animal or as a mouthpiece for my own opinions. Poor thing just gets posessed by me sometimes (and gains they/them pronouns in the process?)

But anyway since you asked niceys i can give the closest other thing to lore i have which is lineage. which im putting below a readmore for my own sake

(OH GOD THE FORMATTING BROKE IM SORRYYYY ITS A TOWER OF IMAGES :( LONGPOST WARNING)

So this thing like. its very obviously a my little pony right. Or at least used to be. i'd consider it more than a little suspicious just based on the way i draw the snout and hind legs. But here's a truncated evolution of the design:

Originally they were straight up black and white with red eyes. Then I had this like... Genuinely hilarious in retrospect thought process of:

"Hmm. Having a character be black and white is too edgy. I should add a colour to the hair. How about red. Maybe dark red. So dark that its almost black. Yeah that'll fix it."

Which is. Just the most wonderful "I am 12" reasoning in the world. Anyway this colouration eventually turned into hair with a red/maroon/red stripe pattern, which i eventually got lazy enough to omit leading to the pure red mane. Then by like, 2016 I had basically locked in something close to the final design of "giant fucking thing thats barely a horse"

The underbite tusks & extremely square face are rather recent though. Mostly because i think it looks cute

Also, as a genuine secret. There's an origin of species type diagram I can draw with a few characters here. And while the expy-nature of such things is cringe, it's been literally a decade since Lupus was redesigned (2015!!!) into just a regular anthro dog so... I think its been long enough.

^ Lupus (the black and white dogy) and The Horse did technically originate as the same character, both being a sona that just like. used my real ass name. In blatant nonbinary child fashion this sona was a shapeshifter, obviously. (A shapeshifter that was Very insistent on their Gender and Pronouns. Lol.)

The oldest date I can lock them in at (and their cohort that became Miao and Markus over time) is May 2011, making them fourteen years old... older than I was when i made them. yeowch...

(The other character who sprang off here being more recent and post-expy. Gabe notably was born from Lupus' rib adam and eve style when i decided to take all of the 'sarcastic asshole' characterisation out of Lupus to make them a friendly little guy, and just dropped that original snark into a bird-shaped foil.)

Damon was an earlier attempt at a foil that originally got scrapped, then made a foil to Miao, and then dropped from the main cast. He's fine though he's still around. It's whatever.

all in all. no lore only weird evolution over the course of a decade+. Hope this was fun to look at ???

[jadelotusflower]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️

Thank you, my friend! I'm going to limit this to Star Wars fics otherwise it would be impossible to choose.

In no particular order:

The Lady of the Lake - part of my A Year in the Life series, and I think this is my favourite for a few reasons. It's the conclusion of the series and I love a happy ending, indulging in some of my greatest Star Wars loves - Luke/Mara, One Big Happy Skywalker/Solo family + the Naberries (SkySoloBerries), and particular writing interests - mythology and folklore which play a big part in this story, in particular I love the story of the singing swan (which I may repurpose in original fiction one day) and Nabéire and the Morrígan.

Turn Your Face to the Sun - Obi-Wan chronicles his life on Tatooine in a journal - which sounds banal, but I really love this fic even if it is unfinished (I'm close, only a few chapters to go). In a way Obi-Wan as a character probably aligns with my writing style better than others, and I really enjoyed fleshing out his character during this time, but also Owen, Beru, and Luke as a family. If you were disappointed by the Kenobi tv show, perhaps this may be of interest.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother - A little bit of a cheat, since this isn't technically a series but a grouping of one-shots about Luke and Han's friendship (or thematically adjacent) - one of my favourite relationships/dynamics! Set at various times and adhering to various canons, nonetheless something I always enjoy writing about. But if I had to only pick one from this lot, it would be He Will Not Encumber Me.

