#her siblings are named dove and robin lmao

[mercuryislove]

1, 4, and 9 (for whichever story, I’m not picky 😊)

because I'm unable to shut up about anything ever I answered two for each..... I hope that's okay lol

1. Which character is most devoted to another character? Is that character equally devoted to them?

This is hard to say because undying devotion is like. my thing. I'm obsessed with devotion, especially when it morphs into something beyond loyalty and dedication. (basically I'm obsessed with the idea of love driving people to insanity lol I could talk about that shit for days) UM. If I had to pick just one, I would say probably the way Andhira (and her brother and mother) is devoted to the Sovereign. It's kind of a cop out and also kind of contradicts the fact that Andhira like. tried to get him killed once to take his place (listen, a thousand years is a long time. Of course there's going to be insane family drama. Give her a break), but she loves him. They all love him. He's the reason they exist. He's the reason there are any vampires left at all. He's the primary reason that the world hasn't torn itself apart in spite of it all. She would do anything for him. She would fall on her sword a thousand times if he asked. Even if he didn't ask. If she thought that was what he wanted, she would do it. And he absolutely is as devoted to her. If not more so. Everything he has ever done was for her. (well. Technically everything he has ever done was for Tahire, but like. bear with me.) He would give up anything for his daughter without a second thought because she is the reason he lives on despite well..... not always wanting to. He would gladly live forever if that was what would make her happiest, but he would die at a moment's notice too.

Honorable mention also to the devotion between Ciaran and Anwei because um. Imagine living through hell together and being the only thing the other has and growing to resent that you're the only thing the other has and then coming to understand that your resentment was only misguided loneliness and misery and heartbreak over so much lost and ultimately finding peace with each other through that fact.

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4. Are there any characters who don't realize just how strongly another character feels about them, whether those feelings be positive or negative? Over the course of the story, does anything make them realize? If so, what?

LMAO well. Vera and Andhira really fucking hate each other. Until they don't. They definitely hate each other initially for good reasons. They both are a paragon of what the other hates most. Vera hates Andhira because vampires ruined her entire fucking life (even if she personally had nothing to do with it), and Andhira hates Vera because humankind has spent thousands of years trying to wipe vampires off the face of the earth (even if half the time vampires are the ones who called for the hunts). Over time, they both learn that their preconceived notions of each other's lives are mostly false, and that they... kind of directed their hatred at the wrong targets lol

Honorable mention goes to Yixing being like “damn okay I only thought Ciaran was like. in love with me or whatever. Not that he wanted to burn down the world in my name to keep my delicate mortal body safe.” He didn't realize shit was getting out of hand until it was too late ._. I mean. It's not his fault because nobody else did either and Ciaran made a series of very logical leaps and bounds from “okay I will do anything to keep you safe” to, um “I'm going to rip the soul out of every person who has ever or could ever hurt you and I will find the only god left and I will rip out her soul too for good fucking measure because it will make me better at keeping you safe.” Like. We've all been there lol

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9. Are there any two characters who pretend to feel differently about each other than they do? Does anything force them to reveal their real feelings?

Um lol Vera lies to everyone about how she absolutely most certainly does NOT care for Andhira in any way because “she's so. Ugh. Like. What? No. I hate her. I mean, yes I did return to the job I swore I'd never do again because she broke into my house and asked me very nicely and because we both share horrific nightmares. The fact that she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen has nothing to do with it. It's actually because my uncles told me I should help her. Nothing to do with anything else. Did I mention she fucking sucks. Blood. Get it? She's a vampire and I hate her.” It doesn't take long for either of them to warm up to each other but they're both super in denial about it for a whole host of reasons, and what finally happens is that (in dramatic gay fashion of course) Andhira basically takes a bullet for Vera, and she's all upset thinking she's been grievously injured and is like “why tf would you risk your life for me? I thought you fucking hated me” and Andhira is like. “Well. I did it because I'm virtually impervious to harm but also why do you think I hate you? I care about you, even if you're a huge asshole to me at every turn” and then they're both like. hm. Maybe we don't hate each other as much as we thought we did. And we were just keeping up appearances because we thought the other still felt that way.

And my honorable mention goes to my closeted gay climbing girl Wren who thinks she is just very good friends with her supremely dykey world-famous climbing friend. She doesn't realize that like. it isn't just friendship until they're climbing together and Ulli offers to tie her in because she's already chalked up (which. Having someone tie you in or untie your rope before/after a climb is like. unbelievably intimate lol yes I speak from experience). And they're both looking at each other like. um. is anyone else getting a gay vibe?

