#i have a list of details explaining how incredibly ooc he's been and how while grief can change a person

[entrepy]

major canon & fanon divergences 

( i don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s a lot lmao. this is more so for me to have a reference because i forget things about my own muse / canon. if we’re rping together we’re probably also talking ooc so anything important from this post will be mentioned to you at some point. )

( please note that by canon, i’m referring to my general main verse which includes no interactions with other muses. each interaction with a muse is put into its own verse. new interactions can come into the main verse at any point of the timeline and then diverge from that point. )

canon divergences.

does not marry curtis. they noticed each other because they worked closely as part of the atlas crew and maybe if the time and place were different there might’ve been a chance for them to get to know each other and form something but for shiro, there is a lot weighing on his mind that he needs to wade through

( a ) shiro has been thru Sum shit and he has an endless list of reasons to be sad but i just want to make it known that shiro’s no. 1 source of guilt and just general mind-anguish is the fact that he is living in a borrowed body, that he took from someone who had to die for him to live. 

( b ) at this stage he is also coming in touch with his feelings for keith which have been with him for a while, so even if he was aware of other potential interests … he’s not actually interested back.

adam is alive. he was critically injured in the first wave of attack by sendak and recovered enough only to provide ground support for the second wave. he remains an officer of the garrison and heads training and recruitment. he does not fly again. he’s happily married and reaches out to shiro. they’re amicable, but not close friends. maybe eventually they will be. ( this will obviously be different if i’m writing with an adam muse. )

allura is alive – i need to rewatch the end of season 8 to figure out how, but she’s alive.

after a year or so of captaining the atlas, the need for atlas to be an offensive military ship decreases and shiro consults sam and pidge for their thoughts on deweaponising his prosthesis. the new arm is still powered by allura’s crystal but looks more similar to the galra arm ( except it starts at the shoulder since his bicep??? disappeared magically ), but it’s coloured white and light grey, and the lit up areas are aqua ( same as the crystal. )

speaking of the crystal …  the original arm was designed to operate via a balmera crystal, because that’s what most of altean designs are based off of. however they didn’t have a crystal to use, and sam says the remaining energy required for the arm to work would be drawn from shiro’s own electromagnetic field. he tries it for the first time and … his body rejects it, in what looks like an incredibly painful and potentially fatal way, if it hadn’t been for allura stepping in and replacing the original energy source for the arm with the crystal from her tiara. we don’t ever find out why shiro’s body rejected the first energy source but here are 2 theories:

( a ) shiro’s body is actually kuron’s body, a clone, manufactured by haggar, using ~space science~ and likely some form of quintessence. the electro magnetic field coming off of the clone’s body would vary to that of a human’s, which is what sam would’ve based his calculations on. balmera crystals have incredible properties that aren’t really explained in great detail but we know how powerful they can be, regardless of size. 

( b ) because it’s kuron’s body, maybe the connection to haggar didn’t completely shut off when keith cut off the arm. that flash that happens when the arm connects and shiro’s body starts rejecting it is very similar to the flash that happens when haggar starts controlling kuron earlier ( better explained in this headcanon piece. ) my only issue with this headcanon is that it implies haggar may still have some degree of control over shiro, and I just………….it’s been so overused, i just don’t want that for shiro anymore, so i’m most likely sticking to theory a !!!!!

still on the subject of the crystal, let’s talk about what shiro says after allura places the balmera crystal in his arm ; “i feel strange … i feel – great !” strange, as in he’s feeling something he’s never quite felt before. this is in contrast to what he feels when the first energy source is used in his arm ; “i feel … good,” but he sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t feel good at all, and obviously we see why moments afterwards. the great part is emphasised. he almost seems excited, like he really does feel great, and the scene cuts off with him trialling his arm by making a fist, and smiling. again, the properties of the crystals are pretty much undefined, but they are an immense source of power – what allura’s tiara contains is likely more than enough required to power shiro’s arm, and going back to how allura operated the castleship, and how shiro is able to operate the atlas, i’m loosely headcanoning that the crystal acts as a link between “captain” and “ship”, though obviously, allura herself channels quintessence and has so much more capabilities as a “captain.” 

what does the crystal providing an energy source for not only the new prosthesis, but also shiro’s body mean for shiro? an external boost of energy and human-compatible quintessence is probably the first dose of anything resembling treatment shiro has had since the kerberos mission. i don’t see the balmera crystal nor altean healing pods having the power to edit genes but as far as healing goes, it must have some effect in alleviating pain and / or fatigue for shiro to exclaim, “i feel great !”