Twin Hearts of Kyber - This started out as a little AU where Leia made it to Tatooine to collect Obi-Wan, who of course insisted on bringing Luke along too. I wrote a second chapter because I really wanted Luke to meet Breha and Bail, and then intended to write a third and final chapter where the twins meet Han, however the more I thought about it the more I wanted to explore how the story could unfold from there (and maybe bring Mara into it as well), but alas remains unfinished even in my mind. But I still love it, and do want to finish it one day.

Red Five - At over 200k words, the longest fic I've ever written, started in those heady days after TFA where there was so much hope and theorising about where the story could go. While technically a Luke/OC fic, the idea of Valara was very much as a Mara expy brought into the new canon. Originally intended as a one-shot, the fic grew into a total AU backstory to TFA with Luke and Valara as an emotional slow burn, the birth of Rey and her subsequent disappearance orchestrated by Ben, and then AU sequel to TFA as Luke and Rey reunite and search for Valara. Heavy angst with a happy ending (eventually), I'm really very attached to this fic even if I have been soured on the ST as a whole.

[yupuffin]

Okay @uncreative-cryptid @unrealistic-ideas-for-writers

Here's my Quay "expy" into HSR (or just like. a self-insert with a slightly different flavor)

Very messily formatted notes 🤣

Foxian, cyan/blue color scheme with maybe some brown in there (I like how that turned out with Quay), maintaining the eye patch over the blind right eye although I think it would be fun if it covered slightly more of his face and had patterns embroidered on it to make it more flamboyant

Just because he is basically going to be Quay but with a more flamboyant personality -- like I said, more of a theatre kid and more of an overt homosexual disaster. 🤣 Aside from that, his personality will be pretty similar -- easygoing and sociable enough on the outside but anxious and with low self-esteem on the inside, no particular goals aside from vibing (and is pretty adamant about this), and probably won't stop yapping once you activate his special interest (which in this case will be dance instead of marine biology)... and some degree of physical disability which will limit his occupational capabilities

And he's going to follow the same loose backstory of "my blood family screwed me over so I remade myself and now I'm resentful of anything resembling a nuclear family and prefer to choose my own allies" (and I'm debating the feasibility of maintaining the "moved to another locale" plot point, based on the fact that transfers back and forth between the Xianzhou Yaoqing and the Luofu are apparently possible, as is the case with Sushang -- I'd like to keep it if possible)

Since I've recovered some of my skills and confidence crafting OCs with Quay, a non-Resonator, I'm like, okay, cool, maybe this guy can have the quintessential video game superpowers. Just for funsies (also bc I think it would be a fun mental exercise to craft a kit for him... more on that later)

Given his physical state, he's not going to be primarily an attacker. So I was like oh okay he can be a healer and be Abundance. But then I remembered the major beef between the Hunt and the Abundance and I was like. Actually no, I'm up for a challenge but not that much of a challenge. 🤣 So I was like maybe Nihility, but more realistically either Harmony or Preservation. (and also Jiaoqiu is already Nihility)

And then I took a personality quiz and it gave me Preservation, which I was absolutely expecting based on what I know about myself and about the Paths. So Preservation it is

Probably going to make him Ice bc it's a nice complement to Jiaoqiu and Moze being Fire and Lightning respectively, and it sounds like the DoT from the Frozen status would complement Jiaoqiu's kit based on what I know about it off the top of my head. Also just based on Vibes. (and it's the closest thing HSR has to Water-type, so, really, is anyone surprised?)

Once a few years ago I participated in a naginata demonstration and I'd like him to wield one as well -- technically naginata are Japanese and not Chinese, but Jing Yuan uses a glaive which is apparently European? So I don't think the inaccuracy matters too much

(And like I said this dude is also going to be a theatre kid/performer so I think he'll have some experience in dance as well as in naginatajutsu and probably a touch in the characteristic Xianzhou Yaoqing theatre form "Red Fox Theatre" which sounds pretty cool ngl)

So he'll have some form of combat or combat-adjacent role, albeit with limited offensive capabilities, but hey, as with Quay, emotional support is important, too!

