#I love them so much I accidentally made my own blorbo

[northeastartist]

{Updated picture background}

Have I mentioned I’m now a DnD nerd?

Meet Hemlock!

This is my current warlock (former sorcerer) Tiefling DnD character, in my current campaign. Their pronouns are they/them.

They have a rather grim backstory (failed cult sacrifice, brainwashed and tortured for 5+ years to the point their memory of their past is full of holes, they only have a silver locket around their neck that shows what their parents were (well known tavern keepers, where the father may or may not have made a pact to get his inn successful and ended up with Hem in the first place) and them, just before they were kidnapped. They woke up completely different, after the cult tried to sacrifice them for their own ill wants, and chose their new name as Hemlock, and have been wandering Faerun’s roads ever since.

They’re the goth wine aunt/uncle of the group, and are incredibly intimidating (may have made a child shit himself and scared the town mayor’s asshole thugman)

They unofficially speak and can translate kobold and basically tries to chill the barbarian out from his shenanigans (barbarian is kobold)

They will get into their own shenanigans soon, they are still mentally lost.

[relatableblorbopoll]

Round 1 of preliminaries, group 5

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

Propaganda under the cut

Melissa Chase (Milo Murphy’s Law)

"Her self worth is entirely based on her grade point average and getting straight As. She can’t remember anything, ever (specific examples include forgetting her maths book regularly, her student pass for the subway, and how many days are in February). However, she CAN remember the blood type of every president. She is terrible at throwing She gets visually upset when she realises that a plan was changed last minute, and that an academic event she expected to do well in was combined with a sporting event, giving no time to prepare for the new event She freaks OUT when she thinks she’s going to disappoint her headteacher- she doesn’t seem to expect to be given any actual punishment, just that the headteacher will be disappointed and think that she’s irresponsible She has a whole conspiracy room in her house dedicated to researching her best friend’s medical condition- Murphy’s Law being an interest that she is clearly very passionate about and interested in. she does all of that and still can’t remember her maths book. relatable queen her ambition in life is to be a “journalist, and queen of the universe” "

Candace Flynn (Phineas and Ferb)

"A ball of stress and anxiety. She's always angry because nobody listens to her, cares about her feelings, or believes her about anything, which tbh is like the quintessential teenage girl experience. Secretly just wants her parents to recognise and appreciate her."

V-Flower (Vocaloid)

"they believe that people only care about them when they are in pain"

Ciaphas Cain (Warhammer 40k)

"Don't let the sharp jawline and the mutton-chops fool you: Ciaphas Cain has no idea what he's fucking doing and would very much like to not be here right now. He is a high-ranking Commissar, essentially a walking morale boost for Imperial Guard soldiers and one of the only symbols of hope in the grimdark Warhammer 40k universe. He also has no idea how he got the job or how to get the hell out. Commissar Cain spends all his time accidentally doing magnificent bastard things while trying to run away from danger and dying inside. Over the course of his books, he's named Hero of the Imperium, has a hot mommy inquisitor fall in love with him, and saves hundreds of planets per panic attack he has. His cowardice and impostor syndrome are second only to my own, and that's why he's just like me fr."

Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson series)

"he's got big no thoughts head empty energy! he loves his friends and girlfriends SO much (more most YA characters, i think; he would have no qualms about sacrificing the world to save the people he loves, which goes against the typical hero). he is almost always ready to fight a bitch. he has adhd and accidentally says things he shouldnt all the time (but this has made him good at problem-solving, bc he creates a LOT of problems for himself)"

MK (Lego Monkie Kid)

"Oooooh boy where do I begin. MK the Monkie Kid is the protagonist of the story but he has *so many issues*. He wants to be a good person but has a whole lot of impostor syndrome and is convinced he will only hurt people the more he tries to save them. He is convinced that every major villain in the show is his fault, even as far as misremembering/changing up some events to put blame onto himself He also has an absent mentor figure that was supposed to help him but guess what he had to figure out all his powers on his own so abandonment issues go brrrr. He has so much anger toward his mentor Wukong but he just *bottles it all up* (common theme) Also he is so trans and adhd coded. First, MK is a nickname. We don’t know his real name, but it is v much implied he used to go by something else. He and his friends also puts a lot of emphasis on manly stuff like ‘I’m a big boy!’/‘he’s a Monkie *Man*!!!’/‘im the smartie boy, the plan man!’ He also has trouble focusing and listening to other people, is sometimes blunt and he is VERY interested in Sun Wukong and the journey to the west (Chinese classical novel that the show is based on) and just in general always needs constant reassurance and support from his friends. He is often compartmentalizing his feelings and internalizes a lot of fear and blame is also suppressing a part of himself that scares him. (Which, same) He loves his friends so much and tries so hard to keep them all safe, even hiding his own problems and worries from them as an attempt to protect them. He wants to go back to season 1, back when each episode was a villain-of-the-week kinda story, with no world-destroying threats. But nope, he saw the horrors, and he can never go back to the bubbly Monkie Kid from the beginning. Also he is terrified of spiders :>"

[varigo-fan]

alchemy and robotics au!!!!!

mmmmmmkay hi :]]] basically this post is my dumping grounds for my newest au its only like 11 hours old 🫶 dumping ground under the cut

basics first!!! basically varian from tangled the series makes robots and theyre all dca creatures because the brainrot is so real. also some of the robots are from the sun and moon show (fyi i might not be getting the tsams characters characterized correctly, mostly because i only started getting into the characters n stuff about?? 3 days ago?? so forewarning 👍👍) varian makes most of the robos during the amber period so that influences how he designs a bunch of em!

silly doodles ahahhf

each robot and basic gist of them time!!!!

solar: first robot varian makes, helps keep his experiments and alchemy/engineering in track, science buddies <33 (nicknames for varian [thank you sunny for these agh <33]) : buddy, var, nerd (/aff, varian would probably retort that solar's also a nerd) )

moon: second robot varian makes, pretty much a feral defense system (he gets his very own spotlight later down the road) (nicknames for varian [thank you sunny for all of the nicknames <33] : vari, starlight)

sun: caretaker and emotional support robot, likes cleaning up the place a bunch (nicknames for varian: vari, sunshine)

earth: second caretaker, who varian accidentally made act similar to rapunzel out of a sense of bitterness (she likes styling and cutting his hair !!) (nicknames for varian: varbear, vari)

lunar: made sometime after the amber melted, not at all sure where to put him since i havent focused on him very much whoops (nicknames for varian: nerd (/aff lmao), var-var, vari)

(ruin) eclipse: also made sometime after the amber melted, nice sweet blorbo who makes for a very nice friend and loves helping around the castle (nicknames for varian: ALSO varbear, probably starlet)

moon is such a creature in this au he is the most creature you will ever creature (he attacks eugene shortly after the amber melted and varian overworks himself so much trying to get the violence out of his code)

at that point in time old corona is still being rebuilt and with the attack and the previous overwhelming guilt that gets added on to by that varian is completely spiraling but trying not to show that around anyone, especially the robots and his dad, hes split between helping rebuilding and recoding moon and taking care of the robots and hes way overworking himself

all of the robots are like varians siblings btw so its quirin and his 7 kids

alr thats all i can think of right now if you guys have any questions my ask box is extremely open 🫶

[thana-topsy]

1,6,8,11,17 for the ask thing!