( a ) sometimes it’s difficult to write in a universe set in the future because things of our current reality ( social injustices, shit politics, technological limitations etc. ) may not be a reality say 100 years in the future, and add space and alien technology to the mix and you’re sort of left with a lot of potential for creation and imagination and progression but also hindered by the reality of present day and representing present day. i wouldn’t want to “magic” away shiro’s disease or magically come up with a cure, but at the same time i don’t want to take away the possibility for him to be potentially cured ( which is what the “i feel great !” line hints towards ) just because of the limitations of today.

major fanon divergences.

does not qualify as space dad. it simultaneously infantilises the other paladins and takes away from their own journeys of being forced to grow up too quickly and take on the responsibility of fighting in a war, and puts undue stress on shiro who is only ~25 himself. shiro is responsible for his team only in the role of their commanding officer at best

his prosthetic arm is not a sex toy, it’s a prosthesis ( refer to this post on arm related bed time activities )

shiro did not have a romantic connection with keith pre-kerberos. if anything the earliest signs of anything resembling a romantic connection would be late into season 2, but that is pending heavy plotting

shiro came from a happy family … he just lost almost all of it very early on. he grew up loved even though he learnt about loss too quickly

shiro cannot sing lol … i know his voice actor can but i'm ~different~

i think it’s popular headcanon for shiro to have a little sister, or a big family; i wrote his backstory with his older sister before i came across this, so i’m sticking to my original headcanon because his bond with his sister is so strongly formed in my head  

shiro is not afraid of death … but he doesn’t want to die. i feel like his relationship with death needs its own post but the tl;dr version of it is that he had a timer put on his life when he was around 17 years old. life goes from seemingly endless to suddenly very very short ( not just in the sense that his lifespan is predicted to be shorter, but that his body will soon restrict him in movement and opportunity. ) and then kerberos happens, and the arena happens, and voltron and zarkon and he’s reminded that life is short regardless of whether they give you a timer at 17. any moment could be his last and shiro has had a long time to come to terms with this. it makes him incredibly grateful for the present, and of what he’s had in the past. it also is potentially why he prioritises a mission that will take him to see the stars, over a relationship with adam ten years down the track.

if anyone makes it this far … ur the real mvp, thank u for reading my brain ramblings <3

#files & about & headcanon ft. shiro. #ooc. #queue

[futuresafe]

maybe it's just me but i think a story panning out "obviously" after months and months of planning and small hints is much more satisfying than a surprise twist of sav hiding as Some Random Citizen would ever be

#i wasn't on that theory at first but. it makes a lot of sense to me #mostly because osiris hasn't had Any development these past three seasons #nor has he had any lore entries from his perspective #despite the plethora of them available during and before immolant #he's an active player but we haven't seen any of his thoughts written down which is weird esp considering the trauma he just went through #like. look what they did with eris in meticulously explaining it from her view #to not a single word from osiris #i'm excited tbh #my posts #ADDITIONALLY #i have studied osiris like some sort of. academic #i've studied him EXTENSIVELY #and the argument for ''it's grief'' only goes so far #i have a list of details explaining how incredibly ooc he's been and how while grief can change a person #it wouldn't straight up make osiris so antagonizing to mithrax especially compared to the fact he was an early eliksni sympathizer #also his voice. like. his inflection's changed. #compare how he talks in his vanguard coms with how he's been talking in this season #there's a notable difference #okay okay #maybe i'll write my essay about how i think this plot point is actually quite interesting and good #not in the tags....

[patientfocusly]

major canon divergences 

( i don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s a lot lmao. this is more so for me to have a reference because i forget things about my own muse / canon rip. if we’re rping together we’re probably also talking ooc so anything important from this post will be mentioned to you at some point. )

( please note that by canon, i’m referring to my general main verse which includes no interactions with other muses. each interaction with a muse is put into its own verse. new interactions can come into the main verse at any point of the timeline and then diverge from that point. )

does not marry curtis. they noticed each other because they worked closely as part of the atlas crew and maybe if the time and place were different there might’ve been a chance for them to get to know each other and form something but for shiro, there is a lot weighing on his mind that he needs to wade through

( a ) shiro has been thru Sum shit and he has an endless list of reasons to be sad but i just want to make it known that shiro’s no. 1 source of guilt and just general mind-anguish is the fact that he is living in a borrowed body, that he took from someone who had to die for him to live. 