Which I think works out since Moze is an attacker and it looks like Jiaoqiu is a debuffer?? so that makes a nice role balance

Although speaking of roles, I'm working out his kit and I'm thinking I'll branch out just a little from the defensive aspect just to get him to work as a nice complement -- I like how in WuWa characters' combat roles aren't quite as strict (looking at you, Brant, who can do literally everything) so I think I'll carry that over and not worry about in-game feasibility too much since. it's not like he's going to be a real HSR character

But my beginnings of thoughts on that are like. basic attack with naginata obvs, I'm thinking I want his skill to provide a shield to all allies. But. We're going to spice it up a little, just because I want a unique and interesting kit. The value of the shield, I think, is going to be proportional to the ratio between the ally's ATK and this guy's ATK (i.e. it will be stronger if the ally has very high ATK, if this guy has very low ATK, or both. So if you want to build my OC it has to be for something other than ATK. Up to you which you want to choose depending on your team comp but I personally recommend coupling Break Effect with either DEF or HP)

For the Ultimate I'm thinking a Bounce-style attack with an emphasis on weakness-breaking, since that would complement Moze's ability by smacking the enemy and Jiaoqiu's with getting that DoT in. Like maybe it'll add shields to the allies based on how many enemies it weakness breaks

Which leaves the Talent and Technique which... I'll just have to put more thought into those

As far as non-combat activities with Moze and Jiaoqiu go, like I said. Cuddle puddle. Overt homosexual disaster. (c.f. Quay being a covert homosexual disaster -- Quay is very shy but definitely very gay) Big fan of quality time and physical touch -- so mostly napping, but also allogrooming? (Since I touched on the allogrooming/allopreening concept in a fic I wrote with Sunday, and I liked it a lot, so. Foxian allogrooming, now!) Like I think it'd be fun for he and Jiaoqiu to do each other's hair and fur (and maybe they could rope Moze into it, too, although they could keep it simpler with just a simple hair brush) and as I mentioned he'll definitely also be a fan of helping Moze keep things clean because it gives him another excuse for quality time!! Haha

(And FWIW he thinks Moze and Jiaoqiu are both very funny. Oh, Moze tries to assassinate Feixiao every day? Silly guy, he's keeping his skills sharp : ) )

And that's about all I've got so far!

[abyssmalice]

(tl;dr flower has Super Important Thonkies ft. how to describe and address my tonis bc let's face it - having two characters with technically the same name and origin point within the same media also is kinda hard to juggle in terms of how to address them by literal name without confusing even me dgsdyugdsyugsdyu)

so as everyone knows, i basically have two tonis on this blog -

they are the same character but also not - they follow a specific AU each, but also exist in a concurrent state that allows them to interact with each other in addition to other muses.

which is definitely very weird to read and wrap one's head around, but borrowing from the honkie games -

you can think of the two tonis in the same vein as expies - like how impacto three and star railing has a character named Bronya, both of whom are the same but also very much not, and exist concurrently (hi3 bronnie is on earth, hsr bronnie is in a different galaxy; they can Technically encounter each other, circumstances permit. and im not even going to touch upon the silver wolf = haxxor bunny connections lol).

though really, my tonis are a lot closer to how hi3 does expies - the same character but very much not, split between different cycles of history.

if that helps make it make sense then yessss hooraaaaay!!!!!

im not done yet though.

so!!!! now that we have the premise of "here are two tonis who are the same but not" laid down, here's where my main thonkie is!! with how to actually distinguish them when addressing one of the two.

both of them are named Tonia, albeit with a different surname. their personalities, positions, experiences and even physical appearances are very different from each other - but there's still some overlap here and there, which can get confusing if certain details are mentioned.

ive tried my to make it super clear which toni im discussing without being super in-your-face about it - with icons, references to details that are exclusive to one of them, or with my silly nicknames (that i enjoy still tbh lmao) but ive been thinking........... even for me, this is kinda annoying to manage LMAOOOO

so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what is flower's solution to this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well them having the same name is the issue and its the easiest identifier for anyone sooo.

