#I’d been putting it off bc usually my brain has a really bad reaction to anything feeling weird or off in my body but I was like fuck it I’m

[honeytae]

if you’re open for regular requests i’d love to request lil scenarios of the boys learning english alongside their english-speaking s/o! this is totally self-indulgent i’m doing the TEFL program and i’m going to south korea next year to teach :)

first of all, that’s amazing omg!! congratulations my love, i hope you have the best time over there and please don’t be shy in sharing your stories with us!!! i tried to stick to the boys actually learning english with their s/o but i strayed from that with a few members just bc i ran out of ideas lol but i hope you still enjoy!

fair warning....i’ve never ~seriously~ tried to learn korean, so i’m not entirely certain of the parallels between korean and english. i just hope these are wholesome enough to override that lmao

namjoon:

“You know,” Namjoon looked up from his phone, “I understand expanding your vocabulary, but why are there so many weird slang words?”

“Kids these days?” You shrugged, the man chuckling in response before flipping his phone around to show you what had puzzled him.

“If something slaps, that’s...good?” He wondered, watching as you suppressed a smile at the tweet he was showing you.

You could tell by the profile picture that the user was an ARMY, one of the many fan profiles on the platform, and the tweet was written completely in English.

Although there was a ‘Translate to Korean’ option readily available with just a tap of his thumb, you knew Namjoon never missed an opportunity to challenge himself to be able to fully comprehend what a native English speaker was trying to say.

You nearly snorted at the tweet’s content, smiling as you read it out loud.

“The Dis-ease bridge just saved my life. Seriously, this song slaps.”

Glancing at Namjoon, he raised his eyebrows, eagerly waiting for you to translate and explain what that could equate to in Korean.

“It’s definitely a good thing, Joon. They love it.”

At your interpretation, Namjoon grinned, nodding to himself as he pulled his phone back in front of his face to scroll through more reaction tweets to the new album release.

seokjin:

“What the hell is that?”

You picked your head up from your sketchbook when you heard Seokjin whine from beside you, eyebrows knitting together at his distressed tone. Taking a glance over at his laptop screen, you found his mouse bouncing from letter to letter on one of his weekly english lessons.

“What is that, like 15 letters? How do you even use that in a sentence?” He went on, obviously flustered by the word on the screen.

Pulchritudinous.

You placed your hand over his to stop his panicked counting of the letters, causing him to look over at you with a sigh as he frowned.

You nearly giggled at his reaction, but the genuine fear in his eyes made you stifle it as you soothingly held his hands in yours. 

“It’s just an over complicated way of saying beautiful. I don’t know why they’re teaching you that, nobody ever uses it.” You assured him, his eyes going down in size a bit at your words before he nodded.

Watching as a smirk tilted his lips, you raised your brows at the sudden expression.

“What?”

“Well like, I could say I’m...that?” He said, eyebrows raised cockily as he gestured to the long word stretched across the screen.

“Well it’s actually not used like,” you paused, giving in with a shrug as you grinned back at him.

“Sure, love.”

yoongi:

“Why did I skip English class all the time?” Yoongi sighed, pinching his bottom lip between his fingers as he plucked at the skin in frustration.

“Because you were trying to be a rebel.” You answered without looking up from your phone, the man obviously not liking your answer as he reached over to where you were laying beside him to pinch at your hip.

Yelping, you scooted across the mattress to get away from his hand, whining his name with a scoff before looking over at his notepad.

“What are you doing, anyway?” You asked, leaning on your palm as you scanned the rows of scribbled English letters written on the page.

“I’m trying to get better at writing.” He admitted shyly, a small grin on his face to match the fond one on your own. 

“Aw,” you pouted, Yoongi raising his eyebrows at your tone, “but I like your chicken scratch.”

“You’re such a brat.” He chuckled, adjusting the velcro on his brace with a grunt.

Since Yoongi’s shoulder surgery took away obvious straining activities like dancing and performing, he’d turned to studying English from the comfort of your bed during his recovery as one of the only safe activities he could partake in for a while.

It was now one of his favorite past times, learning new words and phrases he could potentially use in the future. It worked for you both because it took his mind off the pain and kept him motivated, and since you could speak both his and your language, you could help him out whenever he got stuck on something.

Usually he did lessons verbally on his phone, but it seemed today he had taken the old fashioned route.

“Your handwriting really isn’t bad, Yoongs.” You observed, the carefully placed tails at the end of each ‘a’ making you smile out of fondness for the man.

“My man has the prettiest handwriting.” You cooed, pushing a strand of his stark black hair out of his eyes as he blushed down at his notebook.

“Stop that.”

hoseok:

“Hey, babe?” Hoseok called for you, listening to your footsteps growing closer before you popped your head into the kitchen doorway.

“Yeah?”

“I’m having a little trouble.” He gestured to his open laptop on the counter, you recognizing it as an assignment from his English course.

“What happened?”

“Pronouns. Pronouns happened.” He pouted, his disdain for the new chapter quite obvious as he stared down his computer screen.

“What about them?” You asked, stepping closer to the man sitting at the kitchen island and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I need to make ten sentences using proper pronouns and I feel like I’m doing it all wrong.” He explained, causing you to hum as you looked over his sentences.

“These look great, Hobi.” You smiled as you glanced over the first three he’d written, flawlessly executed on the document.

“Can you help me with the next one?” He wondered, you nodding your head as you took a seat on the stool next to his.

“What do you want the next one to say?” You asked, watching as he glanced off to the side in thought, slightly squinting his eyes at the tile floor beneath the sink.

“My house is next to,” He spoke in English, pausing as he searched his brain for what pronoun to put next.

“Theys?” He answered as more of a question, then shaking his head as he switched back to Korean, “wait, no.” He sighed, placing his chin in his hand in thought before glancing over to you.

“I know it’s wrong, I just don’t know what the right answer is instead.” He explained, you shooting him a loving smile as you pushed the dark raven hair off his forehead and pressed a kiss to the newly revealed skin.

“I’ll help you, Sunshine. No worries.”

jimin:

Flopping onto the bed, you let your tired body fall on top of Jimin’s hoodie clad chest, his arm encircling your body as he mumbled a soft greeting to you.

“Hm, what are you learning about today?” You nuzzled into his chest, peering at his phone propped up on his thigh.

“Animals. Birds, mostly.” He answered, briefly turning from the screen to press a kiss to your head before focusing back on the row of English words matched with pictures of popular birds glowing from the device.

The first was a robin, the next a blue jay, and then a dove.

You listened as the virtual instructor prompted Jimin to repeat after her, spelling out the letters before stating the whole word. You smiled as your boyfriend followed instruction, pronouncing the words the best he could after the microphone chimed for him to do so.

“D-o-v-e. Dove.”

“Dove.” He repeated, smiling to himself as the app announced he got the point with a little heart.

“That’s cute.” He went back to his native language, you humming in confusion as you lifted your head up off his chest to look at him.

“The heart?” You asked, reaching up to twist a stray strand of hair out of his eye as he shook his head.

“Dove.” He said again, making you tilt your head, not knowing what he meant.

“It sounds like ‘love.’” He connected the two English words, you smiling fondly at him in response before scooting up the bed to kiss the tip of his button nose.