Answered #6 in this post, and #8 in this post!

A fanon characterisation that you love

Oh, this took some thought. I went scrolling through my AO3 bookmarks for this one. But at the end of the day I have to go with my good friend @nientedenada's interpretations of Elenwen and Ondolemar in her Q&A style fic: "The Dominion is Here and They're Answering Your Questions" - her take deeply influenced the way I wrote both of these characters in "Hollow Men" as well as just helped to shape the Thalmor into people in my mind, as opposed to stick man villains.

11. Recommend a fic with an unusual/original headcanon or characterisation that you loved

Accidental Double Thalmor Post, but I'm going to have to recommend "Evil is Made of Us" by LeviathansEyes on AO3 for their masterful interpretation of the Thalmor. It's a purely OC-driven fic that's technically a sequel to a much longer fic, but I think it can be enjoyed on it's own easily enough. I had already finished up my own Thalmor-centric fic (Hollow Men) by the time I was reading their work, but I was still SHOOKETH by the end of that story. It was an unflinching look at how "evil" manifests itself, but also how, at the end of the day, people are just people. "Evil" is a concept within the framework of an institution.

17. Something you love that you don’t often share because you’re worried what others will think

Hmm... well, for the most part I'm pretty shameless with most of the stuff I share. I put myself out there in good faith, and generally expect that my work will be taked in good faith in return.

I think, maybe, if I want to be vulnerable for a minute, I'll admit that I tend to meme on Neloth publicly a lot to cover up just how deeply I've been impacted by writing his character. More below the cut, because this turned into a bit of a ramble...

I write Neloth as a low-empathy individual who arguably has a personality disorder (I won't throw around specific labels, as I don't think there is a specific one that I had in mind when going into his stories). My love for Neloth runs incredibly deep because I've been working with this fatally flawed, deeply damaged character who has built his own defences up so impossibly high over hundreds of years that even he is unsure of where his own walls end and the core of himself begins.

And then, to pair him with Teldryn, (which I think most people who only see the ship art or the memes think I just picked two characters and smashed them together for fun or because Hee Hoo Gay, which... isn't a lie, but it isn't the whole truth either). I write Teldryn as an endlessly compassionate person beneath the armor he's been forced to wear (literally and figuratively) over the years. The Nerevarine Prophecy left him questioning his own place in the world with a terrible case of impostor syndrome, and then the Red Year absolutely ripped out his heart (no pun intended??) and left him feeling that everything he did amounted to nothing. So he's cynical and jaded, he's hiring himself out as a merc, he has every reason to hate the gods and the life that's been thrust upon him. And then, for whatever reason, when I put him and Neloth in a room together for long enough, they somehow managed to crack through each others' shells. And it wasn't pretty at first, and, hell, it wasn't even romantic. But it happened. And sometimes, writing can be magic like that.

So here's Teldryn, a literal hero, giving this (by all accounts) terrible person a chance to show that he's capable of both receiving and giving love, actually. And that love can look a little different in everyone. And augH GOD, I HAVE A FUCKING CHARACTER TYPE, OK???

Anyways, tl;dr -- Neloth is actually more than just my special little meow meow babygirl blorbo, he is my shadow self, my darkest reflection, the opposite of everything I strive to be and everything I fear becoming. And I think, by writing him as still being worthy of love and companionship and joy, I'm writing to let myself know that I am also worthy of such things.

[boo-cool-robot]

Everything I Watched This Year

I have watched the most movies this year of my life, which is still so few that I can fit them all into one tumblr post, so here they are in approximately chronological order (along with TV shows). I almost exclusively watch visual media with other people, and they're often the ones picking. Favorites get an asterisk (*), and this does not include rewatches.

*Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-Wai): Five loosely connected lonely people chase imagined versions of each other around the Hong Kong nightscape. I didn't go into a plotless arthouse film expecting it to be extremely funny, but it is. He Zhiwu (my new tumblr icon!) deserves to be up there among the deranged autistic blorbos of all time.

What We Do in the Shadows (Showrun by Paul Simms and Stefani Robinson) [First half of S4]: If you're on tumblr you probably know the premise already. I was disappointed that after S3, which felt like a build to huge shifts in the characters and status quo, S4 felt like a walkback. Don't remember much else about it other than crying laughing at the sequence where they try to get baby Colin Robinson into private school.

Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee): Everyone knows what this movie is already. It's well-made and solid, but it wasn't anything that exciting for me. I expected it to be more striking. Love the 70s home production design in that one scene though, and that kiss truly is good.

*Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes): A reporter tracks down the truth of a rock star gay affair that sparked his own queer coming of age. Dreamy, gorgeous, and I could not describe the plot scene to scene if you paid me. Just a really lovely film to experience for me, someone who had latent and unnamed transgay feelings as a teenager about the concept of "emo boys kissing."

Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma): Phantom of the Opera-inspired drama about a songwriter getting revenge on the predatory producer that ruined his life. Total delight of a campy melodrama.

Kamikaze Girls (Tetsuya Nakashima): A delinquent and fashion-obsessed scam artist strike up a lesbian-tinged unlikely friendship. This movie is bananas. Way more stylistically experimental than I'd expected--there's a sequence of the protagonist's birth, people just float offscreen sometimes, the townspeople constantly turn to the camera and advertise for the megamart they buy all their clothes from, etc. A really really surprisingly fun watch.

*Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Hiroshi Kobayashi and Ryō Andō) [First 6 episodes only]: Optimistic young pilot of a war machine that she may have an illegal psionic connection with goes to space high school and is promptly drawn into political plotting via accidentally getting gay engaged to a corporate heiress. Highly enjoyed the parts of it I saw - great action sequences, fun character drama, and just enough political substance. Not as weird as Utena, which it's inspired by, but can be brutal where necessary. I should watch more!

*In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai): Two Shanghainese emigrants in Hong Kong discover their spouses are cheating and embark on a tragic affair of their own. God, this movie deserves every bit of praise it gets. I gasped out loud multiple times at the gorgeousness of shot compositions. Top notch acting, gorgeous colors. This tends to be a movie pitched as being about a repressed love affair, but it's also a movie about the positionality about being middle class colonial subjects and the relationships they have with the world. This gave me so much to chew on after I watched it.

Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai): Two Hong Kong expats living in Argentina have a toxic gay relationship trapped in a tiny apartment. This one felt very opaque to me, and it is allegedly an allegory for Hong Kong being returned to Chinese rule after British colonialism, which I absolutely do not have enough background to really get. Wong is a great director though, and I constantly think about the sequence of the main character seeing the abusive ex walk into the club, beat while he finishes his drink, and then he breaks his bottle off and goes in to screams.

Bound (The Wachowskis): A lesbian handyman falls for a woman married to an abusive mobster that they plot to rob. The first 45 minutes were very enjoyable as a lesbian heist film. Unfortunately, once the gunshots started the torture scenes became so stressful for me to watch that I sweated through my shirt. (I also had Covid).

