ciphernull

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hutta before and after 7.5

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vector <3

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source

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<Stim Please> and <Down With Sith Bus> is live!

Finally, you don't have to log out in an unsafe area (aka any cishet/white/ableist guild). Or log into one, for that matter.

<Stim Please> (pub) and its sister guild <Down With Sith Bus> (imp) on Star Forge dedicated to creating an actually safe space in-game -- and out.

Benefits include a discord server, the Nar Shaddaa pub side stronghold and Rishi imp side stronghold, no inactivity limits, alt toon parking, 5-10% xp bonus (depending on faction) and repair allowances (no more out of pocket like the US healthcare system \o/)! Also, you don't have to group with randos anymore?!

DM me for a discord invite!

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now listen to me young man, i am talking directly into your ear now. i need you to do the Empire a favor. you will do this mission. i need you to go to gamestop, and i need you to ask the gentleman working the counter if they have bambi on the ps2. if you come back empty handed youll be in big trouble cipher. you will never see the light of day.

[ciphernull]

Pay your respects to the Hoth Boobs

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just as a heads up, i'm going to be taking a semi-hiatus from this blog, as i need to sort out some mental health stuff. also, the adhd has struck and reignited my love for gw2, so that will probably preoccupy me for a while. i'll still be around, just not as active on here as i have been the past couple months. i hope y'all understand and stick around anyway, but no worries if not :)

if you wanna follow me elsewhere: main, gw2 blog, warframe blog

[ciphernull]

personal grumbling re: char dev woes

hmmng i keep finding myself lacking something when it comes to developing my characters here. i guess it's like... i miss collaboration?

i'm so used to making characters for tabletop that it feels lonely doing it without other people involved. oc asks are fun and all but i really need someone to just... bounce ideas off, n discuss interactions n themes n parallels and all that good stuff! i really want to like, not necessarily even roleplay (though i do want to get back into that. eventually.) but just create something *with* someone again.

but then this also feeds back into the whole "all my ocs feel half baked" issue because how am i supposed to get someone interested enough to want to actually talk about ocs personally if i can't develop them to the point of being interesting? it's such an annoying feeling.

i know a lot of this is in my head, because i do this all the time! but it's still a Problem for me, even if it's a made up problem. and i don't mean to sound self deprecating about this or anything, m' just a bit frustrated with myself. and maybe a little lonely. idk. bleh.

[ciphernull]

hyroh 1, 9, 23 aaand izvoye 3, 20, 24

What is your character’s favorite food and why? Fried rice - he grew up having rice with at least one of his meals every day which meant a lot of leftover rice which meant fried rice! Now it's just his go-to meal to make when he's got leftovers he doesn't know what to do with & needs something comforting. Easily customizable, doesn't take very long to put together, and it reminds him of home!

If asked, would your character say they were happy as a child? It's - complicated. In some respects, yes! He had a big, loving family, and his Padawan years with Le'raya and Izvoye were probably the best years of it, and he was certainly happy then. But his childhood on Ord Mantell was difficult; undiagnosed ADHD, most notably the emotional dysregulation, caused him a lot of grief in school, he didn't have any friends outside of his family, systemic xenophobia and political unrest, so on and so forth.

But, again, if asked, he … would say yes. Doesn't mean that's true.

Does your character have any pets? Hyroh has never really been big on animals ever, but in retirement with Tyr, he gets into a bit of trouble with his husband for all the chickens and nerfs he keeps bringing home. They're all his babies and if anything were to happen to them he'd … probably cry.

What makes your character’s skin crawl? Damp, dark spaces - sewers, caves, etc. Relatedly: confined spaces make her chest tight and give her that skin-crawling, unsettled feeling. Hard to have personal space when with company, but even alone it's unpleasant, makes her worry about running out of air even if she understands that that's unlikely / impossible.

Does your character have any significant others? Oh, you know, a few :)

Her first & canonical love interest is Felix Iresso. More thoughts to come as I do his romance again but they're, they're just so deeply and ridiculously in love, your honor. They eventually go on to have twin girls, Celeste and Art'e.

She's also acquired two more boyfriends through roleplay shenanigans, one of which being Tyr, who belongs to @tiredassmage. She and Hyroh have the same interest in men and this has happened twice now that they've been into the same guy (if I ever flesh out the Consular Hyroh AU it'll be three times).

Like Hyroh & Tyr in their own little verse, Izvoye meets Tyr during the events of Shadow of Revan. At first, her interest in him is - tactical. What's his stake in all of this, what's he doing this for? Threat evaluation. Izvoye is more than willing to work with the other faction but she has her reservations about it, Tyr in particular being an unknown factor. It's important for her to know where he stands, she's also curious for the sake of it. She's never met a puzzle she didn't at least try to solve.