ive technically had this means in place from the beginning and its also lowkey enforced in my rules too - but the other older toni, the abyssal one, according to the lore ive written for her, has the alias of "Freyja" that she primarily goes by anyway.

which is to say!! im basically pulling a real childe on the older toni and having her referred as and with her alias name (Freyja vs Tonia) like how childe does (Childe/Tartaglia vs Ajax).

her real name i.e. Tonia will be treated in a similar vein - not common knowledge unless in the right position to be having said information, or she's given it out and allowed your muse to address her as such.

(truly going back to her meta origins as the original roleswap au i had for tonia............. heehaw..................................!!)

and yeah, as mentioned - this is a thing thats sorta already been in place for a while, but im enforcing it in full now!!!!!!!! even in ooc talks thats how ill be addressing her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! which further means that any future mentions of Tonia will usually just be the main, harbingy one - unless the context demands otherwise, or more likely, if i am addressing Tonia in the plural (tonis.... sssss.................)

[tyrantisterror]

While we’re on the subject of Dungeons & monsters, what are your top ten favorite D&D monsters & why?

I'm going to limit this to monsters that are either original creations of D&D or so divorced from their mythological roots that they might as well be original creations, or else this would just be me listing dragons. This is also in no particular order.

I'm gonna start with the Otyugh, because I think it's a result of D&D creating a very interesting ecosystem to justify its mechanics. You have all these artificial dungeons filled with different man-eating monsters, right? Well, what about the waste products they create? Carrion, yes, but also, you know... poop.

Well, you get Otyughs, a species that, depending on the setting, was either artificially engineered to take care of the waste products of a dungeon, or naturally evolved to clear out the waste of enormous megafauna predators like dragons. Is it mostly just an excuse to introduce yet another weird monster with a unique attack mechanic (say hello to sepsis and other infections, players)? Yeah, but it's a good excuse, it gets the imagination flowing.

I've actually played a lot more Pathfinder than D&D proper, and Pathfinder went out of its way to give Otyughs love by exploring all the aspects of their ecology that were only lightly outlined or implied in D&D, including the fact that they're technically intelligent enough to be capable of speech and reason - and thus, not necessarily a monster you have to deal with using violence alone. It really endeared me to them, to the point where Otyugh characters became something of a trademark of mine when running Pathfinder/D&D campaigns - and to the point where I ended up making up an expy of them for my own fantasy setting.

Bulettes are one of the coolest looking D&D monsters for my money, especially given that their modern designs take two inspiration from two very different animals - sharks and tortoises - and manage to combine them so beautifully to create something at once very cool and yet perfectly plausible as a "real" creature.

I love Rust Monsters for the same reason I love Otyughs - it's a monster that was made to showcase a game mechanic (namely, destroying players' weapons and armor, making sure they know how valuable those things are) and ends up creating a weird but plausible and interesting aspect of the ecology and world-building as a result. Also like Otyughs, they're very cute in a groady monster way.

Not every monster needs to have a big mind-blowing concept for me to be happy, though. Sometimes a creepy guy with a squid for a head who eats brains is enough. Mind Flayers are iconic and often imitated despite/because of being such a simple and easy to grasp concept.

Speaking of iconic monsters, Beholders feel like such an obvious cool concept that is shocking to me that they're more or less an original D&D creation - and it kind of sucks that they are, because a giant monster head with one main eye and several smaller eyes on stalks feels like it should be as ubiquitous in fiction as dragons and unicorns, and yet it can't be without paying Wizards of the Coast a shit-ton of royalties.

I will say that the lore D&D gave Beholders is pretty good, though - namely that each Beholder thinks it is the apex of their kind, and hates all other beholders for their perceived imperfections. Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you see. It's great, no notes, but beholders should belong to the people, not copyright holders.