[negative-speedforce]

1, 3, 4, 11, 13, 15, 26, and 30 for Onnie and Laila please?

YESSSS I FREAKING LOVE GETTING ASKS FOR LAILA SHE IS MY BLORBO-

1. Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

Onnie hasn't had any stuffed animals in years. Eobard made her get rid of them all as soon as she was like, 12, because he thought they were developmentally inappropriate for her age. She had a frog named Tedward (some weird amalgamation of Ted and Edward) and that was her favorite as a kid.

I... don't think Laila is even aware of what a stuffed animal is, considering that she was raised from infancy to be the Empire's weapon. Athena's probably not much help with that one, since she grew up on the streets and having toys falls to the wayside when compared to things like food and shelter.

3. Ask them to describe their love interest.

"Pippa is... an idiot. I can't stand her, she drives me insane, but I can't help but be strangely drawn to her. She's obnoxious, and I really wish she'd back off, but something about her is just so endearing. Maybe it's that she manages to bring back to life the part of me I thought died a long time ago. Or maybe she's just kinda hot."

"Athena's ruthless, reckless, and I never lose the feeling that she's going to backstab me. But she's the only person who's ever given more than two shits about me in my life, so hey, what the heck? Not like I have much else to lose anyway. I'm pretty sure I care a lot more about her than she does about me, but even if this is a short ride, it's a good ride, and I'm not getting off."

4. Do they look good in red?

Onnie looks fantastic in red, so long as the shade's not too orangey. Shades closer to orange (and orange itself) tend to bring out the olive undertones in their skin in a bad way, making them look kinda yellow and sickly.

Laila doesn't look good in most shades of red, except the darker ones, like burgundy and maroon. Bright colors tend to clash with her already near-translucent pale skin, making her look even more pale than she already is.

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

Onnie: Save it all. She's already rich, there's not much else she wants or needs.

Laila: Spend some, save some. Her and Athena aren't exactly poor, but there are some things they'd like that are a little out of budget.

13. Name one thing their parents taught them.

Onnie learned how to be a killer from Eobard. He taught her everything- where the best places to stab someone are, how to rip out someone's heart with your bare hands, how to snap people's necks. Insert Onnie having the sudden "Holy shit I had a bad childhood" realization here.

Laila doesn't have parents. Being a clone, I guess you could technically say that either the parents of her donor are her parents, who she's never met, or the woman who raised her, but anyone calling Nyx a mother would be absolutely insane to say that, since the relationship that Laila (and Pyrrha, later on) had with her was one-sided, conditional, and both emotionally and physically abusive.

15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

Onnie considers friendships and other relationships a waste of time. Since they (in very rapid succession) lost their girlfriend, accidentally killed their best friend, and then Jessi faked her own death (which was believed to have been a suicide), Onnie is kinda afraid to open up, but through a lot of mental gymnastics, she thinks it's because she's better than everyone rather than just plain trauma.

Laila considers training non-Force Sensitives in the Jedi arts to be a complete waste of time. Athena's asked her multiple times to try teaching her to do some of the things that Laila can do, like the gymnastics and meditation and stuff, but the most Laila will show her is how to use a lightsaber- weapons are pretty universal, after all.

26. Talent or effort?

Onnie: Talent

Laila: Effort

30. What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?

Onnie would probably cry. They've been repressing a lot of emotions for a very long time, and any show of weakness could get her in trouble with Eobard, so if she knew it would be excused, I think Onnie would finally let go and feel those emotions.

Laila would tell Athena that she loves her. She'd never say it to Athena's face, especially since Athena kinda scares her and let's be real, she's not even sure if Athena even is capable of caring about a person other than herself. However, if she knew that it wouldn't ruin their relationship completely, Laila would tell Athena how she felt.

[rayofmisfortune]

Coming back to oneself after an undetermined ammount of time can be disorienting. Especially when the first things you hear are of you causing harm to others.

Some company may be just enough to distract them from lingering on such thoughts.

Or

I wanted my two favorite blorbos to become friends and accidentally made a semi-canon compliant one-shot.

It's finally posted! Yayyyy

I love Ruin Clipsy so gosh darn much istg HHHH

[barrenclan]

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO THE BESTEST LADS EVER

that was suuccch a strong start to the issue, the pure excitement stored within beeface was such a delight to see. she sure loves violence and yaknow what, girlboss. let women commit crimes. also her exaggerated movements to show off the differences.. it just shows how hyped she is about it and it was soooo goofy. and it’s so in character and ironic that when it comes to actually hunting reptiles, she’s one of the two who stick back and watch, leaving redpelt to be the one who helps hands on, or i guess paws on.

speaking of redpelt, my BELOVED. her instantly trying to stop conflict between plumstripe and beeface when it rears its head, before giving up and just getting the lesson on the road. i wanna know what was running through her head when she was called thrasher and cormorantpaw’s immediate shocking realization. she seemed pretty nervous about the whole ideal, i think? i wonder if she was gonna rat to cootstorm about pinepaw’s goofing around, or was just gonna gently remind them to cool down? i just. omg redpelt frfr. absolute blorbo. picking her up and putting her in my pocket and running away.

now time for the rambling i’ve been waiting for.. PINEPAW AND CORMORANTPAW. ohhh meee gosh these little guys. their parallels in having these burdens shape their view of the world, cormorantpaw in having a kill to live mindset and pinepaw in knowing that they are walking on the dead (that’s almost a parallel if you think about it, one about ending life and one about knowing the death that comes with it), and how it fills them with their own deep emotions, own stresses, and how they react with what’s around them. the moment i saw it i was like “oh no, cormorantpaw’s gonna accidentally kill one, isn’t he.” and yep. he maimed a lizard. my boy NOOOO. i so feel like that wasn’t intended, especially with how he didn’t kill all, just pure accident, pure instinct by how he was raised. and i’m beginning to feel thrasher also taught him to kill cats, with how excited he got when he caught pinepaw and wanted his pops to know, to be praised for what he was raised to do. i also love how the illusions behind redpelt and cormorantpaw upon the accidental thrashering show one eye for cormorantpaw and none for thrasher. i’ve taken it as cormorant, as a young kit, has begun to be blinded by thrasher’s mindset but still has a childlike innocence, but thrasher has been completely blinded by his desire to kill to live. i know i said this was gonna be a pinepaw and cormorantpaw focused section, but geez i got carried away by my love for cormorantpaw’s lore and character.. that’s probably a good thing, haha. but back to that! cormorantpaw being confused at first before realizing and taking pinepaw’s challenge for a chase, and then as they’re quietly walking back pinepaw admitting that yeah, he really is the best…. these LADS.

almost hoped that asphodelpaw would friendly friendly one. haha. i rate this issue 10 lizard beefaces out of 10

Beeface is an absolute terror to the local reptile populations and she does it just for the thrill. And yeah, she's plenty willing to look cool and knowledgeable, but do actual work? No thank you.