So her interest in him evolves from purely professional to personal. Yes, she's learning now about Cipher Nine, but what about the man behind that? What does he like, what does he believe in, what keeps him up at night and what keeps him going? How does he take his caf, is he afraid of heights, what does his voice sound like early in the morning before he's woken up all the way? She wants to know him, everything that he's willing to share with her. Tyr and Felix are also shaking hands on the whole seeing the beauty of the world through her own appreciation of it, or rather, wanting to see the galaxy the way she does - he happily listens to her infodumps about constellations and geology and linguistics and so on; because how Izvoye loves is through knowledge, through learning everything she can about a subject. That's how she loves the world, by trying her best to understand it and share it with others. She gives him hope that way. Makes him want to fight for a future where she can keep doing that, in peace and quiet.

What do they like about their appearance? Izvoye frankly doesn't have much of an opinion about her physical appearance - she appreciates her body because it's how she can exist in the first place. Without it she supposes she'd be a weird, nebulous consciousness, and that doesn't sound very fun. But what she's experimented with the most over the years & puts the most care and attention toward is her hair. Depending on the time period I'll draw her with different styles because she changes it up every few years, though her locks is the "default". She has probably dyed it at some point (thinking I should play around w/ colors she might like)

Besides her hair, she's also pretty fond of her sense of style - still very recognizably Jedi, somewhat modest (unlike a certain Sentinel who would have his boobs out all the time if he could get away with it), but not the same boring cream and brown robes. Long skirts are a staple because they are very comfortable. And her boyfriends can get up to shenanigans with them--

Ultimately, what Izvoye likes about her appearance are the parts that she can play around with and change without too much commitment.

[25 Questions For The Writer]

[ciphernull]

so i always like to poke at the raid scene in any mmo i try, and i have to say, the ops in this game are really fun. i've mostly stuck to story mode so far, but have just begin venturing into vet with a friendly guild that adopted me. i like that most ops have pretty simple but enjoyable baseline encounters, with more mechanics layered on as you choose to do the more challenging modes.

i get the vibe that swtor people on tumblr tend to be solo players, who prefer to avoid group content for various reasons. (no shade, i get it, i have anxiety too.) but with how low pressure some of the sm ops are, i really do recommend checking them out if you haven't.

that said, if anyone is ever looking for a chance to try them and wants some guidance or just a friendly face, i would be happy to help :)

[ciphernull]

4 for Heskan, 15 for Alesko?

Heskan

What does your character hate the most?

Heskan hates to be still. Patience is very much a learned trait for him, and even with all his instruction, it's still an effort for him to hold back, to stand by and wait for the moment instead of seizing it himself. For as long as he can remember, all he's ever wanted is to run free, to feel earth and sky and sun and relish in the vastness of it all. He buries these urges deep, holds them tight in his chest, determined to grasp the serenity that so many Jedi seem to possess, effortlessly, and be content. But still, they burn.

Alesko

Who does your character look up to and who do they despise?

(this one's gone slightly long so i'm just going to focus on the first bit of the question and use it as an opportunity to flesh out a previous answer. buckle up for sad blue man >:3)

As far as someone he looks up to, it once again has to go to Keeper. I think a lot about his relationship with the agent, and how it plays with Alesko's character in particular. Honestly, I'm convinced he was more of a father figure to him than his actual one.

During Alesko's early days with Intelligence, he was a very different person. Colder, harder, more ruthless. His upbringing has lead him to believe this was what was expected of him, and that empathy, or any emotion, had no place in his line of work, or in him. But Keeper's leadership, his commitment to his people, the sacrifices he made to them together, gave him a much needed reality check, and imparted on him a truth he had never before been granted--that he was allowed to care, to feel, to want, and that it was possible to strive for that even in the face of the unforgiving reality of their work.

Of course, discovering the truth about his role in Alesko's conditioning shattered everything. Just when he had begun to believe he had found a place, a people, a home--he learns the one man he put his faith in above all others had betrayed him. It hurt. Even now, after all that's happened since, even understanding why, it still hurts. Another lesson to take in stride.

But try as he might, Alesko cannot find it in himself to hate him. He's wished he could, oh, how he's wished it. If only he were colder, harder, more ruthless, he might have taken revenge and been done with it. But in spite of himself, beneath the splintering ache in his chest, he remembers the man whose words lifted him from the dark. The man who endured bolt after bolt of force lightning in his stead. The man who repeatedly placed himself in the line of fire to protect the people he cared for. And the ache begins to numb.