( b ) at this stage he is also coming in touch with his feeling for keith which have been with him for a while, so even if he was aware of other potential interests . . . he’s not actually interested back.

adam is alive. he was critically injured in the first wave of attack by sendak and recovered enough only to provide ground support for the second wave. he remains an officer of the garrison and heads training and recruitment. he does not fly again. he’s happily married and reaches out to shiro. they’re amicable, but not close friends. maybe eventually they will be. ( this will obviously not be the case if i’m writing with an adam. )

allura is alive – i need to rewatch the end of season 8 to figure out how, but she’s alive.

after a year or so of captaining the atlas, the need for atlas to be an offensive military ship decreases and shiro consults sam and pidge for their thoughts on deweaponising his prosthesis. The new arm is still powered by allura’s crystal but looks more similar to the galra arm ( except it starts at the shoulder since his bicep??? disappeared magically ), but it’s coloured white and light grey, and the lit up areas are aqua ( same as the crystal. )

speaking of the crystal . . .  the original arm was designed to operate via a balmera crystal, because that’s what most of altean designs are based off of. however they didn’t have a crystal to use, and sam says the remaining energy required for the armto work would be drawn from shiro’s own electromagnetic field. he tries it for the first time and . . . his body rejects it, in what looks like an incredibly painful and potentially fatal way, if it hadn’t been for allura stepping in and replacing the original energy source for the arm with the crystal from her tiara. we don’t ever find out why shiro’s body rejected the first energy source but here are 2 theories:

( a ) shiro’s body is actually kuron’s body, a clone, manufactured by haggar, using ~space science~ and likely some form of quintessence. the electro magnetic field coming off of the clone’s body would vary to that of a human’s, which is what sam would’ve based his calculations on. balmera crystals have incredible properties that aren’t really explained in great detail but we know how powerful they can be, regardless of size. 

( b ) because it’s kuron’s body, maybe the connection to haggar didn’t completely shut off when keith cut off the arm. that flash that happens when the arm connects and shiro’s body starts rejecting it is very similar to the flash that happens when haggar starts controlling kuron earlier ( better explained in this headcanon piece. ) my only issue with this headcanon is that it implies haggar may still have some degree of control over shiro, and I just………….it’s been so overused, i just don’t want that for shiro anymore, so i’m most likely sticking to theory a !!!!!

still on the subject of the crystal, let’s talk about what shiro says after allura places the balmera crystal in his arm ; “i feel strange . . . i feel – great !” strange, as in he’s feeling something he’s never quite felt before. this is in contrast to what he feels when the first energy source is used in his arm ; “i feel . . . good,” but he sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t feel good at all, and obviously we see why moments afterwards. the great part is emphasised. he almost seems excited, like he really does feel great, and the scene cuts off with him trialling his arm by making a fist, and smiling. again, the properties of the crystals are pretty much undefined, but they are an immense source of power – what allura’s tiara contains is likely more than enough required to power shiro’s arm, and going back to how allura operated the castleship, and how shiro is able to operate the atlas, i’m loosely headcanoning that the crystal acts as a link between “captain” and “ship”, though obviously, allura herself channels quintessence and has so much more capabilities as a “captain.” 

what does the crystal providing an energy source for not only the new prosthesis, but also shiro’s body mean for shiro? an external boost of energy and human-compatible quintessence is probably the first dose of anything resembling treatment shiro has had since the kerberos mission. i don’t see the balmera crystal nor altean healing pods having the power to edit genes but as far as healing goes, it must have some effect in alleviating pain and / or fatigue for shiro to exclaim, “i feel great !”

( a ) sometimes it’s difficult to write in a universe set in the future because things of our current reality ( social injustices, shit politics, technological limitations etc. ) may not be a reality say 100 years in the future, and add space and alien technology to the mix and you’re sort of left with a lot of potential for creation and imagination and progression but also hindered by the reality of present day and representing present day. i wouldn’t want to “magic” away shiro’s disease or magically come up with a cure, but at the same time i don’t want to take away the possibility for him to be potentially cured ( which is what the “i feel great !” line hints towards ) just because of the limitations of today ???????? i’m just having an inner conflict over this - i will update what i decide when i decide !! 