[mercuryislove]

In honor of the last FQF of the year, I came up with some goofy questions! (You don’t have to answer all of them, just whichever ones you’re feeling).

If Andhira and Azetahn were celebrities (for normal, non-vampire related reasons), what would they be famous for?

Three of your characters suddenly find themselves thrust into a life of royalty. What are their titles and how do they fare as rulers? Who’s the most likely to get beheaded by an angry mob? Who gets overthrown in a coup?

The Old Blood is getting a video game adaptation. What type of game is it? Who are we playing as? Who (or what) is the first boss? The last boss?

Which of your characters would die first in a horror movie? Who’s the final girl?

Cast the Siege of the White Crane live action film adaptation. Wrong answers only :)

Okay, this is SUPER exciting for me because these are all SO good and funny. I've been stewing on a couple of these for a few days and I'm very excited to finally answer them!! I'm just going to go down the list and answer them all in order!

1. Andhira would be a super model. Like walking with other women like Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista and Shalom Harlow and Beverly Peele, etc etc etc. Definitely the 80s/90s crossover era when all those girls were household names not just in the high fashion world. I can also see her being famous in old cinema, like in the bridge between silent films and the first talkies. She certainly would thrive in that weird end of the vaudeville era where people still just did whatever the fuck they wanted. Azetahn would be a musician. Like either in the late 60s in that very specific moment when psychedelic music had just entered the mainstream and people were getting more experimental with that genre (and prog lmao), OR in the late 70s into the post punk world. He's very much interested in the bridges between eras of music. As it stands, he already LOVES music and is an avid singer and plays like thirty instruments, so like... he would fit perfectly in the normie world as a musician. He would be the frontman and also play lead guitar lol

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2. WHICH THREE DO I PICK lol Well. Robin, Wren, and Dove will do for this situation because they're a package deal already lol Dove would be very good at it because she already thinks she's better than everyone else by nature of being the youngest sibling and alleging herself to be the family favorite. (Robin is the actual favorite because he's the most “successful,” but their parents love Dove because she is the most normal.) Robin is the heir apparent by virtue of birth order. He would hate it and have a gay little evil advisor (a la Preminger in the Barbie movie) and be totally clueless about what the hell he even has to do. He would be way more interested in the opulence of being royalty than anything else. Absolutely would get guillotined. Wren would also be very bad at it but only because of anxiety. She would abdicate the second shit got too difficult and when she realized the class disparity between royals and commoners lmao She would shed all her titles and go live in the woods somewhere and change her name and everything. Dove would be loved by the older folks who see her as like a “return to morals” or whatever after having to deal with Robin's hedonism and Wren's middling incompetence, but the younger crowd would despise her because of her very, um, Napoleonic behavior lol. She would be overthrown in revolution and exiled to some island in the middle of nowhere (kind of like Napoleon lol) and would live out her days with a bunch of lap dogs and eternally insisting that she did nothing wrong and that she should be restored to the throne. AS FOR TITLES lol I have no clue how royal titles work, and what unfortunate nation would they even rule? Robin would call himself the Dauphin and/or Heir Apparent and/or the Crown Prince, and he would only use dauphin because his boyfriend speaks French and he thinks it's cool. Wren would want something that doesn't indicate that she's technically in line for the throne. Like a “Knight of the Order of the Grand XYZ” or whatever. Dove would go ALL IN, Emperor, Tsar, Majestic Excellency, etc etc. Her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess Dove (Paloma) Isadora My de la Rosa. She would insist people always use the full title.