[ciphernull]

I had the sudden urge to draw Scourge today so he's now the owner of 1 page of my sketchbook

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Lord Darkstripe

I've been listening to Stars Wars Legends: Revan on audible and the narrators voice for Scourge makes me think of Macleod Andrews voice for Darkstripe from the Warriors books on audible. Now you can be cursed with this image because I cannot unhear it.

[ciphernull]

from the 25 questions post, let's have 1, 7, annnd 14 for trooper!Tyr :)

[25 Character Questions for the Writer] Kicks my feet! Thank you for indulging me. x3

1 - What is your character's favorite food and why?

Keep your high-rated restaurants and meticulously planned dates. Tyr is scouring the streets for the corner food truck selling fried kebabs and greased concoctions. And Elara has, unfortunately, hooked him on Kaasi brandy. She’s taken to smacking him on the shoulder when he breaks out a bottle from Force-knows-not what sources, but it certainly must be to his fancy for him to risk potentially trading with Imperial interests even by proxy or distantly.

Street vendors range from some of the best food you can find this side of the Hydian Way to downright ireputable, and Tyr would like to think many years running past a fair lot of them back and forth to work before his official days in service to the Republic has given him an alright enough eye to discern what you’re looking for. Point him at something with a bit of spice or heat, or a truck with smoke pluming out the side, and he’s going to be eyeing that menu. Leave no stone unturned. The strongest of his cravings would prefer a spot that forgoes such nuisances as cutlery. Dig in with your hands or it’s just not the right stuff.

As for why? It's relatively universal, and a mash of familiar comforts and whatever might be local. It's a bit of an adventure. And Tyr, admittedly, probably doesn't realize that he likes the adrenaline of such. xD

[And now the rest are about to give me lots of emotions below klsnflsdfs]

7 - What does your character miss the most?

Honestly? I think he misses that exhausted look his mother used to give him… a lot. Because he was… a bit of a handful. They moved around a lot, bouncing from job to job - sometimes world to world - for his mother as she could find employment after the nebulous hole his father left behind in their lives (she’d never talk about it, never tell him more than the man was never present, and he didn’t need to be).

As… tends to happen, her rambunctious teen of a son often told her she worried too much, and gave her the crooked smile to match. Yes, even the day she found out he’d been illegally racing swoopbikes for months without telling her.

He promised he’d stay in touch when he up and enlisted with the Republic SIS. He’s kept sending her parts of his paychecks for years now, but getting into SpecForces put strain on a somewhat already burdened relationship. There’s times he misses coming home with his busted lip and scuffed up knees because he got in the way of the wrong type of crowd trying to make it home from the mechanic’s shop or the tracks, the way she’d tilt his head up and click her tongue in disapproval at him before setting their meager dinner preparations aside to clean him up. It was a gentle and stinging love, all at once. She’d always tell him he was going to get in over his head someday.

I think a part of him sometimes wishes he could tell her, you were right, ma. And it sucks. He’s not… very sure of the man he’s grown into. But his mother's love was unconditional still, despite their imperfections. And he's not entirely lost a younger boy's longing for the galaxy to just make sense. And to be told it's all going to be alright.

14 - Who would your character never betray?

Ough, loredumping warning because this is. This one's got a bit of a loaded answer.

It’s a bit of a contradictory answer, but his core teammates of Havoc Squad come to mean a lot to him. Hyroh (@exeuntlegacy ehehehe new blog tag new blog tag) and Aric have been by his side from the beginning and Elara quickly finds a place among the boys. Even if they drive her to wit’s end sometimes. [Please send her some brandy and maybe get her a raise. She’s dealing with far too much of Their Shit sometimes.]

In short, it’s contradictory because he does, technically, start out betraying all of them before he even knows them. As a plant from the SIS in SpecForce to investigate Garza’s command and rumors of SpecForce defections, and given the two departments’ notorious mistrust for one another, the news does… not go well when Tyr pipes up and reveals the truth about his recruitment to the squad and the general after trading information about Havoc’s reason for being on Nar Shadaa freely with their contact there, SIS Agent Jonas Balkar.

But what follows over the next several years of their continued service together in Havoc is admittedly a roller coaster. There’s some highs in their victories, and there’s some definite lows and fuck-ups on Tyr’s part as a young and relatively inexperienced commanding officer - one of them is, indeed, being a once-SIS plant. But ultimately, Tyr’s left to his place in Havoc by the SIS because the squad’s already in a bad way and by General Garza because Tyr, while he says he won’t fight the general if she wants to strip his rank and position in Havoc and SpecForce entirely, does make a fair argument that she’ll only make more problems for herself, and kicking him out will only draw attention and detract from the hunt for Tavus.