major fanon divergences

does not qualify as space dad. it simultaneously infantilises the other paladins and takes away from their own journeys of being forced to grow up too quickly and take on the responsibility of fighting in a war, and puts undue stress on shiro who is only ~25 himself responsible for his team only in the role of their commanding officer at best

his prosthetic arm is not a sex toy, it’s a prosthesis ( refer to this post on arm related bed time activities )

shiro did not have a romantic connection with keith pre-kerberos. if anything the earliest signs of anything resembling a romantic connection would be late into season 2, but that is pending heavy plotting

shiro came from a happy family . . . he just lost almost all of it very early on. he grew up loved even though he learnt about loss too quickly ( please refer to this headcanon. )

shiro cannot sing lol . . . i dont know where this headcanon came from, but it’s sticking

i think it’s popular headcanon for shiro to have a little sister, or a big family; i wrote his backstory with his older sister before i came across this, so i’m sticking to my original headcanon because his bond with his sister is so strongly formed in my head  

shiro is not afraid of death . . . but he doesn’t want to die. i feel like his relationship with death needs its own post but the tl;dr version of it is that he had a timer put on his life when he was around 17 years old. life goes from seemingly endless to suddenly very very short ( not just in the sense that his lifespan is predicted to be shorter, but that his body will soon restrict him in movement and opportunity. ) and then kerberos happens, and the arena happens, and voltron and zarkon and he’s reminded that life is short regardless of whether they give you a timer at 17. any moment could be his last and shiro has had a long time to come to terms with this. it makes him incredibly grateful for the present, and of what he’s had in the past. it also is potentially why he prioritises a mission that will take him to see the stars, over a relationship with adam ten years down the track.

if anyone makes it this far . . . ur the real mvp, thank u for reading my brain ramblings <3

#━━ ⋅ ✰ ⋆ merry crisis ! ⋮ ❛ headcanon ❜ #( headcanon. ) #━━ ⋅ ✰ ⋆ aw fuck ! i can’t believe you’ve done this ! ⋮ ❛ ooc ❜

[alwaysfine]

𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐈 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐊𝐀 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒 !

i honestly can’t believe it’s been a year already. it has actually flown by. originally on my multi muse, moving amanda and jesse to their own blogs was the best decision and i’ve been so thankful i did ever since. if i’m being honest, the only reason why i made jesse a sideblog at all was because i was so in love with the url ( badbagelll ) that i couldn’t not. but it turned out better than i could’ve ever anticipated. i’m so grateful for all the wonderful writing partners i’ve been blessed to not only write with, but get to know out of character. all of you are such kind, strong, inspiring, and golden hearted human beings with such creative minds and exceptional talent. i often ask myself what on earth i did, and how i got so lucky to meet you all.

 i am so incredibly honored to have the opportunity to bring the independent, strong, unfairly gorgeous, quick witted, badass, and beautifully flawed amanda rollins to life. and not only do i get the pleasure of writing amanda, but our precious bad bagel, jesse. 

all in all, amanda @ sonny in that gif is me @ every single person who i write with, who has ever messaged me ooc, and anyone who simply follows this blog. i can honestly say that writing these two characters has been the highlight of my writing journey. i adore each and every one of you, and i look forward to another year. xoxo.

******* under the cut i’m going to be gushing over those of you who still have your blogs and have truly helped to make this past year 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 !

THE ELITE SQUAD.

@amaroed​ / dany ! writing nick and amanda with you has brought so much absolute joy into my life??? i’ve loved every single one of our threads and memes from them switching the sugar to salt at the precinct kitchenette to amanda becoming nick for halloween to nick trying to keep amanda awake after she caught a bullet to the side.  you capture nick so well, and your love for him and danny himself exudes every time you write him. it’s honestly so beautiful to see. after writing with you, i can honestly say that my love for nick amaro increased even more. you are such a talented writer, and i’m forever honored to write with you!

@battleincarnate / maddie ! maddie maddie maddie, my iconic, legendary cher stan.  i actually adore you so much i can’t even fully explain. from the first time i talked to you ooc, you just exuded genuine kindness, and were so chill and easy to talk to. i feel like that’s unfortunately super rare, so i just wanna thank you for that??? you’re such a rad friend, and i’m so lucky to have you!! ok as for muses go, i don’t even know where to start?? firstly, your writing is gorgeous and your ability to switch between muses like elliot stabler and ali dilaurentis is remarkable. secondly, what we’ve developed between elliot and amanda is truly one of my favorite relationships i’ve had the pleasure of establishing on this blog, even though we’ve never even gotten to see them together onscreen. i have loved every single thread we’ve ever done.  from the first thread we did where they first meet and they literally want to kill each other, to them arguing over who gets to drive on their first day as partners, to all the million and ten things we’ve discussed on discord like their hardcore car karaoke parties and the fact that amanda will ask elliot to walk her down the isle in any verse where she’s married. amanda may be one of the biggest pains in his ass, and elliot may be one of the biggest pains in hers, but they love each other sm it’s so precious. amanda is also so much like elliot it kills me, and the dynamic we’ve created is literal gold. the phrase like father, like daughter has never applied more. he’s the king and she’s the lionheart without a doubt!