“You’re so cute.”

taehyung:

Three knocks at the door announced someone’s arrival to your bedroom, causing your head to lift from the novel you’d been so immersed in. Taehyung was home, but you’d wanted to give him space because you knew he needed to work on lyrics for his mixtape in order to submit them on time. 

“Hey,” he poked his head in with a small smile, “can you help me with something?” He asked sheepishly, stepping further into the room when you nodded.

“Of course. What is it?” You set your book down, marking your place before closing it to pay full attention to your boyfriend.

“Well, I’m trying to write this verse in English and,” he trailed off with a shrug, “you know.” He finished, you nodding in response with a gesture for him to come sit next to you.

He eagerly walked over to you with his notebook in hand, lowering himself to the mattress before rolling his way over to where you were leaning against the headboard.

Honestly, Taehyung’s English wasn’t bad at all. He was insecure about it, but you’d never really understood what the reason for that feeling was. His vocabulary was more than decent, his comprehension was good, and his pronunciation was great for having such a thick accent.

But there were many times where Taehyung came to you for guidance, as you were a native English speaker yourself.

And so, as he rested his head on your shoulder confiding in you about everything he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it, you patiently took him through what would work and rhyme best, smiling as he hummed the melody to himself to see if the phrases would work in his creation.

jungkook:

“Baby, can you read it to me again before we go on? Just one more time.”

You glanced over at your boyfriend in his makeup chair, several employees bustling around the man as they attempted to get him ready to go on stage while they had him seated.

With his arm extended backward to where you stood behind his leather chair, he offered his phone to you while shooting you a grin through the reflection in the mirror.

Taking the device from his hand, you opened it to the notes app where he’d written what he wanted to say in his statement on stage in just a few minutes.

You were in London tonight, which meant that all of the boys had been rehearsing their English so that they could communicate easier with their audience.

Jungkook, ever the over-achiever, was determined to do the toughest English tongue twister he could possibly find. Not only that, but in a British accent for his British ARMY’s.

“Betty bought a bit of better butter to make her bitter butter better.” You read from the phone, barely able to read the sentence yourself before you glanced up at Jungkook through the mirror again.

You watched your boyfriend nod as his brain took in the words you’d just said, taking a deep inhale before he began speaking the phrase back to you.

You gawked as the man effortlessly repeated after you, a few of the makeup artists stopping as well as Jungkook raised his eyebrows back at you.

“Was that okay?”

[hoe-imaginess]

replies!

tried to put older ones at the top. 

ALSO: I got a lot of requests in the last few weeks and just wanted to post a general reply in reminder that my ASK BOX IS CLOSED! Not accepting any requests right now, sorry! I delete any that come in

i BEEN A YEEHAW BINCH SINCE DAY ONE GORLLL. we stan 4am whataburger in this house 

I do!! I used to have gold but it got kinda expensive in comparison to what I was charging for ko-fi’s. If you don’t have that extra $6 a month it’s not worth it boo ):

Ahhh congrats! Sorry I’m so late!! I think it’s always worth it to stick with the original blog since you’ve accumulated followers there, and you never know if they’re going to miss out on the transition to your new one. It takes some time to restructure a blog but it’s definitely worth it to keep the original

the amount of HIM’s in One Piece is unbelievable I whore for everyone

I’m doing ok!!!! I go a little crazy indoors but I’m keeping myself busy <3 my immune system is shit so I’m on utter lock down, but better safe than sorry

@thychi​ 

I keep up sporadically with the manga!! I stopped watching it when I caught up a few months ago, think I ended on Whole Cake? I know what’s happening currently but I haven’t read too into depth in the Wano arc. I usually just... pop into the spoilers tags... to see Law... bc I love him... 

@ithecrystaldragonheart​

Mito and Hashi are a powerful duo. Mito has a lot of brains cells she has to share with Hashi but that’s ok!!!! I do think Tobirama and Mito would get along too!

Basically tbh he sees one thing out of place and he must destroy

i’D HEARD IT WAS A REALLY BAD CHAPTER. this is a late response but MANGA READERS THAT ONE WEEK... we were all a mess (and no I haven’t watched but I’ve been recommended to do so quite a lot so I’ll hop on it soon!) 

Hmm!!!! I actually find a *shorter* first chapter is a good way to hook the reader without making them claw through too much writing to get a sense of what’s going on. Like, if I see a first chapter is reallllly long I sometimes have to do it to em, and scroll a bit to the middle to see what’s going on, and to double check that it’s a fic I want to take the time to read

1300 words isn’t too much though!!! Omg I’ve written much longer first chapters lmao. If you feel weird about it you can maybe find a good place to split that 1300 into two chapters?? But definitely make sure it’s split in a good place. It’s always good to leave the reader wanting more. If you can end on a short cliff hanger or a tense moment, that’s 10/10

That being said it would probably be wise to make the rest of the chapters of a similair average length. I’ve read fics that have shorter or longer chapters and it’s not bad (unless I’m grieving because it’s too short AND I REQUIRE MOREEE) but it might help you with actually planning your plot

I DON’T!!! But I want his ninja dick so bad. Maybe i’ll whip something up for him soon. For the culture 

When you sent this a while ago it actually inspired me to pick it up again!! I’m fixing it so it comes up with more accurate (?) results since I think the first one was so messed up. Everyone kept getting Madara sksksks. It’s still in the works but I wanna post it again! They’re super fun to make

AHHHH THANKSSSSS!!!

It’s so hard trying to keep a character that you love IC because... i want him to not be as much of an asshole as he is in canon... so unfortunately I gotta let him be an asshole sometimes. On the other hand, fortunately he’s such a minor guy I get some room to explore w him and I really hope it pays off, so thank you!!!

Girl, eye—someties

did Itachi Uchiha send me this

(i love u too)

RIGHT!!! i would have never guessed. Like, if Kishi could see us... he’d be fucking floored....

Queen!!! I do!!! I don’t have much up rn but I got 234232 Word docs with WIP fics that I hope to post at some point, ty ilysm 

https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoSkelly

@any59​ ty ty!

Ahhhh!!! thank you!!! It was my biggest project to date <3 

(HxH spoilers below vvvvv)

I don’t really think Feitan is... so far removed from his emotions (Like Meruem) that he would really need to change that drastically for someone if he really liked them—that being said, he’s not going to change, either. If by change we mean he’s suddenly as enamored and endearing with them as Meruem is with Komugi... then I don’t think that’s going to happen regardless. We kinda see Feitan being a good and decently considerate comrade to the Troupe, so that would obviously extend to this girl/boy, maybe with a sliver of extra fondness if we’re talking romantically. But otherwise, Feitan seems like a “you get what you get” type of guy, that would inherently be *tender* with someone he liked, but not so tender that he’d have to have a whole philosophical/personality change

Ok now I’m confusing myself aksjdhfkjs. Basically:

Meruem had to like, undergo some existential shit to get where he was Komugi. I think Feitan already has the capacity to care for someone, even if his way of caring isn’t exactly rainbows and butterflies. So it’s not like he has to change. He just has to find the right person that doesn’t 1) get on his nerves and 2) get on his nerves enough that he’s gonna kill them

Feitan is a simple man. You piss him off. You die. You don’t? Ok. He’ll be nice

I did!!!

Thank you for accepting me I’m glad to be here

akjdhfakjshfsj i know this was a serious comment but when i first read it I wanted to laugh asdhfkasjhf the “ap lit” inclusion sent me. What was so horrible about ap lit that this girl thought she was dying? Ap lit will really get you

(But I know!! I’d forgotten I’d taken it that morning! I have one of those cute pill organizers and I thought I’d taken it out but did not...)