Redpelt was pretty startled by Cormorantpaw calling her Thrasher, but as she doesn't have any context for who that is I think she'd just assume it was someone from his past and not try to interrogate him about it. Redpelt wouldn't chew them out for messing around cause it's really not that serious! Beeface made a bigger deal out of it than it was, but Redpelt still wants to remind them to be cautious and aware of their surroundings out in the wastes. But kids will be kids, and she respects that.

EHEHH I LOVE all your thoughts on Cormorant and Pine so much... my boys... I'm also really glad you like Cormorant's lore!! It's been really fun for me to write his backstory and I'm super excited to get deeper into it.

My silly boys <3 thank you as always for leaving such sweet and thoughtful comments. :)

[monty-glasses-roxy]

24 (What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?) for Roxy

Thanks for copying the question here buddy I appreciate that a lot (I can't load the post on my phone or my own blogs at all still)

Uhhhh honestly, Roxy's pretty different to a lot of my usual other blorbos. I could compare her to Labrys from Persona 4 Arena in a sense that they're both robots with horrible trauma that have been forced to do things they wouldn't dream of doing otherwise, but that doesn't feel like a great comparison ngl

I could compare her to a lot of blorbos though. Like Bracken from Ni No Kuni 2, Unit #024 and Labrys from Persona 4 Arena, for being chronically underutilized by the devs. Maybe PURL from Kuni 2 but PURL feels more... Like an opposite to Mimic? The first attempt at sentient AI in that world, determined to answer the question of what colour is the sky for herself... Only knows a few things, a child her closest friend, and accidentally takes over the wholeass factory in her attempts to see the sky again after like a decade of being deactivated. And also because the devs couldn't think of anything interesting for a new Broadleaf area so they wanted to make sure you did the wholeass factory again for some fucking reason.

Ohhh then again, I was watching those clips last night and Toothless and Hiccup made me think of Roxy and Cassie in an AU kind of way. Mostly because of the dogisms I like to give Roxy and because of several AUs that are more in line with How to Train Your D/ragon... (Put a slash in it to make extra sure I don't end up in any searches for that) So maybe Toothless? Maybe not?

Honestly I don't think I've ever liked a character that has shown much interest in their appearance before. Maybe Erza from Fairy T/ail? Looks cool and could kill you but has zero braincells whatsoever? Also very traumatised? Koromaru from P3 cause his persona is Cerberus and Roxy is the Cerberus to Mimic? And I can see her running around with a knife in her teeth? I dunno man that's a tough question

Ohhh there was also Blaze from the Sonic games! Not because of Roxy specifically, but because in coming up with a horse for her, many of the ideas for it was giving my Blaze vibes lmao. She has a horse in the Olympic games and it's pure white with light purple tack and possibly eyes I don't remember so yeah that kept popping to mind in coming up with a horse nsjsdj

And I suppose my OC Zephyr somewhat reminds me of her. That whole universe I made was started when I got so deep into a Pupcakes/Roxica Pirates AU that I decided to make it a whole thing and Zephyr is who Roxy in the story became. I like Zephyr she's very cool and has become very distinct from Roxy, but her roots are still there, ya know? I'll always remember where she started.

Jsisjsi I could associate Roxy with Disney's Bolt too just cause he's a superhero dog and a funny lil guy. And for some reason one of the OST tracks for the DS game will plague my mind for the rest of my days. Even though I'm thinking of every track but that one right now. It's the one for Bolt's part of the... Something Temple level. Bolivia? Belize??? I think it has a B in it... But anyway yeah Superdog! Hooray!

P03 from Inscryption too but mostly because it's tech themed, and I had that old AU where I drew her as the Scrybe of Technology. Inscryption is incredible btw I fucking love it. I suck at it apparently though. I got to Act 2 and played a fucking beefed up Ouroborus in the first stage of P03's fight like "oh I've got this fucker now!!" No I did not. I absolutely did that. Stoatal misplay. Could not have fucked that up more lmao anyone that's played or seen this game will know exactly what ended up happening there nsjdjdi I FORGOT okay?? I forgot!!!

BACK ON TOPIC yeah Roxy's a pretty different character to the norm for me. Genuinely can't think of anyone that might be similar to her enough for them to remind me of her if I saw them again. Maybe if I went back and watched the old My Little Pony from the fucking 70s or whatever, but it would just be the standard stereotype of "all girls care lots about their appearance and gasp in horror if you dirty a pretty dress" probably. You know the one. I do my best not to humour that shit in my own Roxy interpretation but it's hard to forget that's absolutely where her written personality stems from :/

[vendettapandav]

i would like to know more about the polycule :D

OOOOOO OKAY OKAY OKAY

So far this is the dynamic @simply-jason

Gary and Alu have the longest relationship. They've been besties with benefits forever now my dude. There's no real feelings involved. (He's neutral with Lisa. There's no attraction between them, but they're cordial for John's sake bc they both love him but clash too much in personalities and belies otherwise. He's attracted to Alastor and they're on good terms.)

Alastor initially hooked up with Alu and they became partners after he first moved into the apartment complex. They were both curious about the fact there was another demon around (Alu bc he'd never met Al, Al bc he'd never met another demon period) and Alu basically got Al warmed up to being worshipped by the cult. Very much a friends-to-lovers dynamic. (He's friendly with John and overly respectful of Gary, and he does feel some level of attraction to both.)

Lisa's absolutely enamored with John! She's been head over heels for him since they were kids! She meets Al when he first movs in and she's pretty shy at first, but he's friendly and sweet so they warm up to each other pretty quickly. They start as friends, then develop into friends-with-benefits, before they end up becoming partners. (She's not into Gary at all and is mostly civil with him for John's sake. They chat politely and will sometimes work together to make John happy, but there's no mutual attraction between them. She's also nonreciprocating towards Alu, though she does warm up to him a bit over time.)

John adores both Lisa and Gary! Those are his two partners right there! Lisa because he's known her forever and Gary bc he awakened him to who he was and finally made him feel secure in his identity and perceptions. (He's intimidated but attracted to Al too. As for Alu, he's a lot more way and avoidant, and it takes him a long time to warm up to him.)

Alu and Gary have had the oldest relationship. There's no romantic attraction. But they've been friends forever so it's just friends with benefits between them. Alastor is his actual romantic partner and he utterly adores him, even if he doesn't show it that well. Al gets the message. Alu shows his love in his own little ways. (He's also attracted to John and Lisa and makes advances toward them. They warm up to him over time, but it's purely physical attraction really.)

We are so obsessed with this polycule dynamic, it's so great ❤️

Also in this little AU we've cooked up, Garcia and Miriam ended up as a ship! Long story short, Garcia went in to save John and ended up getting captured by Miriam and forced to witness John breaking and being corrupted under Gary's influence. It convinced Garcia that there really was no hope in fighting the cult so, much like John, he gave in and was indoctrinated by her. Except OOPS - shotgun priest accidentally fell in love with the demon nun while she corrupting him so-

we LOVE talking about this verse. please feel free to ask us any questions about it, this is our current big blorbo ❤️❤️❤️

[imaginatorofthings]

Character ask game: could you please answer me 5, 18, 24 about Wally Darling, and (if it's all right) 4, 6, 14, 21 and 24 about Jazz? 💙

OMG Hi!!