I'm pretty sure Mimics originate from D&D, though I guess they just couldn't keep the idea of "a treasure chest that fucking eats you" from the people, since they appear in a lot of non-licensed stuff. As they should - man-eating treasure chests are another monster concept that should belong to the people.

I was talking about Froghemoths the other day on here but I want to reiterate that I love them despite/because of the fact that there really is no greater concept at play here than "what if there was a big fucking frog freak," and not once in the long history of this game has anyone decided there needed to be more at play than that. A big fucking frog freak is enough for all of us.

I just think this one looks neat.

D&D kobolds are in the category of "so far removed from its mythic roots that it's basically a new monster," and in that case the new monster is "scrabbly little dragon people with extreme anxiety," and I love that. Kobolds are my favorite humanoid species in D&D, and I'm glad 5th edition finally gave them a stat block that's actually playable, as opposed to previous edition's attempts, which made the prospect of being a kobold character the equivalent of having a public humiliation kink.

Finally, and also in the category of "technically named after a mythic monster it no longer resembles in almost any way," we have the Tarrasque, which went from a turtle/lion hybrid dragon in myth to a nigh-indestructible monster that's explicitly compared to natural disasters for its immense size, vast destructive power, and near inability to be harmed thanks to its armored hide and insane healing abilities. Or, in short, D&D lawyer friendly equivalent of Godzilla. How can I not love D&D Godzilla?

[raffcus]

egeria's 101 questions! (4.0 UPDATE!)

a silly list with my theories/speculations on the previous hydro archon to see if one of them is gonna to be true in the future! ( if you have some suggetions to on the list pls feel free to tell something to add)

egeria is coming back(reviving)

[no info yet]

2. egeria is a seele expy?

[no info yet]

3. egeria relationship with neuvilette was good/bad?

in the end of 4.0 archon quest, neuvillette says more about the rumors about the prophecy that cicles around fontaine, the prophecy that resumes: "in the end, the people will be dissolved into the waters, and only the hydro archon will remain, weeping on her throne… only that the sins of the people of fontaine be washed away" which is curious to see that he probably heard more about that prophecy by rumors not by egeria herself, very curious.

4. egeria relationship with furina (focalors) was good/bad?

also in the end of 4.0 archon quest, egeria tells about the prophecy on her last words: "in the end, the people will be dissolved into the waters, and only the hydro archon will remain, weeping on her throne… only that the sins of the people of fontaine be washed away" between 400 and 500 years, fontaine suffered (and continues to suffering) from a energy crisis left by egeria before going to Tunigi Hollow, now being sustained by Indemnitium that is produced by the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale. there is a lot a problems left by egeria to furina and as we can see in the archon quest (4.0 and 4.1) and she isn't so Experience to take care such large duties by herself and requests neuvillete help most of time. so for me their relationship wasn't the most stable one (or there was a lack of communication between them).

5. egeria have a connnection with the nymph's dream set?

technically yes! nymph's dream set history is substantially connectic to the Narzissenkreuz Institute, the institue was lead by gentle-natured Oceanid as the position was established in honor of the first Hydro Archon, egeria.

6. egeria have a connection with The Hexenzirkel?

still zero information, but only this sussy metioned on furina character description:

7. egeria have a connection with the seelie race?

[no info yet]

8. egeria have a connection with the primodial one?

surprisingly yes!

if we looked the Wings of Merciful, Wrathful Waters wind glider, in description says:

"when that fist heart was removed, the envoy of celestia, the leader uopn whose shoulders lay the create life, came to the great primeval sea, and there she created another heart" "she was the tears that flowed into the orimodial sea, seeking communication and understanding."

that text indicate that egeria was a "heart replacment" for the primodial sea, created by the shade of life,the purpose to be a substitute of the hydro sovereign.

[new speculations!]

9. is egeria sins related to abyss?

10. egeria is connected to skirk?