Forgive me!!! I felt dumba fterwards hence why I deleted the post. Do not worry! This is the dose I was prescribed. I figured I would get some really manic reactions when trying a new dosage so now I know that’s not gonna work lol 

ajkshdfkjshfjksa izuna wants tobirama’s death to be as quick and natural as possible

thank  you!!!! I didn’t think you guys would like them so much <3

@blackstrawberrynightmare​

It’s been so long since I watched Psycho Pass or even looked into anything about it so pls take my thoughts with a grain of salt but:

I’m gonna say probably not? He’s one of those typical antags that have such strong ideals that... I don’t think even if the corrupt system was taken down he’d be entirely absolved of his ideals, or at the least, of the journey he’s taken in pursuit of those ideals. I don’t think a guy like him could ultimately settle down once the dust clears, and especially not with a lover or a family or anything like that. If he did want to lead a normal life it would probably be in seclusion

Thank you!!!!!!

skjhasjkdfhajkhsd they would never. Only room for one tongue on that body and they’ll fight for their tongue rights

Ahhh yeah my master post is so bad I swear I’m gonna fix it one day—I don’t think I have one of Madara!

I do not ):

@cacauatecacauate​ thanks for the kind words!! I’m not accepting requests right now though! I am planning on posting more to that story though, just not right now!

(I think this was in response to when I missed your ko-fi about the bakers) thank you! and thanks for supporting!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

im supposed to be working on uh literally anything else but instead i gotta get this outta my brain

tl;dr: slag is causing the Psychos to spread across the galaxy bc the Calypsos are using it to both brainwash their cultists and give them ‘special powers’. i mean, its not just slag, it’s eridian ruins/tech, too, but the Twins are utilizing slag the most. which explains the slagfalls and also the processed eridium everywhere still. im hoping sirens will help us cure this- starting with Krieg because slag/Psychos have some sort of connection to the other dimension, just like Sirens, but more messy. also this insanity from the slag/Psycho-ness is literally Mayhem and us fans are taking part in it- we’re the cult irl. plus, this game is gonna be about love and the relationships we have with the people we care about and that’s all the roses mean because i’m feeling s o f t tonight. tomorning. whatever maaaaan

“… among their fractured ramblings, it is tempting to try and find a deeper meaning…”

“[their madness] defies attempts at explanation or containment. from an isolated region of a single planet, to a nearby moon, to systems throughout every human colony, madness is catching…”

you can’t tell me this isn’t just BEGGING for us to figure it out

so, for my own sake:

i have a theory.

i kinda sorta hinted at this with my destroyer theory but i REALLY wanna go all out in this because i think this is actually something to think about… mostly because ive seen A Scene… and i wants to talk about it, vh. i wants it

now im gonna `lol` ignore everything about my lost legion eternal theory and start entirely from scratch. it’s also 1am here for my apologies if this comes across as incoherent because wow i should be asleep but fuck it i got research to do

so it all starts with psychos. i mean i guess it does. it’s gotta right? i brought in pictures it must

anyway

the guide admits that the first psychos came from Dahl’s prison colonies

the ones abandoned on pandora, now ive kinda talked about this b4 but imma talk about it again bc uhhh fuck it? why not.

so we know a lot of the bandits left on Pandora mutated because of the eridian ruins/the key. this is referenced mostly in sledge’s mine

its like world-wise called headstone mine but i never remember that. SLEDGE’S MINE

notice that line “most went crazy and many were physically mutated as well”

so i think it’s safe to say whatever they found in there started causing psychos to appear on pandora

im saying that i think eridians are the cause of Psychos across the galaxy

i have a lot more proof for this so please sit back and enjoy the ride because i think its really really cool

so lets look at hector’s logs from the newest dlc

“one of my boys found a shiny alien trinket”

“a few boys went rabid already, had to put them down”

now idk if there’s a connection here, but it’s interesting that both times, people who found these eridian artifacts started going crazy soon after

shit i mean even tannis begins to go off the wall after her and her dig team start investigating the eridian sites. although if that is because of the horrific incidents that befell her and her team or the ruins idk for certain. i’d bet its the shitty incidents tho

there’s more to this, hang on…

alright, so, lab rats? they’re pretty cool right?

we all like lab rats! personally, chase is my favorite, but adam is hilarious. that final season, huh? pretty wicked… wasn’t really a fan of the island setting but you know what, to each their own. it’s cool they actually progressed the show instead of staying stagnant. that got my respect even if it moved in a direction that wasn’t my cup of tea.

anyway Q U O T E S:

“Hyperion opened my eyes. i didn’t want it!”

“needles in my eyes!”

“don’t you look at me!”

“i can see! i don’t want to see!”

so there’s obviously something ~fucky~ going on with the lab rats and whatever it is they can see from the hyperion experimentation. we know hyperion had a hard-on for slag experimentation and you know i wouldn’t even be shocked if they were injecting these rats’ eyes with slag.

the best part is their reactions when they’re phaselocked. Unlike most enemies, the lab rats will only react to maya’s action skill, and none of the other VHs.

vs something like a marauder:

who has all these voice lines for Zer0, Axton, Sal (merc), AND Maya

the lab rats will only ever respond to being phaselocked.

and what do they say?

“i see the universe!”

“i see infinity!”

“it’s beautiful!”

 (now weirdly enough i was told on the tv tropes for bl2 that the lab rats will say “I see it more!” when phaselocked by maya, but i couldn’t find a source for that. couldn’t even find it in the files i extracted from the game. i checked an online video just to double check because you know, my extraction could’ve been off, but it wasn’t there, either. even phaselocked one a bunch as maya and i couldn’t get it to proc. so, idk where that info came from, if someone could give a source/proof that would be awesomesauce.)

sooo what do other enemies say when phaselocked? usually… they just see blue. so nothing quite as interesting as infinity.

so wtf is up here? 

im thinking the experiments hyperion performed on the lab rats are letting them see the dimension maya locks them in. i mean, tbh, i think they can see into that dimension whenever they open their eyes, but maybe maya’s phaselock makes sense of it for them. because they seem to be in indescribable agony outside of it

but the lab rats aren’t the only enemies that only react to being phaselocked

turns out the psychos only react to phaselocking, too

they also have some fun lines:

“I can see forever!”

“I’m home!”

