#god fucken bless anyone who actually made it through All Those Words

[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.

[kitten1618x]

GoT Afterthoughts ep. 08x01 ‘Winterfell’ (Part 1)

Whew! I’m sorry this has taken so long. I’ve got two munchkins home from school with a stomach bug, and they’ve been cutting into my rewatch and write-up.

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So, a few things before we kick this bad boy off... I have not read or interacted much with anyone (except writing up that post yesterday about the opening creds) and I have avoided the discord server (even though I’m DYING to gush) as to not skew my own perception of the episode. Those of you who follow my blog know that I am partial to political!jon, but here’s your heads up for anyone else that just stumbled onto this recap. And with that...

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We begin the journey of our last season similarly to the way we began our very first: An excited Winter Town boy frantically scrambling to find a better view of the royal retinue marching on Winterfell—complete with the same musical score. Let’s call that strike one against Jon and Dany, as we all know what a farce that first royal couples’ relationship was.

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This boy, as he shimmies up a nearby tree, very much reminds me of a combination of both Arya and Bran in the pilot — Arya even spies him and smiles, as she stands watching with the smallfolk (a nice book nod). Her face at initially seeing her big brother Jon makes my heart skip a few beats, and I kind of got the feeling she was going to call out for him, but changed her mind. She looks down then, and I’m honestly so worried for their reunion because they have both changed so much, and Arya isn’t the same little girl he remembers.

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Her smile fades as Jon and Dany pass her by, and the Hound comes into view. Her feelings with Sandor have always been complicated, but we don’t have much time to dwell on that, because Gendry rounds the corner and there’s a different kind of smile lighting up Arya’s face now—and I’m so stoked for their reunion, because it’s what I deserve. WE ALL DESERVE THIS OKAY?!?!?!

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And what do we have here? Ahhhh yes, the typical D&D ‘cock’ and/or (in this case) ‘balls’ banter via Varys and Tyrion as they once again travel together in another wooden box. You know, we damn well better get the payoff to the jackass/honeycomb/brothel joke this season, or I swear by the old gods and the new that I’m blowing up the Sept of Baelor... oh wait.

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Missandei looks visibly uncomfortable at the impassive stares of the Northerners as they ride by. However, Jon did warn them about the North—which he reiterates to a rather annoyed looking Dany, who no doubt expected a much more warmer welcoming for coming to “save the North”—but it’s pretty clear there will be no Myhsa crowd-surfing here.

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A screeching overhead sends the Northerners frantically running for cover as a smug-looking Daenerys smirks proudly at the fear her dragon children instill when they split the skies above. Let’s be real here — that was no coincidence. Remember this?

Dany is in complete control of Drogon, and let’s call a spade a spade: this was a cheap intimidation tactic driven by spite. And I honestly can’t even say I blame the girl, but it’s probably not the best way to make new friends, either—especially when they are all of the mindset that “a Targaryen cannot be trusted”. Just sayin’, Dany girl.

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And we have Arya’s reaction to seeing Dragons for the first time as they soar high up over Winterfell and Sansa, who watches from the ramparts. Sansa’s reaction is quite similar to Cersei’s—as in, she really doesn’t have one. Someone please cue My Chick Bad by Ludacris!!

Jon and Dany enter the courtyard and Jon springs from his horse to bring Bran in for a signature Stark squeeze and a forehead kiss (another season one callback). He proudly admires how Bran has grown and is now a man, only for Bran to answer with some vague and emotionless three-eyed raven shit, before staring down Daenerys while Jon moves to Sansa’s open arms.

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*Perhaps no one informed Jon about Bran going all sentient-being?

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I’m sure most of you already noticed that while this is supposed to be the same hug scene we were shown in the HBO teaser, it’s not the same shot, nor the same angle. In the teaser, Jon makes this soft face and goes straight to Sansa’s arms...

But in the actual episode, Jon goes straight to Bran’s arms, and his expression is quite different...

And in the teaser the hug is much longer in duration, and Sansa doesn’t look up at Dany until the end—still not relinquishing her hold on Jon.

However, in the episode, we get a shorter version and a different angle, while Bran and Sansa simultaneously stink-eye Dany the entire time.

*please note Jon’s expression isn’t the same as it is in the hbo teaser—which begs to differ WHY they chose such a romantic shot of these siblings to hype the final season? I mean, I know why... do you? 😉

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Annnnnnd moving right along. Jon asks where his darling baby sister Arya has gotten to, as to which Sansa replies “lurking somewhere” — which is an odd response, but I’m not gonna lie, it did make me chuckle a little. If I had to make a guess on this odd dialogue (other than the D’s just suck at dialogue sometimes), I imagine it serves the purpose of leading Jon to assume that the girls still have the same strained relationship of their youth.

