slothquisitor

[slothquisitor]

ToBP here again with another question for you about how you plan to write the fic where Viago gets pestered by Spite for daring to utter a negative word about Rook. Do you think Viago would be aware that it is Spite and/or what Spite's motive/end-goal(s) are?

I could see Viago learning that information rather quickly but is unable to really STOP Spite's antics in any meaningful way and that the Talon would ignore or outright refuse to accept any of Spite's demands. Like, after each incident, Spite tries to ask if Viago yields—by attempting to pester Lucanis to pass along the message, by speaking to Viago himself with Lucanis' mouth, or by leaving something behind with the question—and Viago just gets more and more frustrated every time he ignores/refuses the demon until eventually the de Riva makes the purely tactical decision to concede (definitely not because he feels like he is going to absolutely lose his mind if he has to wade through a flock of loud, messy birds every morning or if he has to clear so much as one more Maker forsaken bookcase of all these blasted feathers/chess pieces!).

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is not me making a request you do it this way, I just enjoy sharing and hearing your thoughts on these silly little ideas that keep popping into my head. There are just so many possibilities for how you could spin the initial scenario (still not over the fact that you want to write something for it and that alone still makes me smile) and I'm so excited to see what you decide to make with it.

Oh hello, ToBP! I've been thinking about your ask all day while I was in really boring teacher meetings.

So to your first question of is Viago aware of Spite's motives or end-goals? I think at first, not at all. I definitely think that upon learning Lucanis is an abomination, Viago, who has sort of unironically referred to him as Caterina's 'demon of a grandson', is like, you know the best way to deal with this? Pretend it's not happening. This is right out of the typical Crow playbook for any sort of negative emotion anyway, so yeah. I think at first, it's like...an unpleasant reminder that Lucanis has a demon, and then he's paranoid enough to be like 'this demon wants to kill me'. Which is, again, sort of Viago's default.

I do really love the idea that Spite might leave really ominous notes, though, that are like 'do you yield?' And Viago very exasperatedly being like 'to what???'. And I think it would really up the hilarity for this to be somewhat one-sided. Spite really believes he's been quite clear about what Viago did, but stranger and stranger happenings keep occurring around a somewhat clueless Viago and he's finally like 'oh maker, I pissed off the demon, didn't I?" But he's also stubborn, so he's not going to yield, of course. But the demon's name is literally Spite, so who do you think is going to win? lmao.

ToBP, I appreciate you reiterating that this is not a specific request. I also enjoy just sharing ideas, and here you sharing yours and asking me for mine. It's pretty damn great, so I promise I'm not feeling any pressure. I'm a certified yapper; I just like to be invited to yap lol. The plan is to outline this tomorrow so I can start working on it in earnest.

[slothquisitor]

Verso 🌘

Clair Obscur has me inspired lately. More to come!

[slothquisitor]

[slothquisitor]

something about murder

[slothquisitor]

crechur

[slothquisitor]

Clair and Obscur🌗

I just created a sfw twitter acc so feel free to drop by, I'll post pics like this there. Here's the link

[slothquisitor]

Just in case you were wondering, I woke up and am still thinking about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

It's about grief! It's about what happens when you don't deal with it, and about how escapism can only get you so far! There is a giant marshmallow man who eats his favorite magic rocks that is probably the most powerful being in the universe! There is a monkey man who collects the legs of his enemies! It is earnest and gut-wrenching and pulls exactly zero punches!

[slothquisitor]

"ToBP, I love ALL of this. You always come into my askbox with the best ideas, and it does kind of make me wonder have *you* considered writing your own?" Thank you! However, I am still learning how to navigate fandom spaces. It's wonderful, but I don't think I'm prepared to face the Terror of Being Perceived™️ like that yet. I still fret at times about sending stuff over Anon, so I've still got some personal growth to do first. 😅

"These ideas are GREAT and also hilarious. And consider, then we’d have a whole series of Spite ruining Viago’s day." The idea of a little series about Spite ruining Viago's day is genuinely brilliant though. The first part could be the inciting incident (Viago making the rookie mistake—pun intended—of saying anything remotely negative about Rook within earshot of Spite), then every other part (save for the ending) could be a little story of Spite slowly escalating how much of a nuisance he makes about it and/or Viago trying to deal with said nuisances (at first Spite is just mockingly mimicking Viago until the man becomes irritated or paranoid over what keeps pulling Lucanis' attention away, then messing with Viago's desk which could also be when Teia gets involved if she catches Spite in the act and learns what's going on, then either the scattered rook feathers/chess pieces or birdseed, then followed by the other) until finally Viago catches on and/or Spite makes his motive/end-goal known, if the demon already hasn't, and some sort of conclusion is reached. (Again, this is NOT me requesting that you do it this way. You've already got one awesome series going and a life outside of fandom; I just enjoy gushing about stuff and tossing ideas back and forth with people.)