“I’m inside… I’M INSIDE ME!”

with some other nonsense thrown in for fun

so idk, just taking a look at this, it’s clear the psychos and lab rats are seeing something that the other bandits just aren’t seeing. most reactions are demands to be released or that they’re flying, or just straight up confusion as to what’s happening.

is that the side effect of their exposure to slag/eridian tech? yeah, imma bet on it. their mind machines probably broke because they saw something they weren’t supposed to (possibly into the other dimension. the one maya phaselocks them in) without proper ‘protection’ and thus went batshit. like maybe sirens are protected from the craziness of the other dimension because they’re ‘chosen’ or whatever. iunno.

i do think it’s most interesting that the psychos seem familiar with whatever they’re seeing, calling it ‘home’ and well… themselves. 

so why in the fuck am i talking about all this? because i think it ties straight into bl3.

let’s bring back lab rats and their experiments

you know how hyperion was supposedly injecting their eyes with slag? and it caused them to shoot those weird blue lasers out?

what happens to the destroyer’s eye in tps?

yeah we inject this bad boy with slag

“i only juice the eye with a little bit of slag at a time”

which ends up causing a singularity around the eye the second time you do it

“if this slag stuff is powering the laser, we need to force as much of it as we can back into the eye. the increased power will trip a failsafe and let us shut everything down”

oh, increased power? you mean like how Sirens get increased power from absorbing eridium? that kind of increased power?

we know in bl1 the Destroyer seemed to have something like slag in it- those glowing pockets on the tentacles that explode into purple goo

even its attacks are like purple liquid. which, you know… would be quite similar to slag (tho tbf, these attacks actually hurt instead of applying the debuff)

and boy does the destroyer not like it

“warning. space-time instability detected.” after injecting the eye with too much slag. but… why? it got too powerful? are its powers directly connected to the other dimension and by increasing it’s strength a bunch we created some sorta link between our dimension and the other one? 

i mean given the other dimension allows for teleportation and shit, im not surprised there’s a space-time instability!

i mean we’ve all seen it do the eye laser thing, and the tentacles, and the purple goop. but causing space-time instabilities… that’s new isn’t it? kinda like how Sirens get new powers after they absorb a bunch of eridium???

so i wanna take a guess as to what the destroyer is

we know its ‘immortal in its own realm’ but when it’s taken an actual body that we can kill it, so odds are, it never actually died in bl1 OR tps. i imagine the Destroyer we see in bl1 is just a small fragment of it, and that it’s consciousness can be spread out across hosts. *EDIT: actually the lovely @automata-systemata-hydromata reminded me that you can find the destroyers brain in Helios. The other stuff I left in should be fine tho I thiiiink (thank you!).

and that, y’know, is cool and all, but what IS it??

Jack uses slag to give it a power boost, but it doesn’t seem to be happy about it when it happens. in fact, it even seems scared.

to be honest, all we know is that the eridians locked it away for some reason

idk im just spitballing here, but what if the Eridians were the creators of the destroyer? not intentionally, or maybe it was the result of one hell of a slag experiment/exposure to the other dimension/eridian tech, but we’ve seen what slag/exposure to eridian stuff does to humans… makes them go crazy, makes them start mutating. i mean, look at badass psychos. look at goliaths.

i mean shit even think about bloodwing. she goes wild, attacking the VHs and not listening to mordecai’s instructions despite their bond

she grows to a huge size and gains a whole shitload of new powers she didn’t have before. including fucking fire breath (which we’ve seen in burning psychos)

you know these dudes

i go into all this eridium/slag mutation stuff in SO much more detail in this post here, so if you’re interested in mutations, read this!

so what if the destroyer is just one HELL of a mutated eridian/alien and it plus all the eridium was locked away forever in the other dimension to keep this from ever happening again? because god, i wouldn’t want that to ever happen again, either, and i guess locking away the eridium (you know the stuff used in all these hyperion experiments) would be their best bet at ensuring it. also maybe just… locking away anything with eridium for that long probably isn’t the best idea… maybe that’s why it’s all tentacles and death. maybe they just locked someone away in a Vault as a prison and then leaving them with all that eridium caused them to mutate wildly out of control. kinda like the FEV. 

i mean we know ‘slagged psychos’ look like this 

i wouldn’t be surprised if we gave them enough slag/time they’d end up mutating even worse. and the destroyer was left in the vault for hundreds of years.

so wtf is the connection here with Sirens? there’s gotta be one, right??? is slag experimentation the first rung on the ladder of volatile science to achieving siren-hood? like you’d have slag/eridium experiments/mutations -> the lost legion eternal -> actual Sirens. maybe if sirens take in too much eridium they become something like the destroyer. now that’s fucked up to think about.

maybe it’s better the twins took lilith’s powers away from her…

oh, speaking of mutations and burning psychos and hyperion experiments, you know what we haven’t talked about yet?

Krieg. 

let’s talk a whole lot about Krieg, because he is super important

krieg is important for a lot of reasons.

u know what his teaser trailer was named?

yeah i don’t think that’s coincidence one bit

ahhh Mayhem.

“deep beneath pandora, an experiment has escaped”

we know krieg is a hyperion test subject, dr samuels confirms this (and apparently contracts insanity as well at the end of the Crawmerax DLC)

also we know some other tests going on at the WEP from the quest Doctor’s Orders:

“this vault key didn’t make eridium come outta the ground for nothing, right?”

and there’s this one very very very interesting line by Tannis at the end of the quest:

“the spread of slag poisoning” yeah call it that DUMB name tannis, im gonna call it what all the kool kids are calling it: ~Mayhem~

so… Krieg.

what’s so special about him?

well… he gives us insight into what the hell is actually going on inside the heads of some psychos.

so idk about you guys but i always took this as a poke at Maya and Krieg, but i realize now that this is talking literally just about Krieg. it’s about his body holding both sides of himself.

krieg does appear to be like lucid behind the psycho controlling his body, which, idk about you guys, but for me that plants some pretty horrible mental images of all the psychos in-game who probably have similarly exasperated people behind them who are getting murdered because they can’t control themselves anymore.

and idk i wrote this whole post about how maybe the slag experimentation is turning people into hosts for the destroyer’s consciousness and that could explain all the wacked up psychos and shit. but tbh im not gonna talk about that today

just about slag experimentation/eridium exposure. we know what it ACTUALLY does and that’s mutate the hell out of things and cause insanity.

Krieg is like… the poster child for slag experimentation/eridium exposure

soooo why does slag experimentation make people go insane? could be any number of reasons, but tbh i would bet it has to do with that other dimension somehow. because eridium isn’t a normal ‘our dimension’ element. it came out of a vault. from a different dimension. and who knows the long-term effects of that shit.

i personally had a theory that the 4th dimension had something to do with time and that only Sirens are able to harness this power, but then i have no idea how to explain angel and amara’s powers through that lense, so eh. fuck it. just seeing an upper dimension would make you go crazy anyway, so let’s not bring any time shit into this because that’s just asking for trouble. 

either way

i think that sirens are able to make sense of that other dimension. they have some sort of command of it/some sort of tie to it that allows them to not go crazy the instant they interact with it, unlike psychos. unlike lab rats. unlike Krieg. it’s like… eridium is our window into this other dimension or some shit and Sirens are (literally) able to process it, while it just fucks over anyone else who tries to interact. ~kachow i just introduced parallels~

and tbh i think we’re going to use Sirens to help cure this plague of insanity going around the universe. probably starting with Krieg. i mean, the only time he’s able to get even an iota of control is when he sees Maya. “Turn around pretty lady!!” like… that’s HUGE for him. and Maya’s a Siren. im not saying the power of love isn’t strong… but maybe the power of Sirens is stronger. i’d love if tannis helped us out with that. maya, too, if she really did learn more about sirens on athenas. 

this all ties into borderlands 3 for 2 reasons:

1. Mayhem being both the tagline for this game and Krieg the Psycho’s DLC pack is not a coincidence

2. The calypso twins are going to be using slag to both brainwash people into becoming cultists and give them special powers

`breaks fingers` this is the real meat of this theory, all that other stuff was just getting you READY for this

let’s put the Mayhem stuff off to the side for a second and just focus on the Calypso twins.