OK! Let me just summon the soul of Wally Darling, ha ha ha!

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Touch Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon! Mostly because of an edit someone made, but also because that song slaps!

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

Barnaby B. Beagle! His best friend (determined by Playfellow Studios, or was it truly a friendship of their own doing? Ooo, I can't wait to find out!)

I don't know, they're just the most! They're matching, Barnaby calls Wally "his little apple", they're just so lovely!

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Ough, I don't know of the top of my head? To be honest, Wally just gives me gender envy and there's nothing quite like him (or maybe my braincells are tired!)

OK Jazz! My own blorbo!

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

Like in general? Like the medium? Or specifically?

Uh...Ghibli movie. Yeah.

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Physical touch is primary our love language! Also, the want for a large vocal range, aaah! Music!

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

I uh...

Help? I don't do fashion???

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I love the entire "how the hell do you write someone who experiences mild attraction to arguably the prettiest people to exist?" It's the pining! It's the awkwardness for something more yet not wanting too much as well! It's the feeling that you're smooth yet tripping over your own limbs and words! It's the soft looks of admiration, the gentle touches!

I don't like how I sometimes misgender my own characters. I'm sorry I accidentally typed "she" or "he" for you, my enby child! Your vibes just range from "trans-masc" to "lesbian" on the daily. But hey! Mess with that gender.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Okay, do not judge me. But for a few months in high school, I watched the Hazbin Hotel pilot (I don't associate with it anymore!)

But Alastor's vibes and voice were sort of the inspiration for Jazz. A charismatic radio star. Of course, I gave them mild anxiety in reality.

[collegeoflore]

1, 10, 25 for both blorbos B)

posting these answers out of order because 10 for xarrai got longer than i meant LOL it’ll be under a cut at the end :)

1. What memory would your OC rather just forget?

xarrai:

see i could give you a cop out answer and just say The First Sixteen Years Of Her Life. but that isn't entirely true. there's an element there of like.... yes she would like to forget, but the memory is the only thing standing between her and becoming the exact thing she hates. she clings to the memory of her early life in mulmaster because she fears she'll give in to temptation without it. and also like. who would she be without it? there's no "before" for her, she was like four or five when the zhentarim bought her, she doesn't Have any memories that aren't bane's church or what came after so. idk. it's complicated. all of them and none of them?

or, funny answer: one time she fully poured wine down the front of nysene eomane’s dress at a party. it was like 85% an accident. and while xarrai is stunningly hard to embarrass that one DID get her (partially because nysene’s brother would not let her live it down)

ieriyn:

oh man. when ieriyn was like 11 or 12 he got into an argument with his older brother that resulted in a wild surge that burned down a wing of their manor and left his brother badly injured. thankfully the fire was contained fairly quickly and ieriyn and his brother were the only ones hurt (and ieriyn not even all that badly) it was far from his first wild surge (that was when he accidentally turned his older sister and one of the cats on their estate into ducks when he was really young) but it was the first one that made him really truly afraid of what he's capable of.

funny answer for ieriyn as well: the time he got caught trying to sneak back into his house drunk after sneaking out with a couple of friends when he was like 16 and one of house staff found him in the bushes trying to figure out how to cast levitate to get back to the second floor window. the staff member ratted him out to his dad and he was in trouble for weeeeks

25. What is your favorite thing about your OC?

xarrai:

xarrai is my baby i love everything about them and they've never done anything wrong in their whole life. no notes. okay but honestly though, and i guess this is less about Them specifically but whatever, i really like the way their story fits into the plotline of the game and into the world as it stands. i really lucked into it honestly bc i was making shit up as i went but they slot so well into the world and mesh well with the party and their personal story feels just similar enough to the other characters' that it works. and part of that is because i have just stolen a bunch of pieces of the durge plot and made it bane flavored so of course it's going to work, but i also only did that because that's the direction their story was starting to take anyway. also i love bards i love little guys who make music and tell stories because i'm a little guy who makes music and tells stories :) i don't talk about that part of xar's life as much on tumblr dot com bc i'm busy talking about them fucking nasty or arguing with astarion but like. they truly do love playing music and singing songs and telling stories and writing their own poetry and ballads it's and they looooove the attention of performing tbqh :) i love bards :))))

ieriyn:

i love wild magic i love wild magic i love wild magic. also i love the shape his arc is starting to take and i'm having so much fun getting him there. i started with a general idea of where ieriyn starts (selfish spoiled rich kid and black sheep of his family) and where he's going to end up (someone who is willing to blow himself up With gale in the final battle (this may or may not happen for his canon. but the important part is he will be willing to do it.)) and left myself a big space to play in in the middle and rly let his rolls drive his story and now i'm getting to Discover Who He Is. also. i love wild magic. i loooove when magic is big and scary and dangerous and unpredictable and i love when its wielders rise to the challenge instead of trying to contain it :^)

10. What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

xarrai:

i am constantly constantly constantly rotating the ascended!astarion/absolute!xarrai au in my mind. granted i have basically no idea how the absolute ending actually goes because i haven't played or watched it myself so it's all like vague squishy ideas and Vibes in my head but i am deeeeeply obsessed with it. i'm not sure what series of events would have to happen for it to actually play out, because honestly with xarrai's anger issues and codependency with astarion i think the most likely outcome of him ascending is them flying off the handle and more or less forcing him into killing them (a very "if we can't be better than what made us i'm at least gonna try to take you down with me" vibe) BUT. assuming they do not. i could see xarrai looking at astarion's ascension as more or less confirmation that they also have no chance at true freedom and they may as well embrace what they have and so they turn back to bane. there's lore here i am Not going to explain bc it would take like four paragraphs of rambling but the crux of it is like. they Are in canon offered a chance to regain bane's favor in act 3 so there is precedent here and a way it would work plot wise for their story i think.

anyway i think they don't actually tell anyone Aside from gortash that they are back on their banite bullshit and they do actually let astarion turn them because they know it will lull him into a false sense of security and let him feel like he's won. they know the tadpole will preserve their free will and they're not too concerned about actually being vampire spawn because they Have A Plan. so they play the long game and let astarion believe he owns them and start playing out all his little power fantasies until they get to the morphic pool. the whole time they're telling everyone they're going to kill gortash when they get there and by the time anyone realizes they're lying it's too late :) and then. idk what happens bc idk how the absolute ending works other than gortash beefs it at some point. (which works well bc xarrai was DEFINITELY gonna betray him asap. he's a weak tyrant if he's willing to share that power w/anyone but bane himself. that's Tyranny 101) but the general idea is that xarrai and astarion become each others' worst nightmares and are locked in a toxic power struggle astarion has no hope of winning while the world around them descends into chaos. they both embrace what they were meant to be and make everything infinitely worse for it. :) in my ideal world there would be a way for xarrai to use the netherbrain to usurp bane himself and then destroy the brain after (or maybe for them to just recover and reforge the crown of karsus on their own and skip becoming the absolute/using the brain entirely who knows) and it would be a kinda god gale situation because like. the important part for them is not dominating every realm it's destroying what hurt them and on the top of that list is 1. bane and 2. astarion. and i think the dynamic that would exist between god of tyranny!xarrai and ascended!astarion would be like. delicious. he prayed to all the gods and none answered except the one he made with his own two hands. :) he thought he could own them and instead he's at their mercy :) they put their faith in him as their second chance at freedom and when he let them down they decided to make the same choice he did :)

as a bonus i think gale would be fucking livid if xarrai gave him their whole big speech about Not Becoming A God only to literally turn around and become a god. like that would be really fucking funny.