"I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, but your ideas are so good and I do feel a bit bad for being like ‘yes and then I will make my own fic about it’ even though…you’re the one in my askbox lol." You're not pressuring me (thank you for making sure to spell that out though) and please know that you have my permission to use any of the ideas I've sent you if they strike your fancy. I won't be let down or disappointed if you don't use them, but the fact that you even are considering them (as fun ideas or as fic-worthy) already makes my day.

~ToBP

ToBP, I completely understand the Terror of Being Perceived, and I think it's cool that you know yourself well enough to say, 'hey, maybe I'm not ready for that'. I'm a Fandom Old, so I sometimes forget what it's like to be scared just to contribute. When I joined the DA fandom back in 2015, I was just thrilled it existed, but I definitely felt like...I needed an invitation to participate. Like, I didn't realize people could just roll up and post fic and be present and leave nice comments and things, and your love for the source material was the only prerequisite. It was only because people were good and kind and encouraging did I really get the courage to do the thing. So, if you ever decide you're ready, I'm here for you.

What I'm most excited about in having Spite be a little gremlin to Viago is Lucanis's absolute embarrassment. Like, Lucanis knows exactly what is going on and he refuses to own up to it, but he knows it's happening and he is both MORTIFIED and secretly delighted because he is also a little bit of a shit. I think it would be SO funny if Teia realizes what's going on very immediately, but then tries to catch Spite in the act, and then ends up helping. Maybe at first she's just looking to confirm it because she wants to tease Lucanis and maybe stop Viago tearing his hair out, but cannot help but be charmed by Spite who is very determined to get an apology out of Viago. And Teia would be like, can I employ your services? lmao. Teia becomes the #1 Spite enabler. I have ideas! I need to get my DA Big Bang piece all formatted and ready to go for next week, and I've got a PD day tomorrow, but then....this piece is happening.

ToBP, your ideas are AWESOME. I'll keep saying it because it's true. It sort of makes me wish I was better at comics because I think this would be even funnier with the visuals. Hope you're having a great day, ToBP. <3

[slothquisitor]

he has not known peace since he let her back into the country ☺️💜✨🐦‍⬛

[slothquisitor]

"Did you have any requests, ToBP?"

Not a request, I was truly just curious since I could see multiple possibilities for how you could choose to write it. There was the spin-off idea that you described (it taking place while Lucanis is in Treviso, and the Rook in question is Camina, also has the potential to retroactively make the chapter that mentions Spite trying to slap Viago with a wing even funnier in hindsight—like I could see it either being Spite's way of declaring war on Viago before beginning to regularly make a nuisance of himself or a way for Spite to amuse himself by 'reminding Viago to stay in line' or something after messing with the man for a while).

I could also see Spite—with no real opinion on Viago other than disgruntled confusion over why the man wasn't pleased by Lucanis' gift of a pretty knife to stab stuff with—overhearing Viago make some small off-handed comment about a non-Crow!Rook (like criticizing how Rook fights) or Viago being his persnickety self to a Crow!Rook over something or other (like nitpicking how Rook handled a contract—maybe even one Lucanis and Spite were helping with—and that 'being a god-slayer is no reason to blah, blah, blah, and Rook needs to remember to represent the de Riva house well because blah, blah, blah') and that is enough for Spite to declare war on Viago.

You're a good writer, so I'm confident that whatever way you choose to write it will be good and entertaining to read. I wouldn't have spammed your asks with multiple paragraphs gushing about your writing if I didn't like it. *hands over more admiration before retreating to the shadows like a raccoon*

Anyway, I hope you're having a good day/night/timezone. 👋

~ToBP

ToBP, I love ALL of this. You always come into my askbox with the best ideas, and it does kind of make me wonder have *you* considered writing your own? These ideas are GREAT and also hilarious. And consider, then we'd have a whole series of Spite ruining Viago's day. I'm not trying to pressure you or anything, but your ideas are so good and I do feel a bit bad for being like 'yes and then I will make my own fic about it' even though...you're the one in my askbox lol. I don't know, just a thought! I'd read it <3

Also, thank you for being so wonderful and kind. I cannot tell you how lovely it is to see your asks. I've had a couple really tough years, creatively, and I don't talk about it a lot on here because I try to keep things positive in this space. But you and everyone else who reblogs or sends asks or replies to things and just generally makes me feel part of a community on here have been really...it sounds trite to say healing, but yeah, healing. All this to say, you're great, and I hope you know you're great.