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Not one to stand by idle while getting eye-fucked from all directions (and not in a good way), Dany sashays over to be introduced to the stunning redhead Jon was hugging on, to learn she is (only) his sister (whew!), and the Lady of Winterfell. And with that said, I need to take a moment to address something to all the antis who will probably hop on this post (cuz I know y’all are there): Jon is NOT the Lord of Winterfell. Winterfell does NOT belong to him, not even as warden of the North, not even a little bit. He has no say, no ownership, no NOTHING on Winterfell. The only way he becomes the Lord of Winterfell is if he marries his cousin, Sansa Stark — which is just ONE of the many reasons WHY a marriage between them is advantageous. Tell your friends.

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The tension kicks up a notch as the introductions proceed and Dany feeds Sansa platitudes of how beautiful she and the North are. Perhaps her words are meant to be kind, but after all she’s been through, Sansa is not here for the bullshit — remember how nice Miranda was in the beginning too? Besides, my girl’s jealousy is so thick, she’s almost GREEN. So, giving Dany a full-bodied once over, she haughtily replies “Winterfell is yours, Your Grace.”

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Annnnnnd...

Before a full-blown catfight ensues, Bran throws some ice on the situation—and by ice, I mean ice dragon (harr harr harrrr). The wall has come down, and your dragon is one of them now, he informs Dany—whom of course is horrified by the news. (And probably by Bran too, as I assume she, like Jon, did not get the Bran is the 3ER memo).

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We move into the Great Hall where we learn that Sansa has already made the intelligent decision to call all their banners to retreat to Winterfell as soon as they knew that the wall had fallen. Little Ned Umber isn’t really sure whom he’s supposed to address or how (bless his little heart), but in any event, he’s getting the horses and carts he needs to safely bring the rest of his people back to Winterfell. Jon tells the maester to summon the Nights Watch as well.

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And of course you know little Lady Mormont has some shit to say. She’s not pleased with the turn of events and wastes no time voicing her opinion and stirring the ire of the Northerners. But hey,

(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself).

But more on that later, because Jon looks really nervous as little Lyanna throws shade — and his first instinct is to turn and share a look with his sister, errr wife, cousin!, Sansa.

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I feel like he was looking to her for support, but she’s got none to offer at the moment. So, he pulls himself together and tries to calm the dissent by giving another rousing ‘we need allies and I brought them’ speech, and he actually says something VERY interesting here: “I had a choice: keep my crown or protect the north. I chose the north.” I mean, he ain’t lying, and the best place to hide something is right in plain sight, after all—and of course nothing about that statement sounds political or off at all, does it? I mean, because the Dany stans/jonerii insist that Dany agreed and was FULLY onboard to come north before Jon bent the knee, so why would he say that, then? Go on, tell me...

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Tyrion decides to throw in his unwanted .02 — simultaneously backing up Jon and feeding Dany’s savior complex (the greatest army blah blah blah — gods, I cannot wait until everyone sees how useless the dragons will be against the NK, especially when using them to roast the wights puts their own soldiers at risk). His words aren’t met with any gratitude when he also drops the bomb that another enemy house of the North is also on its way to Winterfell.

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Sansa is taken aback but recovers quickly. Armed with her signature snark, she asks how they’re expected to feed the ‘worlds greatest army’ — something she did not prepare for — chased by a sassy, “what do dragons eat, anyway?”

But wa-wa-wait, HOLD UP. Did Dany just— Did she just throw down the gauntlet?

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Why, I believe she did, my friends! jskslkdlsksjsklslsljsllsl 😂😂😂😂

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I can’t even with this episode, guys. It’s like I’m watching a medieval version of Melrose Place (google it, youngin’s) with Jane and Sydney throwing shots by the poolside!

Okay, okay, but all joking and snark aside, Sansa has got a valid point. She isn’t prepared to feed all these extra mouths PLUS two fucken huge dragons. I mean, winter is here, and where could they possibly find enough food to sustain everyone? It’s almost as if the show is making it a point to remind us about the lack of food and where did we last see wagons loaded with food? Oh right, I remember...

Put this one behind Northern Independence on the list of ‘Petty Things That Won’t Matter Because the AotD is Coming’ — you know, because who needs food to survive? And who the hell wants independence, anyway?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Moving right along, and holy mother, maiden and crone, this is getting long and I’ve barely scratched the first 15 minutes of the show!

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You know what? Nevermind, I’m just gonna go ahead and publish this, and post the rest tomorow when I finish it — I know y’all are thirsty anyway. lol Forgive the sloppiness, as I did this ALL on mobile, and my paragraph breaks kept disappearing and arrrrrghh tumblr!

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*Some gifs/images mine. The others were taken from google. Thanks if it’s yours!!