ieriyn:

i'll be so real right now i have no idea. i haven't even finished the game with him yet so i feel like i need to like. figure out what his canon actually is before i'm thinking too hard about AUs BUTTTT i could see a very stereotypical coffee shop au working for gale/ieriyn. i am deeply not a coffee shop au girlie but barista ieriyn trying his best to seduce professor gale when he comes in every morning for his latte could be so cute. ieriyn 100% has "i'm going to get that old man pregnant" energy that i don't get to explore enough in canon because he's busy being traumatized or whatever :/ (not that gale is an old man. but larian isn't giving ieriyn many options for beautiful older men to lure in with his autistic tboy swag and prettyboy looks so he will have to count)

[hamstermastersamster]

10 fandoms 10 characters!

Tagged by @talkingsoup <3

(Man I'm definitely not IN 10 fandoms so most of these are just Blorbos from my Shows/Books/Games)

April O'Neil from TMNT is very special to me. Just a normal gal swept up in absolute cartoon nonsense and accidentally adopting 4 idiot mutant turtle sons/little brothers and you know what, she's just Rolling With It. She's smart, warm, resilient and wholesome. I love her a whole lot. Check out my tmnt sideblog @hamsterandturtlesoup if you really want to know how much xD

Squall from Final Fantasy VIII is a definite son blorbo. As a kid, I naturally thought his icy edgelord emo personality and black leather get-up was simply cool, and when I replayed it again as an adult I was just "oh you poor thing you". He's a child soldier, lost his found-family but can't remember that so just has persistent feelings of abandonment and severe social avoidance, struggles to express emotion, has Friends forced upon him against his will and starts to Feel Things . . . Aaaa ;A; You get to choose certain responses in the game and I like to have him warm up slowly over time to his friends. That character progression is just so wholesome to see. I still have a significant FFVIII fanfic WIP that explores his character development floating around . . . maybe someday I'll finish it x'D

Rung from Transformers MTMTE is a prime of example of me falliing in love with 'minor' characters who then go on to have the shittiest time ever. At this point I'm fairly sure I do this TO them by warping reality when I decide I like them a lot. But I love it when characters I love suffer, so >_>; Rung is just a soft caring psychologist without flashy function or alt mode or combat capability! LEAVE HIM ALOOOOONE-

Lara Croft from Tomb Raider - no, not the modern reboot that gave her extreme daddy issues, or the reboot before THAT that gave her mommy issues and unnecessary friends calling her in the middle of isolated ruin exploration and worries about the blood on her hands. NO, I'm talking about the OG ruthless queen trapped in an aristocratic life who lost her fiance and old life in a plane crash that only she survived, but found herself in that survival and was effectively reborn. Her family cut ties with her and she simply said 'fine, fuck off' and worked alone for the thrill of it and made her own fortune and killed what she had to with a smile. She avoided any kind of love interest until Angel of Darkness and even then it was implicit enough to be completely ignored. She was a fucking badass. Child!hamster wanted to be her. Stripping away the visual and marketing sexualisation of her, she was such an important piece of feminist history in video games. I took archaeology at AS level because of her lmao.

Thalric from the Shadows of the Apt book series (just kidding lol, SotA doesn't have a visible fandom! I AM THE FANDOM-). SotA is a really unique and interesting insect-based fantasy world that I will sing praises for forever. I could talk about a bunch of characters in it <3 However, Thalric is, bluntly, a complicated Wasp villain who has done a lot of Bad Things but starts to feel conflicted over the shitty stuff his empire is doing and making him do. His full conversion to Sort-Of-Good-Guy happens over a looong time and is one of my favourite moral turnabouts I've ever seen. He's just so interesting as an example of a soldier brainwashed by his toxic state and trying to undo that, and at various points you really feel for him even though he's done absolutely terrible things. Only a great writer and compelling character can pull that off.

Raz from Psychonauts is a special little boy and only the first psychic on my list! :D What is not to love about a little psychic boy raised in a circus cursed to die in water with the gumption to sneak into a summer camp for psychic kids. His design, his voice acting, his character writing are just so good and I want to protect him ;A; When Psychonauts 2 unravelled the truth of his family history it just about murdered me in my seat. Since he actually gets recruited, does that make him another child soldier? . . . 2 on my list so far xD

Steven from Steven Universe is just a good soft kind boy with trauma. You know I love a good soft kind boy with trauma. (He also fights in a war, technically? Child soldier number 3!)

Lessa from the Dragonriders of Pern book series is a tiny undernourished woman filled with raw psychic power, vengeance, pride and spite and I respect that. She avoids the massacre of her entire family by pretending to be a filthy servant for a decade, and then manipulates the invading murderer into a duel to the death with a dragonrider whom she also manipulates so that she can reclaim her ancestral home, but instead decides to go one better and become the forerunning Queen dragonrider, so basically rules the world instead for her lifetime. She is a queen from all angles.

Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist is I guess child soldier no 4! What can I say, he's just a spirited, talented idiot boy wrapped up in tragedy and disability and angst. This is, of course, everything I could hope for in a character because suffering is delicious to me. But suffering with a happy ending is even better, and I love FMA's ending for him :3

Samuel Vimes from Discworld is one of my favourite characters ever. He's so flawed, but with a hellish bent for justice and a heart of gold, and I just love seeing things through his eyes? A compelling character with his own layers of angst and tragedy who has always felt very real to me. RIP pterry you are always missed.

Most of these are boys, my god. Too many beautiful (pathetic loser) boys. I have a weakness. Clearly I need to open my heart to more pathetic women in media.

Tagging . . . everyone xD I have a personal rule of not tagging individuals in these things as I don't want to pressure anyone! But go for it if you feel the inclination, I would love to read your takes and blorbos :3

[greypetrel]

Can I have 🍄 and 💦 for Aisling, Raina, and Alyra? :3

Of course you can! :D

Tis the ask game

🍄 What are your OCs favourite snacks? Their favourite comfort food which always cheers them up when they’re down? Favourite meal to make? Do they enjoy baking and cooking and are they any good in the kitchen?

Aisling: She's a sweet tooth. Her ultimate favourite thing is lemon custard cake, or anything with citruses. Or anything sweet with a memory linked to it. Embrium buds (sweet as per my headcanon) because she and her big brother ate them together, cookies because she... Well, Sera bakes them and she helps her cooking. Nectarines are her favourites too, she says they "taste like home" because she always ate them with her clan. She is a bad cook, can cook a couple of very basic things that will keep herself and others alive, but only on a campfire, and it's not anything you'll remember. Put her in front of a stove, leave her unsupervised and she'll either set the kitchen on fire, make the oven explode because "stuff wasn't cooking so I got impatiens and helped it with magic". Invent a Rage Demon to blame for her lack of talent.