We know they’re promising their cultists special powers and free brainwashes (lol)

we’ve seen that one concept art from the museum of mayhem with the giant slag pool

we know enemies are STILL dropping refined Eridium even though it seems like all manufacturers have stopped creating slag weaponry

and we’ve seen the slag falls in a bl3 promo material already

oh yes

okay so i said right at the very beginning of this document that i’ve seen A Scene that i wanna talk about and oh baby this is it

This Scene right here

look in the very back there

look familiar???

~it shooouuuuullld~

yeah this is it!!!

so what i think is going down: anyone who’s not already insane is sorta ‘baptized’ as their entrance into this cult in the big ol slagfall. maybe the twins have a way to induce slagged cultists so they can have elemental affinities. not sure about that.

regardless

the twins are using slag to drive people insane (turning them into psychos) as a form of brainwashing to force people to join their cult.

so that’s the special powers and the free brainwashing and the slagfalls down.

let’s talk about why exactly we’re seeing enemies drop bars of refined eridium even though hyperion stopped making them. because the twins are making it!! it makes sense why there’s no slag guns still, even if it still exists in-universe: of course no manufacturer is going to contact an insane bandit cult just to get their hands on slag for their guns. 

there was a 7 year dry spell of eridium production so there was no slag to go around, so companies started phasing it out of their guns and replacing it with nuclear. 

but the twins have recently started production again. they’re obviously not using it in their guns, or selling it to other manufacturers. so wtf are they using it for? it’s gotta be important, it’s holy holy holy.

special powers and brainwashing!

and the refined eridium is back in circulation, so enemies are still dropping it. see? solution acquired.

as for psycho-ness spreading across the universe? it makes sense. not only are the twins using their slag to brainwash people and turn them into psycho cultists, but people are also being mutated by the eridian ruins/vault keys/vaults on the other planets and being driven insane. This craziness is quite literally Mayhem.

Mayhem is coming, indeed! 

now let us talk about what the fucccck gearbox is doing with all that Mayhem stuff in the trailers and shit.

sooo WE are the cult surrounding this game. as the fan base. 

do u think it was coincidence that they made ‘ECHOnet’ Streamers the leaders of their big bad cult and then also immediately introduced, in real life, the Twitch ECHOcast extension and invited a bunch of streamers to play their demo? they knew exactly what they were doing. Giving away a free cultist psycho mask to everyone who preorders a console copy of the game? that’s intentional. everyone who preorders the game gets a ‘gold weapon skin pack’? yeah! you know what gold weapons represent in-universe? higher standing in the cult!! gearbox is making commentary on how we are all just like the cultists!

AND THEY ARE TOTALLY RIGHT

all the trailers having something to do with Mayhem? ‘Mask of Mayhem’ ‘Mural of Mayhem’ ‘We are Mayhem’ ‘Mayhem is coming’. We’re all insane cultists because we’re all absolutely fucking rabid for this game and they KNOW IT.

…

oh also we’re all in love with each other lmao. 

in all seriousness, i think the game is going to focus a lot on the relationships we have with the people we care about- our found family, our romantic interests, our friendships- and that’s being expressed through the roses. 

i think that’s why all the characters are shown in the roses on the cover art. why the roses are so prominent in the So Happy Together trailer. why Zane is sitting at a bar with a rose between himself and his clone (as a joke, but still, it’s the intent). 

red roses are, like, the most obvious way to show your affection to someone. and we know the bl3 Vault Hunters are going to find family in each other in this game. that we’re going to watch the calypso twins’ relationship become warped as the game goes on. hell, we’re probably even going to have a whole plot about tina and mordy (and talon) and brick being a small family together, and maya and ava being one as well. plus ellie and vaughn have gotten together since commander lilith. shit, guys, even claptrap is building himself a girlfriend.

this game’s about love, guys.

anyway i have been working on this since 1:30am. it’s currently 6:06am. i am very tired and very wired and those never mesh well. im gonna go eat some motherfuckin pizza.

edit: i missed the obvious connection the first time around: of course we’re going to cure Krieg, he loves Maya. and this game is all about love.

that and/or one or both of them die and gearbox hurts us right in the softest parts of our hearts.

edit 2: also yeah at some point in the near future im writing that Hyperion-Twins theory because as much as i love Atlas, i have ~seen some things~

[littlecafe]

my suband thoughts pt. 2

(me trying to make this post for the 3rd time now) i realized i wrote like a 10 page dissertation instead and i refuse to post all that so i’m just going to copy over a few and keep the rest in drafts for when i want to reference them later

i will include results and elimination spoilers in this post so if you want to avoid those then don’t read this one...i try to keep things spoiler free but i just. have things to say about the results specific to round 2 :-)

jtbc finally striking down accounts on twitter and instagram for posting suband content....i think tumblr is safe bc this website is dead so i’ll continue posting i guess??? they haven’t done anything to that one youtube that’s been posting all the performance videos too so who knows

should i start with more contestant based random thoughts first

i was scammed by jtbc teaser editor bc they used a clip of jeongho “singing” into the mic in their preview and i waited 2 whole episodes (his team performed last in round 2) for me to find out it was a autotuned mic and a vocoder HELP MEEEE SAKJFDSKF at that point literally i could only laugh 

but he plays contrabass? he actually majored in contrabass? or maybe that was his old major, he’s still in school atm since wonsang said they go to the same one but he had educational training on it which is really cool

wait a minute......now that i think about it, that same teaser clip also spoiled the result of yeji winning bc they showed us that she was sitting in the waiting room during eliminations even though they haven’t performed yet (which means we knew her team won AND they already showed us all the matchups before so we also knew who she beat) WHO WAS EDITING THIS LMAO and it wasn’t even a accidental leak like she was sitting in the background, it was literally her reaction as the main focus and everything omg

hwang inkyu hello??? he’s movning’s bassist and he has a combined total of maybe 3 lines of airtime so far i wish he’d speak more bc i was so scared he’d get his ass kicked off the show bc he wouldn’t have been able to make a lasting impression but thank god hwanglin picked him up and seems like he’s going to be moving on with his team in the next round too (good for them the stage was so good i wanted to post it but haven’t yet..)

i used to really like movning’s music but their music direction went into a style i don’t listen to much so i haven’t checked into them recently, tbh i didn’t even know they auditioned until i looked at the full list of contestants later because their stage was cut out and only inkyu made it in

park dawool and hwang hyunjo both have galaxy brains and i would trust them with my life - yea i will not elaborate much because this post is already long even after i shortened it bc i talk too much but hyunjo making entire ppt slides? to present her theories and ideas? yea she’s absolutely ready for everything, for real she’s carrying her teams to victory

leenzy’s 2nd round team was so strong that i thought she got to pick really early (since they showed us all the team formations before airing the actual performances with the behinds for pickings and stuff) but she was actually the 2nd to last pair?? so all that’s left is her > the guy she chose to be her opponent, and then the poor guy that gets to pick from the remaining 6 or so and the final team of the ones unchosen

i was really shocked to find out no one wanted nakyung and ahkyung when i thought they were some of the best :-( i really still can’t tell if the mixing of male and female was a good idea esp since it was so skewed male in the first place ugh in round 2 it seems like the girls are getting shafted???