[slothquisitor]

If you’re needing to be fucked up emotionally multiple times over by a video game, may I recommend Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?

Goddamn.

[slothquisitor]

"As soon as my brain isn’t soup, I’m going to really sit down and outline it. I have ideas, and I am very excited about it, ToBP."

Out of curiosity, do you plan to make this a spin-off with Rook being Camina or will this be entirely its own little thing?

~ToBP

I had planned to make it a little spin-off of the long-fic. Was kind of thinking it’s just a little self-contained thing but takes place while Lucanis is alone in Treviso? I don’t know. I have some ideas, but I haven’t started writing. Did you have any requests, ToBP?

[slothquisitor]

If I had a nickel for every time Jennifer English voiced a character in a video game whose hair got bleached out after a very intense emotional moment, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it is weird it happened twice.

[slothquisitor]

NOT A RANDOM FOLLOWER! Not at all.

Honestly, standing invitation for anyone who wants to tell me about D&D, I live for it.

But oh man, that had to be SO satisfying. I’ve played Strahd and it was a great time. I’m glad you got to have your villain monologue moment. All DMs deserve it. <3

"Of course, you play D&D, ToBP! I knew I liked you. Side-note, I LOVE D&D, and I want to hear all about your D&D adventures. Collaborative storytelling, gah, nothing is better!"

Oh? Well, my players circumvented a battle with bad guys that was being built up (in real time) for about a month and they even managed to get a dragon friend they made to join since these bad guys also were enemies of this dragon. Then, when they arrived at where the bad guys were hiding out, one of them realized that they had several pounds of gunpowder in there inventory, so they chucked that in the hideout and it was enough to destroy the top level of the building, obliterated all of the bad guys' minions, and left the surviving pair of bad guys on such low health that another player took them out with a single shot. The remaining bad guy just kinda looked around at the mess, did a bit of villainous posturing (these beings practically refuse to acknowledge that they could ever be vulnerable or at the mercy of 'lessers', but they do fear the potential of death and oblivion more than anything) and then teleported the **** out of there because they knew staying to fight would accomplish nothing other than result in their own demise.

I was laughing hysterically throughout narrating all of this to my players. Best part was that the dragon arrived moments later after having heard the explosion to see the party just casually picking through the rubble and remaining for clues on what the bad guys were up to. Needless to say, the dragon was confused, mildly concerned, and perhaps a bit disappointed once he learned he'd missed the action (he REALLY hated this particular group of bad guys for what they did).

I ended up stealthily beefing up the next combat encounter with these villains that came soon after and had the dragon decide to tag along despite him initially planning not to because, as much as I loved how the above mentioned encounter played out and the players were super proud of themselves, a few of the players admitted they were kinda sad that it meant they didn't get to have a combat session or fight alongside their dragon friend. I made sure they got to have both. 🤗

You really have to love it when your players solve a problem rather brilliantly or creatively, and you have to honor that! I love that you not only did that, but then gave them the combat that they wanted later too! I know that D&D is telling a story, but it's also a game, and everyone's job is to try to make sure everyone else is having a good time. Your table sounds like a great time!

I just had D&D this morning, and our party is currently dead. Several sessions ago, Chris (my teacher bestie who I mention here a fair bit) got the TPK he always wanted (and clearly planned meticulously for). So we've been sent to a place called The Dead Paths, and we are currently attempting to escape. We woke up with NONE of our armor/weapons/magic. So that was cool. Once we solved the puzzle of getting out of the castle we were stuck in (had to enter into an employment contract with the weird resident, I'm sure that won't come back to bite us in the ass), we met a truly awful dude named, The Hoarder. For the small price of just one significant memory, he could return all our stuff to us. So, we each had to give up a memory, and some of us gave up more for additional information about how to get out. My poor echo knight fighter continues to go through it.