Raina: Cotton candy because Malcolm used to buy it to her at festivals, to cheer her up when she was sad, and just to make her smile. She gets emotional for cotton candy. She loves Orana's cooking, and particularly how she makes tomatoes and her bruschette. Orana always makes one bruschetta more, and that's always for Raina because it's her favourite. She maybe could learn to cook, but has not the patience for it. She can cook only ONE thing and that's the "Grand Hawke Stew". Which was Malcolm's idea to convince Leandra that they won't starve after they ran away and stayed a family tradition. It's basically a soup made from "whatever is in the pantry at that moment, pour everything inside". Raina somehow always manages to make it taste nicely. Even if you see her pouring a whole jar of peanut butter inside. She really has no patience for anything else, maybe she can grill, but baking? Nope, she's terrible.

Alyra: Halla cheese. It's not something you find in human settlements, she's not so sentimental but she misses that and makes her feel good. She has a soft spot for Alistair's prized grey lamb soup. She is a soup girl. Something warm and earthy, full of herbs, and she'll settle down with a smile. It reminds her of home, it reminds her of the Blight and of meals shared with her friends. Soup is nice, soup is a warm hug. She is the best cook of the three, she'll tackle cooking as she tackles everything else in her life: methodically and with a purpose. She'll get a recipe and follow it, add some spices of her own, measure timings precisely. She'll get you nourished and she'll get you happy with what she serves you. She'll be better at cooking than at baking, but purely because she strongly prefer savoury dishes to desserts.

💦 If you as the writer could erase one traumatic event from this OC’s life what would it be and why?

Aisling: Already answered here!

Raina: In canon I saved both twins. It's not that I don't like starting it with a death, it's just... I saw Leandra blaming Hawke and that was a little unsettling for me. Again, Raina is the blorbo I accidentally poured too much of me into (except I can cook and I can bake and am still learning knitting) and... Again, see Aisling, I'm ok with the drama, but there's a couple of things that... Are too much. That thing is something I'm deeply uncomfortable with and I think she would have come crushing down way before the ending of Act 2 with that on her shoulders as well.

Alyra: So, this is basically me not thinking through things when choosing dialogue options, LOL. But basically: Alyra facing the Landsmeet and saying that oh no I'll be the Queen, Alistar we can marry. In front of everyone. And Alistair needing to remind her that eh. You know. Wrong ear shape. That's... Not something I would have personally dismissed so easily as a writer, necessarily (maybe keep the option open to work through it... I'm speaking of years of machinations to make it plausible for everyone, and only available as an options on certain conditions, but still.). And realising it wouldn't have been a feasible option... That is basically Alyra's core fear condensed into one wrong dialogue choice, I kept it out of trust to my game but eh. I don't think she would have done it and in that shitshow that is the breakup with Alistair if you make him king and aren't a Cousland... That is the one thing I'd spare her, LOL. (Instead I'm evil and we keep it.)

[buffporcupine]

*pulls a folding chair out of handbag* please tell me about your ocs

Ooh, my! You’ve made a mistake. <3 No, really, thank you sooo much for these asks, I love them to bits. Send more of these asks.

Anyway, it’s infodumping o’ clock.

TWs for death mentions, abuse, whatever tragic backstory shit I’ll have to mention.

So, I recently made a post about Kiyomi, which is one of my favorite OCs that I have, but now I gotta talk about my other OCs that I have. I have at least 100 little blorbo OCs, they have been plaguing my mind. Also, I have like a grand total of 12 human OCs 😭.

I’ll just make this post into pieces, and each piece with be a few paragraphs about one OC. Some are from the same universe, some are not.

~~~

013.

013 is one of my more recently made OCs. She’s another one of my favorites, too. She’s from one of my WIPs, in which the plot is just about her, her best friend, and the adventures they go on. She’s also like, very sickly and small, she’s definitely one of those Always Sick (tm) kids. Her various sicknesses and chronic ailments were what caused her eventual death. She was fascinated by the stars, and the beauty of the night sky. She’d usually get her best friend, Victor, to lend her his telescope or teach her more about the other planets and galaxies. She said when she grew up, she wanted to be an astronaut. She spent lots of time studying space, and she really did want to see the stars in person. She died when she was a teenager. Victor lived to an old age, without her. Anyway, she’s just a cute OC. Ray of sunshine and everything. I hated writing the scene of her death, ugh. Below is a sketch of her.

She’s my bby for sure.

~~~

Mary-Anne Taylor.

This OC is from a totally different universe from Victor and 013. She lived around the 1980s and 1890s, and died to sickness. Now, she is a ghost who possesses a glass doll. The glass doll is similar to her in looks, and that is why she chose it. She was a child when she died, so she still likes learning new things and playing outside. She had a little sister that she loved to play with and take care of. I mainly use this OC for rps, where I have her ask the other character about what special things have happened since her death. Very cute overall. I don’t actually have any concepts for her design…? She loves to catch bugs and run in the mud, she had no care for what “being proper” meant. She’s just a bro.

~~~

Yui Barkes.

Yui is just this emo girl who wears lots of eyeliner and hides the lower half of her face under a vintage gas mask? The gas mask, though, is only half there for aesthetics, as she has this kuchisake-onna style smile scar going across her face. It’s very bloody and unsettling, and it’s unknown as to how she got the scar. It makes her look badass, even if she is insecure about it. She’s a guitarist for a grunge band, and she writes most of the band’s music. Her girlfriend is in the band as well. She’s a very cool character and she sounds like the sort of person anyone would want to be friends with. I have her made in GC but I won’t bestow that horror upon you.

~~~

Magic Jack.

This lil’ guy is an OC I made as a joke, after keysmashing on a Chinese keyboard and accidentally texting my friend about an explorerer named Magic Jack destined to penetrate a barrier into a Forbidden City. I have no clue what it was about, but now le Magic Jack has a design, and he is a gay icon.

~~~

Ven Omause.

This OC was meant to be a YTTD OC, but now she’s detached from that and part of her own original story. She’s based on the YTTD dolls in the sense of her name meaning something weird and sinister or just being a misspelling of a phrase to look like a name. E.g. Tia Safalin, Sue Miley, Rio Ranger… Ven is based off the motif of snakes, snake powers, snake obsession, snake everything. She even has her tongue pierced so it looks reptillian. Her whole shtick is that she’s a serial killer with DID, one personality being an innocent high school student and one personality being a snake obssessed serial killer.

~~~ Anyway, there’s the end of the infodump.

I didn’t know which OC to infodump about, so I did a handful of them. Which is the most interesting? Which should I talk about more?

Thanks if you read this, BTW.

Thank you for the ask, please send more like it!!