Again, not all of this pleases his squadmates. But they don’t ever entirely give up on him in… a way the SIS seems to. He’s cut loose, essentially, traded over to actually fully live in his position with Havoc. And that stings a little, honestly.

Tyr manages to piss off Hyroh several times. Tyr fucks up, really. They have different opinions because of their exposures to the galaxy, to the Republic’s underbelly and its flaws. Tyr’s a bright-eyed idealist and, early on, pretty damn loyal to it to actual fault. Hyroh actually breaks his nose over it when Tyr puts a blaster bolt through Tavus. And, with time, Tyr eventually recognizes he… deserved that, more than likely. [In time, Tyr will express this as a badge of honor, much to Hyroh's embarrassment.]

Aric and him go… a bit back and forth. Jorgan’s a more experienced soldier, a more experienced leader, and in a way scruffs his new Lieutenant carefully by his little scarves and tries to teach him the ropes as best he can because they might as well try not to get each other killed. Tyr’s an alright kid, he’s just. Inexperienced. An idealist. Aric doesn’t like the truth that he’s an SIS spy, but they smooth things out, eventually. They come back around. Havoc’s really the only place left that Tyr has to hold to at that point. The SIS has left him, Garza’s been successfully pissed off that the SIS went around her. He’s really got no choice but to try to work through it with the rest of them. And, despite the initial blow up, Tyr tries. He does. Genuinely. He learns. And Jorgan can’t hold that against him. And he makes Hyroh happy. That’s… still his younger brother, even if their relationship is… only sort of on the mend, at that point.

And Elara is perhaps the most steadfast of his supporters. Her line of, “I’ve always preferred hard truths to easy lies,” really shows up for him. It’s unsettling, sure, but she recognizes it must have taken a lot for Tyr to come forward with his SIS ties willingly, without official orders from his superiors to do so. While she’s less actively a teacher to him, he does learn a lot from her. And, admittedly, he had his reservations at first, her being a former Imperial. But she doesn’t ever let him down. So, the three of them in particular. The rest of the squad, he’s more distant with but, by the end of things, Tyr learns a lot about how you count on the people actively beside you. He learns kinda what drove Tavus to act as he did, even if its several years too late and after he’s gotten a lot of blood on his hands about it. Havoc's not afraid to challenge him when he’s in the wrong. But they haven’t abandoned him, either. He’s made a lot of fucking mistakes along the way. He has. Maybe he doesn’t really deserve their faith in him, but… to Havoc Squad. Whatever this galaxy throws their way, he intends to do his damned best to see them through it together.

This is all sealed particularly by their experiences together on Oricon as part of the wildly under-prepared rescue operation for the forces the Republic had already lost on the planet and then getting roped into fighting the Revanites alongside Theron Shan and Lana Beniko. Tyr's realization of the... kind of systematic flaws in their operations for the Republic, and the Republic's handling of such operations overall is... a kind of gradual and building experience - something Hyroh and Aric, especially, are familiar with well before Tyr has entirely grappled with that particular serpent. So it's... all the more of a statement to him that they never cast him out.

They get real damn begrudging sometimes, lol. Sometimes it's a bit like, how many times must we teach you this lesson, young man? But. Y'know. What's family if you don't occasionally squabble about ideals and execution, I guess?

[ciphernull]

Rul

5 & 22

[25 Character Questions for the Writer]

Tell us about something that your character finds sweet.

T̵͇̃H̸̞͆Ĕ̶̦ ̴̞͘S̸̢͂O̶̯̒U̷̗͘Ḷ̴̇S̴̪͑ ̵̟̓Ö̶́ͅF̷͖̾ ̴̰̀Ṫ̷͖H̶̥͗E̸̦̔ ̷̀ͅÍ̸̺N̴̯͐N̸̲̕Ö̵̜́C̷͔̎Ę̶͛N̶̖͂T̵͔̑

I mean, um. Hm. Sweetness isn't exactly a thing he encounters, giving or receiving. I guess the closest thing that would warm his heart, so to speak, would be acts of devotion? Genuine ones, not like the wheedling supplications of his underlings, but an unwavering promise to be at his side. Especially from a certain giant monster.

What is your character most afraid of?

Being vulnerable. Helpless. Weak. All that he was before. And all that, with every strike of his blade, every crackling bolt, every desperate grasp for unending power, he vows never to be again.

[ciphernull]

[ciphernull]

answering oc asks made me miss posting about alesko,,, so instead of doing anything productive with him, i rummaged through old screenshots and made yet another set of dumbshit quotes