out of the 6 girls (that can be picked since 3 are frontmen!), 3 of them were not picked up until basically the very end when you don’t really have many choices left...nakyung (guitar), ahkyung (drums), and sujin (vocals)...and they’re all really good?? sujin ended up on the second to last team (basically the last team if we’re being honest since the actual last team is sadly the band of leftovers) and i just don’t understand why they weren’t picked up earlier...i can understand sometimes vocalists can get shafted because the show starts out with a loooot of vocalists so it’s hard to find a place for all of them but guitar? drums? u can definitely pick them...there’s literally only 7 or so drummers to begin with and one has been glued to crackshot the entire time

before the season started i was already terrified that the girls might get shafted because jtbc didn’t want girls auditioning in the first place but it was fine in the first round but now the second round made me think about that again.....it’s worse when they spin the whole “yes!! all girl band!! girl power!!!” when the reality was they weren’t picked up this whole time. annoying.

but this blame has to be shouldered by jtbc bc they wanted to keep it all boys but bc of public reactions (rightfully so) they decided to let female contestants audition but then it turned out that they barely pass any female contestants so it’s still terrible?!! i’ll just write this up that teams are still trying to figure themselves out and work with different people for now....maybe i’m just worried for nothing

not to absolutely curse myself but i think most of my favorites might make it at least to round 4 and i feel like a decent amount will make it to semis so haha /knock on wood but i really hope this stays true...i just need nokdu to continue taking care of hyunsang and make city pop bops together because the judges seem to like that so far

i’m just worried about demian....the judges keep saying he’s improved so much but why do i feel like they will cut him as soon as they need to eliminate more people.....i’m not as worried about round 3 (unless his team falls on their face) but round 4 is where i’m really scared...it’s the last round before the real deal and in season 1 the round 4 eliminations hurt so bad...they cut like 9 people or something

i mean he has his own career as a soloist so he doesn’t need a band like some of the other contestants but i think he really enjoys being in a team with others, honestly i don’t even know if his company would allow for him to be in a side band? even if he were to make it? like mone made it but all their members had solo careers and with the rose and woosung having problems it must be way they just decided to stop after the show unlike the other semis teams purple rain, lucy (they did have a vocalist change since joohyuk stayed with his current band gift), aftermoon (but i guess their dj dropped out i don’t know what happend with dpole??), and of course the winners hoppipolla all continued making music together under the same name

honestly if he makes it past the judges i don’t even know if the public would vote for him, atm his popularity with the public seems nonexistent? lol but to be fair, for most contestants it’s like that, but i do wish he’d become more popular

actually should i be more worried for haeun...she plays classic guitar and usually they don’t like classic leaning instruments but she showed she can sing so i hope she gets to stay

there’s danny too but i think i have given up on him making it until the end, the only way is if he manages to stay on teams that win so he’ll never be up for elimination but i feel like they’re out to get him TT_TT

but i’ve condensed my solid favorites to just demian, yeji, haeun, and jeongho...maybe i’ll pick a 5th eventually but i still like everyone i put in my first post! i really want hyunsang to make it far though bc the vibraphone brings me so much joy so he can be honorary 5th for now

about eliminations though, right now the judges have eliminated less than last season which is odd for jtbc because i feel they keep to their formats almost exactly so now i’m just ?????? if there’s still more people currently....what is going to happen? are they going to make the judges cut more during rounds 3 and 4? or they trying to equalize the semifinals teams since last year some teams had 4 people while others had 5? are they going to do the unthinkable and give us more rounds or semifinal teams? (i wish) anyways kinda scared to see what round 3 eliminations bring now...

the actual eliminations have been mostly as expected for me, still sad but i guess since i sensed it coming it became more a feeling of like “it couldn’t be helped” and also early eliminations hurt less in general because you had less time to get to know the contestants which is why i’d rather they just eliminate now than later if they were going to do it anyways like pls spare me the pain (but this is selfish and contestants probably want to stay as long as possible)

one surprising one was ludi??? he’s a dj but he’s literally done nothing wrong so far i was just wtf??!! when they eliminated him like it felt out of nowhere.....i feel like djs have so much potential on this show because of all the sounds they have access too but i guess the judges aren’t found of edm noise

also demian nation we rise at dawn, when he said “i’m not okay” like- this song really meant a lot to him too i hate thisssss

PLS I JUST WANT HIM TO WIN ONCE SO BADLY but next time, thanks to kfans detective work on the teaser, it looks like junseo (the smol piano child) picked him and jeongho to be on his team (maybe there’s a 4th member too??) and i am putting my faith into that team now pls help my winless boys

the fact that jeongho is winless is almost funny to me because it’s also obvious he’s a judges favorite but i mean that doesn’t translate to wins just i’m pretty sure he’ll make it to the end regardless (like bohoon the vocalist of purple rain lost all 3 /technically all 4/ rounds and still made it), he plays bass and no bassist has ever been eliminated on the show yet so cheers to that

round 4 was special since they switched over to a number format and no band versus band i don’t remember if the team with the top points were immune to elimination or not (or maybe just an unwritten rule bc why the heck would you do that to them after giving them the best score) but the rest of the teams were fair game - which is exactly why this elimination round is the scariest and not good for my heart especially after i had spent weeks watching them sing and have fun..........

ok now to complain about the judges AGAIN: why are the judges thoughts on what they want in a band so damn similar anyway?

i mentioned this in my first post already about how i dislike the judging atmosphere

but now i actually see it...in the numbers...like s1 there was a bit more taste diversity within the judges but now i feel like i’m seeing a lot of 4:1 or 5:0 scores so i went to see the breakdown out of the 15 stages we had so far

5:0 score - 6

4:1 score - 7

3:2 score - 2

compared to s1 (out of 14 only because they edited out one pair of battles completely so we never knew their score...)

5:0 score - 2

4:1 score - 6

3:2 score - 6

looking at that...it makes me feel sad....especially in the early 2 rounds it must be demoralizing to keep getting met with 5:0 loss and to be very honest and in s1 the number of 5:0 did increase in round 3 but that was when more teams started to figure themselves out so it makes sense that some would start pulling ahead

i’m really tired of listening to the judges agreeing with each other all the time, it makes it seem like the vision they have for the band was already set from day 1 unlike in s1 where everyone went in with no expectations because it was a brand new program, zero expectations, zero fans, just some kids wanting to make music and that’s what it should be like....music shouldn’t be limiting like this, the judges seem a little closed minded and now i’m 100% sure they have certain band styles in mind (i don’t know if it’s the judges only or if it’s jtbc producers too that’s causing this)

and i see other ifans saying this exact same thing on twitter now too so it’s not just me that picked up on this so safe to say we can’t all be extremely sensitive right

like the contradictory comments -

dongheon’s 2nd round team was told their original song was great and lovely but they brought nothing new to the table and that it was too standard, “just like any other rock/rock ballad song” when i thought the leenzy’s team (the one they went up against) also had a pretty standard? pop rock song? absolutely nothing wrong with it either, even the judges said that the song was not complicated at all but complimented them on their “band feel” so i guess as long as they enjoyed the vibe of the team and it suited the type of band style they have in mind it’s suddenly fine to make a simple song

i’m not saying her song was worse than his (i enjoyed both and seeing original songs performed make me very happy), i’m just a little confused at the judges comments for them both especially when one performed after the other, you really don’t see the bias in your words?