[slothquisitor]

Rook’s been stuck there for 45 minutes because she doesn’t wanna wake him up

[slothquisitor]

Doing laundry so I can't ramble for as long as I'd like, but the last chapter of "On Matters of Inertia" was so satisfying to read! The amount of times I went 'Eeee! I picked up on that! 🤩' on certain points and themes (even after you confirmed those were intentional)- !

Also, Cam just casually calling out how she knew there was no way Caterina didn't have a dossier on her grandson's partner was so beautiful. 🤣 I mean, Rook DID live with a detective at the Lighthouse.

Also, also, poor Lucanis. 😢 The man just wants to be a househusband! LET HIM BE A GOD SLAYING HOUSEHUSBAND, CATERINA!!!!!!!! (I, like Cam, used humor to ease the pain 🥲)

I am so glad it was a satisfying chapter, that makes me SO happy. I kept coming back to it and just....adding things. So it's like 6k, oops. But yeah, there's a lot going on in Villa Dellamorte! I love Camina so much. She wants to throw hands with this octogenarian so badly, and I just think it's fun that Caterina is not at all interested in power struggling with a thirty-old Necropolis weirdo. I think it makes sense that Caterina looked into Cam before letting her go try and get Lucanis from the Ossuary, but then I assume that as soon as she figured out something was going on between them (which would have been at Illario's ill-fated party) that she was like 'Okay, I need to know everything about Rook'.

I think the real problem with Lucanis being First Talon, is that it's all the parts of being an assassin that he doesn't like. I think he generally enjoys most of the work of being an assassin (and he is good at it!), but he does not like having to be people facing at all. Being First Talon is an awful lot of politicking and alliances and paperwork, and I think that's a lot for his introverted self. He's doing it, but it exhausts him. I'm sure if he never talks about his feelings and keeps pushing it down because it's his 'duty' there won't be any negative consequences at all though....lmao.

[slothquisitor]

"Of course, you play D&D, ToBP! I knew I liked you. Side-note, I LOVE D&D, and I want to hear all about your D&D adventures. Collaborative storytelling, gah, nothing is better!"

Oh? Well, my players circumvented a battle with bad guys that was being built up (in real time) for about a month and they even managed to get a dragon friend they made to join since these bad guys also were enemies of this dragon. Then, when they arrived at where the bad guys were hiding out, one of them realized that they had several pounds of gunpowder in there inventory, so they chucked that in the hideout and it was enough to destroy the top level of the building, obliterated all of the bad guys' minions, and left the surviving pair of bad guys on such low health that another player took them out with a single shot. The remaining bad guy just kinda looked around at the mess, did a bit of villainous posturing (these beings practically refuse to acknowledge that they could ever be vulnerable or at the mercy of 'lessers', but they do fear the potential of death and oblivion more than anything) and then teleported the **** out of there because they knew staying to fight would accomplish nothing other than result in their own demise.

I was laughing hysterically throughout narrating all of this to my players. Best part was that the dragon arrived moments later after having heard the explosion to see the party just casually picking through the rubble and remaining for clues on what the bad guys were up to. Needless to say, the dragon was confused, mildly concerned, and perhaps a bit disappointed once he learned he'd missed the action (he REALLY hated this particular group of bad guys for what they did).

I ended up stealthily beefing up the next combat encounter with these villains that came soon after and had the dragon decide to tag along despite him initially planning not to because, as much as I loved how the above mentioned encounter played out and the players were super proud of themselves, a few of the players admitted they were kinda sad that it meant they didn't get to have a combat session or fight alongside their dragon friend. I made sure they got to have both. 🤗

You really have to love it when your players solve a problem rather brilliantly or creatively, and you have to honor that! I love that you not only did that, but then gave them the combat that they wanted later too! I know that D&D is telling a story, but it's also a game, and everyone's job is to try to make sure everyone else is having a good time. Your table sounds like a great time!

I just had D&D this morning, and our party is currently dead. Several sessions ago, Chris (my teacher bestie who I mention here a fair bit) got the TPK he always wanted (and clearly planned meticulously for). So we've been sent to a place called The Dead Paths, and we are currently attempting to escape. We woke up with NONE of our armor/weapons/magic. So that was cool. Once we solved the puzzle of getting out of the castle we were stuck in (had to enter into an employment contract with the weird resident, I'm sure that won't come back to bite us in the ass), we met a truly awful dude named, The Hoarder. For the small price of just one significant memory, he could return all our stuff to us. So, we each had to give up a memory, and some of us gave up more for additional information about how to get out. My poor echo knight fighter continues to go through it.