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3. This is one that I have given MUCH thought to. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Bloodborne HEAVILY influenced me in coming up with a lot of the ideas for this writing project (that and Castlevania and Blasphemous), so it would definitely be like a soulsborne game, but instead of the like. British style (everyone always says it's British which I get, but so much of the design reads as eastern European to me), it would be based on Spanish architecture and culture. The game I have in my head for this scenario is the one that I actually have had dreams about before. It starts as like. the nightmare version of Vera's last days as a hunter, and the first boss would be the horde that she FAILS to kill (it's one of Those tutorials where you're definitely supposed to lose), and the rest of the game plays out as her Unfortunate return to vampire hunting. As the game progresses, you have to deal with an exhaustion mechanic which doesn't necessarily have an effect on your stamina, but it functions like um.... a nightmare gauge kind of? Like the more exhausted you become, the more reality becomes uncertain. I'm not sure how to explain it, but things get freaky if you get too exhausted. Kind of like how insight works in Bloodborne, but instead of just seeing the Amygdala hanging out on the buildings and such, it's like. you can't tell if the people you encounter are human or not. Certain dark corners in rooms don't look right. Things constantly shift in front of you. You hear whispers. If it gets bad enough you go into full nightmare mode where your damage output is halved and you're basically constantly stalked by enemies that don't stay dead no matter what you do to them! There are several ways to reduce exhaustion, but advancing the plot causes your exhaustion to increase more rapidly. OH. In true soulsborne style, there's more than one final boss. The INTENDED final boss would be the very Bloodborne-y titled Nightmare of Blood, which is the physical manifestation of Vera's fear/regret/guilt/anguish/terror of the ways in which she failed so miserably at the start of the game. The first phase is the horde from the start played totally straight, and the second phase is the horde but at like maximum potency, the third phase is a complicated mix of the people she cares most about (so like. she has to beat Josef's nightmarish ass lol as well as Andhira and and any other allies you make throughout the game), and the last phase is the woman she failed to protect all those years ago! She has two phases of her own (because it ain't a soulsborne boss without PHASES), and the first one is her regular form, while the second is her Nightmare Form, where she has become a grotesque mirror of Vera herself. It ends with her realizing the all-consuming monstrosity of guilt was entirely self-made. Nobody ever blamed her for what she couldn't do back then!! Maybe the real nightmare was the friends we made along the way? The optional final boss if you play your cards super wrong (or right, depending on what you think of him) is the Sovereign himself. It would play out similarly to Gehrman, in the “tonight Gehrman joins the hunt!!!” kind of way, and he would have at least three phases. And he's virtually impossible to defeat. One hit kill kind of boss. Telescoping attacks. So many i-frames. BUT if you beat him, you get the weapon called the Serkaan's Blade (flavor text reads: “Until this moment, only one hand besides the Sovereign's has ever touched this blade. Perhaps each hand that touches it is doomed to kill the previous wielder.”), AND you get the extra cutscene where Andhira has to take his place as the next Sovereign. But if you start a new game plus after this, the NPCs react to you VERY negatively and it can lock you out of certain items. Not to mention the enemies will be MUCH more difficult.

I've given this one a lot of thought...........

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4. Anwei is the final girl without a Single Doubt. She is resourceful and resilient and takes no shit and would be the one to kill the slasher/monster/ghost/demon/whatever without hesitation. Honorable mention goes to Josef, because he has survived insane shit. He has literally been the final girl before!! He would work so well with Anwei. Gay and lesbian solidarity for sure. Who dies first??? Um. Maybe Azetahn? Horny, kind of gullible, not afraid of anything so he would definitely walk down into the dark basement alone in his short shorts and cropped t shirt. Honorable mention for first death is Robin for basically the same reasons lmao (except instead of a cropped t shirt Robin would be shirtless because climbers LOVE to take off their shirts for no good reason)

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5. LOL THIS ONE WILL BE SUPER GOOD. I have a feeling this question came about because I mentioned I had that dream I had about terrible casting choices... Well.......

Yixing: Henry Cavill. Tall. Muscular. WHITE. He absolutely fits the bill.

Ciaran: AARON PAUL BECAUSE OF THAT ONE DREAM I HAD. Seriously what the fuck was my brain thinking.

Anwei: Kristen Stewart. White woman spotted. She would be cast because she doesn't ever move her face and people probably will interpret Anwei to be the kind of person that never smiles or emotes in any way. (Sorry to fans of Miss Stewart but um. i do not think she can act.)

Go-Eun: Scarlett Johansson. Prominent Asian actress of course.

Aster: Ruby Rose. I'm taking so much psychic damage typing this one. People see a gender non-conforming lesbian and assume she's like the butchest person on the planet so. Sigh.

Sihla: Cate Blanchett. We've whitewashed the entire fucking cast so we might as well keep going. She's about a decade older than Sihla but that won't stop the casting department!!

Fetiva: Chris Hemsworth. UM I don't even know what to say here. He's very tall and just so so so so so so beefed up and also young and charming lmao. (Fetiva is NONE of those things. Except tall I guess)

Mari: (I almost forgot her oops) Jessica Lange!! kind of a milf. reblog.