dawool was told his song composition in the first stage was a little too...nuanced(?) and that they wish he could just keep thing simpler even though he thought he toned down already and kept things simple, so round 2 he decided to just work with someone that makes mainstream music (davii) to fulfil what the judges want

seulong’s 2nd round team decided to go heavier on the instrumental side because they figured they didn’t want to go head to head with one of the favorite vocalists of the show (sorry yeji, ur my queen but ur also the judges’ queen too :---( ) but got criticized for a similar reason...yoo heeyeol saying that their composition was “fun for the brain” but if he were thinking about the general public he doesn’t think they would like this type of music, literally saying that the general public do not have the music knowledge or brain capacity to understand all the skill based playing going on musically and so won’t enjoy it because it wouldn’t appeal to their hearts................(ok sure call us dumb it’s true but won’t appeal to our hearts? music can sound intricate and fun? we can enjoy some funky strings guitar riffs without actually knowing all the details ya know)

they also kept telling them (seulong’s team) “oh i loved this” “i wish there was a band like this” “very cool” and gave them no votes??? if you wish a band like this exist then why? would? you? not? vote? for them??? like i can’t tell if those were consolation comments or what 

man judges rant ended up being long asf and i’m usually not affected by them and what they say but i was already feeling an odd vibe from the beginning and now seeing 5:0 after 5:0 after 5:0 really did it for me

overall, a not very fun post to read through it’s just more ranting than anything....i’m dying for a big pop off performance so i can successfully gauge the public opinion so far but i’ll refrain from posting my guess until at least the end of round 3, also i believe the team vibe usually outweighs solo popularity but we don’t know any teams yet (at least i can’t guess anyone yet like i could in s1) so we will still have to see!!

i’m pretty sure only i would look and read through these long ass posts of mine lol but if anyone makes it this far i hope you enjoy my crazy ramblings and see you in my suband thoughts pt.3 

[elddansurin]

there’s a pretty good character development questionnaire going around my dash right now, so i took the liberties of filling the entire thing out on my own time, because buddy, you gotta make your own destiny.

1. Who’s the oldest character of yours that you still use? I had to give this one some thought bc my gut reaction was to say Tuo, but it turns out the answer is Falshavo, because I can explicitly remember drawing him in the hazy, far gone year of early 2006 when I was taking a drivers ed course. He started out as either some bastard of a Silent Hill fanchar, or a heavily SH-"inspired" character, and I think he could have at best been called a demon? I was like 16 when I made him, cut me some slack. In any case, Fal has changed very much over the years, most recently into an original species that can best be described as something visually between a satyr and a manticore, but is actually neither of those things. For quite a while he was based out of my one world, Undecim, but recently I decided he and his ilk would be better suited to my OTHER world, Aphelion. As far as motivations go, he's swapped from evil/crazy/malevolent to a much more nap-based personality. Two things that haven't changed since I've made him, though, are that he's blind in one eye and doesn't talk very much. So there's that.

2. Who’s the oldest character of yours, defunct or not? That honor goes to Jonathan, who was definitely and absolutely a FF7 fan character back when that game was new and I was still in my larval stage. He morphed into a mental illness coping mechanism as my childhood went on and he's just had a whole lot of interesting/embarrassing iterations, but I guess that's to be expected of a character I made in fucking 1997. That said, I retired him a few years ago. Tried briefly to bring him back, but I just wasn't feeling 2.0, so I didn't force it.

3. Has creating a character ever made you realize something about yourself? I was GONNA say no, but then it just dawned on me how much time I spent creating gay male characters in my early teen years before THAT realization caught up with the rest of me. I'm not going to say the characters themselves were involved in the inevitable personal revelation (they weren't), but more than anything I just think it's proof that pieces of my brain do not always work as a cohesive whole. I knew before I knew, so to speak, and it showed up in my characters.

4. Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories? UHHHH Your Boy Kolja was initially a primary antagonist in Mikhail's storyline, back before I decided to fundamentally retool a lot of things about Mik's whole deal. But I'm nothing if not predictable, and I'm a guy who loves a good villain, so I ended up making Kolja FAR more fleshed out and engaging than the actual protagonist of the story. Same thing kind of happened with Anzo, who was initially kind of an offshoot wildcard character in the horrible and confusing political landscape of that entire bed of storylines. But uhhh, that didn't last.

5. Do you prefer to make human, animal, monster, or _____ characters? Why? My characters are all unambiguously human/humanoid. Even the monsters are going to have recognizably human faces because I have a hard time getting emotionally invested in a character otherwise. I'm really not sure the reasons for this. There's a few exceptions, ofc, but not many. Peeling off for a sec, in regards to making characters in TES settings, I definitely am biased toward the elven races because if I wanted to make a human character, I'd do so in own properties. Also the human races in the elder scrolls are kind of... underwhelming...

6. When creating a character, do you come up with the visual concept or the written concept first? Written concept, almost every time. The rare exception is usually with minor and/or lore-based characters, like gods or monsters, since I rarely explore those characters as deeply as I do the regular types. But if I'm making Just Some Dude, I'm probably going to have a full written concept drafted out months to years before I ever get a concrete idea (much less an actual depiction) of what he looks like.

7. Do you have characters that you know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of/recycle? I'm going to have to go ahead and call back on Jon for this one, largely based in both his history and his significance to me and my own development. He was my primary, go-to character for such a long time, I don't think it'd do him justice to ever properly put him out to pasture or recycle (and I'm a chronic recycler, so that's saying something). He kind of exists in a creative limbo, and that's where he's gonna stay.

8. Is there a character that embodies your good traits, or traits you wish you had? Good traits? In all seriousness, probably. Nothing I am consciously aware of, so cop-out answer on this one. I'm also not really one for wish-fulfillment characters, so that's a no on "person I wish I was" aspect, sorry.

9. Is there a character that embodies your bad traits? Several characters? Which ones and what traits? HAHAHA hoo boy. Gavriil is the embodiment of my general shiftlessness and crippling self doubt, Tuo embodies my crushing depression and self-destructive tendencies, Ludo represents my reoccuring fear that I’m stuck in circumstances so far beyond my control that I ought not bother to try and change, and I'm not even gonna TOUCH on which of my boys were created as blatant outlets for trauma. There's a fun little game for you, try and figure that one out yourself.

10. Is there a character that explores your interests or fetishes (orrrr is that just all of you characters)? Uh, flat no on the "fetishes" part, but yeah, most of my characters tap on my significant interests in some way or another. Most concrete example I think is Desoto, who I designed (or, well, redesigned if we're getting technical) when my interest in astronomy was at its peak, back before I realized physics is something I'm terrible at and makes me cry/change my major in college. I still love astronomy and astrophysics on a conceptual level, but the second you break out equations, I'm gone. My Boy Desoto, though, I have designed to be significantly more likely than me to do math, so good for him. Funny enough? I've never made a character who's into geology. You know, my actual field. Go figure.

11. If you have characters that embody certain traits of yours—good or bad—has writing them changed how you view those traits? Has it affected you in any way? Not really, at least I don't think so. I might wake up in the middle of the night with a better answer screaming to my forebrain, but my gut reaction is a no. I tend to go into writing something with fixed views, and I can't recall an instance of me suddenly deciding "hey, actually this thing is good/bad and I never thought of it this way." I've definitely started viewing the characters themselves differently after starting a project, but never really the traits they personify.