[otherworldlygate]

Today is the day I finish some outlines I hope. Current progress is something like this (under a readmore to save your dashes):

Swallow the Ground: This is the sequel to Break Open the Sky, and is 90% outlined. I just need to wiggle in a tertiary plot that I'd like to carry into the third story in the series. Outline is sitting around 6,200 words and the story takes place over a full calendar year. The main plot is about Regal, Zelos, Sheena, and Raine trying to compile enough evidence against Sybak to have it shut down, with some help from Kate, Presea, Genis, Viscount Alaric, and a half-elf informant who lived most of their long life in Sybak and has plenty of evidence to spare. The secondary plot is the romance, which focuses most heavily on Raine's struggle as an asexual woman who never really processed her past relationship trauma. Even though Regal told her he didn't care how long it took for them to figure things out/things to progress between them, she still feels pressure to be ready before that one-year anniversary hits. She does a lot of conflating love and sex in the "if I love him enough I should be comfortable having sex with him" sense. As far as a tertiary plot goes, I'm thinking something along the lines of exspheres and the exsphere mines—something to draw Lloyd and Colette into the third story in the series more directly.

--

Balacruf Mausoleum Fic: The completion status of this one is hard to define. The trauma of the accident is entirely outlined, but this is the kind of story where it's difficult to figure out where to go afterward because there isn't a big catch-all solution to the issues that plague the characters. The outline is about 6,100 words long right now.

I do think any story centering on certain characters in ToS probably tends to struggle with a similar issue to what I'm looking at here, which is more or less difficulty finding a good/believable stopping point because the grind never ends. Think about Lloyd's journey to gather all the exspheres or Zelos's responsibilities in Tethe'alla in the post-game: it feels like there's no stopping point in their lives because the characters will never get a real break. In the case of this story, Raine and Regal pay pretty heavy prices for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Balacruf Mausoleum caves in on them. While Raine is at least logically free to do whatever she wants after this is over, Regal has to return to his life in Altamira and all the responsibilities that wait there for him while continuing to deal with his share of the consequences. Like Zelos and Lloyd, there isn't really a point where he gets a break; too many people depend on him.

This also isn't the usual kind of story for me. Sure, I love torturing my blorbos, but I don't usually delve into trauma-bonding or magic, and one of the big plots of this story is centered on the idea of what might happen if Raine severely over-extended herself as a healer as a "last stand" kind of thing and accidentally formed a very literal link/connection with the person whose life she was trying to save. And because I'm writing it, of course, this device skews toward having far more downsides than upsides, and it's almost made worse with the trauma-bonding. So while Raine is logically free to go her own way once the dust settles (so to speak), emotionally it becomes a much more difficult decision for her.

But where does a story like this go, other than smack into the daily grind of the characters as they try to untangle everything? And this, I am finding, is quite difficult to outline.

--

Declining!Tethe'alla: Character backstories are 90% complete and part of the journey arc is outlined. Sitting at 6,300 words. I don't really know what else to say about this one except that there were at least 10 ways to write any particular character arc, and I went with what seemed most appealing to me/what worked best in tandem with other character arcs.

Here are some small tidbits: Seles is Tethe'alla's Chosen of Regeneration. Zelos is the one tasked to carry on the mana lineage. Both Mylene and Seles's mother (named Carina in this story unless she has an official name) are alive. Sheena is a celebrated hero/summoner. Colette is Sylvarant's Chosen of Mana and Lloyd is her right-hand man/bodyguard/sidekick/bestie. Anna is alive. Regal has been at a human ranch for half his life. Raine and Genis are Sybak's property. Presea's story is similar to the game but somehow 10x worse.

A few characters were aged up for the sake of a better/more interesting/more believable storyline. Several relationships from the canon are also altered or changed in some way (including Raine and Genis's).

Speaking of Raine and Genis, I really wanted to avoid them being in Sybak because I feel like everyone jumps to that, so I toyed with the idea of Raine as a Desian (thanks @ciryze LOL) and while this would grant me some great storyline stuff between my blorbos if they were both at the same ranch (rapport before they meet the others!) I felt like that sort of story had a lot of short-term strength, but not enough staying power for the rest of the tale I wanted to tell. It also makes Genis a tough character to write.

Also, it's probably worth mentioning that I don't think many people actually want to read my take on Raine as a Desian; it wouldn't be that dark or interesting lmao. (I might have a one-shot brewing for this, though.)

Anyway, as it turns out, it's exceedingly difficult to ensure all these characters meet without some outside influence. While it's true that Raine and Genis could meet the Chosen's Group by pure coincidence, I would prefer a story that felt a little more intentional, especially for characters who will matter even more in a story where the Chosen herself is a half-elf. So I went with Sybak. But oops, it's not the Sybak you know and love!

The most difficult part about outlining this story is definitely getting all the characters together in a timely manner and not boring the shit out of my audience. We all played the game, after all, and we know what the Chosen's journey entails and how it should theoretically end. The second most difficult part is purely logistics-related: which human ranch goes where, which grand cardinal oversees it, how to weave in so many varying perspectives into one story, what the fUCK to do with Kratos other than let him show up, do nothing, reveal nothing, then leave, the order of the seals, and so on.

And then the third hardest thing is being nitpicky about character stuff. Let's use Regal for an example. So if he's been at a human ranch for the last 18 years, he should be long dead. He's not, so I had to figure out why. Through pure spite (or any other strong emotion) he doesn't let his exsphere awaken? He's too physically useful to be thrown away? He's not allowed to die too easily because he has to pay for the sins of his family? The Desians are intrigued by his ability to heal and use a little magic even though he reads as human to them? He has elven blood way back in the bloodline and the Desians take a small measure of pity on him? Is it possible he is being used in an experiment like the Angelus Project? Multiple of the above?

And then bigger questions, like which cardinal is most likely to have allowed this to happen? And where should this ranch be located so that the main characters can run into Regal at the right time?

We can't forget the emotional stuff, either! For example, after 18 years of mistreatment in a human ranch and seeing so many humans die at the hands of half-elves, how does Regal react to the literal Chosen being a half-elf? What about Raine and Genis, who were exploited by humans for the last 14 years?

And this isn't even getting into the backstory of his family, or George's role in anything. And this is just Regal! There are a lot of other characters, and I feel exceedingly picky about all of them.

I'm maybe 20% through this outline because there's just so much to consider.

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One-night Stand Fic: The happier outline is 1,800 words (while the tragic version is 4,600) but it's maybe only like 30% complete. I think I'm going to go with the happier story because my blorbos need a break and there's something to be said about the consequences of a one-night stand being terrible enough on their own.

Like, imagine having to tell the friend that you banged a couple of months ago on a whim that uhhhh there's a baby now. There's something particularly bad about Raine being the one who has to get up the courage to say something, too; the world is prejudiced and while logically she's certain Regal will take the news in stride/take at least some responsibility, it's still a scary conversation to have.

Like, he is her friend, and she likes him, but this is a life-changing thing to announce. There is no way for her to know with 100% certainty how he will react to it. He has literally all of the power here.

What a terrifying situation to be in. And also to have to sail to Altamira when already suffering morning sickness? Hahaha. RIP.