12.   Do you fantasize about being any of your characters, or are you more detached? Definitely the latter. I'm not shy about putting pieces of myself into the characters I make, but at the same time, I really do not see myself in them, nor do I wish to. There's a firm level of detachment in that these are my creations, and rarely do I mold the sort of character where I can in good conscience think "yeah, that's who I want to be." A big part of this is that my character creation/world building habits are and always have been rooted in maladaptive daydreaming (and I have only recently figured out the terminology for a phenomenon I was otherwise well aware of, funny how that works), and that has always been based in me trying to distance myself from who I was (and at times, am). I don't want to put myself into new shoes, I want to focus on someone who isn't me, but has weird, tenuous connections to me. If that doesn't make any sense, pretend that it does.

13. Do you create playlists for your characters? No, and that's based mostly in the sad reality that I stopped seeking out new music years ago. That, and I've never been much of an audiophile, so there'd just be so much overlap in any playlists I created that honestly, why bother. That said, I will occasionally listen to something and think "holy shit, this is ___". First example that comes to mind is Motorhead's Dust and Glass, which is very much the anthem for Ludo. Do me a favor and listen to that song, and you will know everything you need to know about Ludo. Also, I’ve got a handful of songs that make me think very much of Gav, but most recently, I decided that Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street is a good song for him. Like, also for me? But mostly Gavriil. It can be both.

14. When writing for specific characters, is there anything you have to do to get into the right mindset? I've gotta be in the right mood, and that's all it comes down to. I'm still trying to figure out the secret to writing something that's counterintuitive to my mood, but I'm not there yet. I know the answer is "just fucking do it," but here's an idea: shut up? I dunno. I'm a very flaky content creator.

15. Which character is your guilty pleasure? Right now, it is absolutely Gavriil. For a long time I had such an issue with allowing myself to have characters based out of properties that weren't my own, so I started out feeling very self-conscious about putting so much time and thought into Gav. I have since made like eight or nine more TES-based characters in his wake, but some residual sentiment still lingers! See also: I still am too self-conscious to publically share the story I've been writing with him. I'm not sure if that's rooted in me playing in somebody else's sandbox, or if the story itself is coming out of a place of extreme personal vulnerability (I wrote the bulk of it during my recent Complete Mental Breakdown™). Or maybe I'm just self-conscious about my writing in general. Who knows! But at the end of the day I absolutely love Gav and I'm having so much fun working with him. Before him was Kolja for many years, and Tuo before that. Don't get me wrong, I still adore the both of those guys, I just have a new focus for the time being.

16. Is there a character of yours who’s a real struggle to write/draw? Why do you think that is? Right now, definitely Anzo. He started out very different from what he's become, and at the end of the day, I'm still not sure what exactly I'm trying to do with him. I was/am trying to write him in a story, but it's been proving very difficult because I'm just not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with him. Initially, his core concept was based very deeply in a revenge fantasy that had gotten out of control (I mean, it was a justified revenge fantasy, but that still doesn't make it healthy, my dude, my guy). but then I started thinking a bit more about the major events in his life, and if I was making him react believably enough to what he'd endured. That, and by this time I was in some genuine, bonified darkness in my own life, and that started leaking out into the character and story very much. Now I'm stepping back and wondering, is this where I want it to go? If the answer is no, then where SHOULD it be going? I don't have an answer to that yet. So he's a hard character to write, at least for now.

17. Which character is the easiest to draw/write? I wanted to say Kolja, based in how enthusiastic I was for him for such a long time. I could tell you his story from birth to death, and there's only a few small threads that are still unclear in my mind. Unfortunately, this level of enthusiasm has left me with the understandably daunting task of, you know, actually writing it down. There's SO MUCH to sift through, and it's like scaling a damn mountain. It's all there, I can see the whole thing, but fuck me if I'm not in for a climb. I started in on it late last year before retreating to work on something on a bit... smaller of a scale. Gotta work my way up to that. That said, the actual easiest character to write right now is, again, Gavriil. Part of it is that enthusiasm I have for him right now, and another part of it is that his story is based on the main quest of Skyrim which, lets be honest, is an underwhelming plot on the whole. So the plot has already been written out by someone else; I don't have to worry about that. Neither do I have to worry about actually depicting the entirity of said plot, because it's not actually an interesting one. And honestly why are you reading a story of a character from Bad Game Skyrim if you don't at least have some cursory knowledge of how that game's plot goes? The interesting part- to me, at least- is the effect it has on my character. That's what I've been focusing on, and it's been fun.

18. Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about? Visually? A lot. There's a lot that's outside my skillset, because I don't know how to fucking draw. That's why I shy away from drawing characters who, say, I imagine to have unnecessarily complex tattoo designs. Not only do I not feel like putting in the time to actually depict that, but I also lack the talent to properly do so. It also kind of neuters what I can pull off for some of my more outlandish designs, namely gods and monsters. Kjelchaikhan is the only one of the gods I've drawn so far, and not coincidentally, he also has the easiest design to deal with. I started in on trying to draw Tsenmaer before I realized holy shit, the way I picture her in my head is so far beyond what I'm capable of actually doing. I'm not even going to fucking touch on Archaeos, because that design is going to be... even harder!! Conceptually, not so much. It sometimes happens on a small scale, such as how I've designed Ludo to be a boxer when I know little about boxing and I don't honestly care to learn. But at the same time? His story is based far, far more heavily in the shitty circumstances of his life and how he's trying to worm his way out of that than in the actual "punching dudes in the head for money" thing. That was more a tool to tie him in with the questionable, shady shit that I needed him to be shackled to. "Underground boxing circuit" just sounded like as good of an idea as any, so I figured why not. That aside, most anything I want to write about ends up being something I'm either familiar with based on personal experience, or at the very least am interested in researching for story purposes.

19. What’s more important to you: visual design, unique personality, a trendy character aesthetic, etc? If you’re not sure, then what’s the first thing you usually nail down in a character? Definitely the personality and basic concept. I very much enjoy crafting characters that are fleshed out and generally believable, and I am very much terrible at designing them on a visual scale. Do all my characters end up looking the same? Yes. Does this bother me? No. If it did, I'd fucking do something about it. What's important to me is who a character is when you boil away all the set dressing. Who is he on a conceptual level? What are his motivations? His basic structure? My character creation process is me sitting down and saying "I want to make a character who embodies these basic traits, and is based on this core concept," then building from there. Visual design is always, always an afterthought.

20. Do you ever plan to do anything (comic, animation, etc) with your characters? Or are you just happy to have them? For the most part: Nope! My characters exist primarily to make me happy and give me something to think about when I'm tired of thinking about myself and my life. There's a few that I'm working very much to translate into stories, but even then I hem and haw over whether or not to actually share the content I produce. Part of it is I'm much more self-conscious about my writing than my art. Used to very much be the other way around, up until I stopped considering myself an artist. Now I just kind of shit drawings out from time to time, and if people think they're terrible, that's because they are and I put no effort into what I do. It's the other way around with writing. I very much put effort, care and detail into my stories. More than bad reception, I fear no reception, which is to say that I'd put so much effort into something, put it out there, and go completely ignored. I have no issues with "you suck/your work sucks," but absolute indifference cuts me pretty deep on matters like this. So yeah, that's a significant obstacle between me and content sharing. That, and assuming I did find any degree of an audience, putting my work out for someone else's scrutiny makes it SIGNIFICANTLY harder to go back and retcon. And boy oh boy, I am a notorious an unrelenting retconner.