@cabotiisms​ / claire ! like i told you over discord, your portrayal of alex made me love her even more which, i didn’t even think was possible. your grasp on alex’s character, her motives, the way her mind works, is so on point. your love and passion for doing right by alex is so obvious when you write her. now, the big and little sister dynamic we’ve created for alex and amanda makes me smile so much i can’t even explain. i live for alex trying to get amanda out of the messes she gets herself into aka saving her little sister from being ripped to shreds by mom, and in general just being the sister she deserves. the threads we have going right now are quite literally perfect, and i adore them.  and out of character? i love yelling at you about how dirty the svu writers did alex, and how dirty they’re currently doing amanda by bringing in cardio douche. but even more importantly, you are one of the most genuinely sweet people i’ve ever met. i adore you, and am so thankful we’re friends!

@drftwood / catie ! i don’t even know where to start. ok firstly, your ability to bring to life so many beautiful oc’s and occasional canon characters absolutely astounds me. you are so creative, all the ideas you come up with are so intriguing, and you have the ability to turn one small detail into an entire beautiful character so effortlessly. it’s so incredible. and this creativity so obviously carries into your writing. your writing is so fucking gorgeous i can’t even believe. every single character that we’ve ever written together has turned into such a beautiful relationship for amanda. chris, alex, and now jr? i mean, jr is such an important person in amanda’s canon now, and i can’t imagine altering her canon storyline in any other way, nor can i imagine anyone else taking on his role except for you. next, i can’t end this without saying how much i love talking to you ooc. like, from the minute we started talking when we started plotting amanda and alex, i knew we were gonna be friends. AND I WAS SO RIGHT. you have such a kind soul and such a big heart, you deserve all the happiness in the world. i am so lucky and proud to be able to call you a friend and ily!! 

@etlegis / shep ! ok we literally started talking like 24 hours ago but i already adore you and your peter stone. it’s so obvious that you have his character down in your writing. it’s like i read your starter, and it felt like i was in an episode of svu. not only is your characterization of stone on point, but you are the GREATEST ooc. it was so easy to start talking to you, instafriends some may call it, and we just fell down a rollins/stone hole and i’m not even mad about it. you are such a gem in this community already and i’m so glad you’re here!!

@hellhaths / lara !  lara, i fucking adore you. like for real. i could tell from the second we started talking ooc that we were going to be friends. and i’m proud to say i was very right. you are such an exceptional writer, i can’t properly explain. you put so much into every character you write, and it truly amazes me. now, i think we both know i have to talk about your olivia ‘ squad mom ’ benson because …. wow. from the first introduction to your writing, the first thought i had was ‘ she’s literally olivia benson.’ and that first thread we did with amanda asking olivia about elliot while she was trying to figure out the situation with nick, and not only did it wreck my heart, but it was the beginning of the most legendary olivia / amanda dynamic i could’ve ever asked for. SHE’S LITERALLY HER MOTHER. liv arguing with amanda to stop playing angry birds because it kills her phone battery, confining amanda to desk duty when she does something dumb, taking away amanda’s keys …. the list is literally endless. despite how bratty liv’s dorter gets, we all know she still loves her.  listen, you understand the complexities of liv so well, it absolutely astounds me. with twenty seasons of evolution to work with, you incorporate all of it so beautifully. you have her voice and mannerisms down to a tee, and i am so honored to write with you and call you a friend. i’m sending you all the love and light in the world right now, and just know i’m here for you always.

@moontide​ / angie ! girl, your amanda is so important to my jesse idk if i can even properly put it into words. when i first started writing jesse, i had no idea what type of interactions i would get. truthfully, i thought nobody would show any interest whatsoever and she would just be another blog that faded away. WHAT I NEVER IMAGINED IS WHAT I’VE WRITTEN WITH YOU. the amanda/jesse dynamic we’ve created is so complex and beautiful, and i love it so much. every single heart breaking thread and verse we’ve started or discussed, i love. jesse is so her mama’s daughter, and being able to have those interactions means so much to me, i just have to say thank you. and your amanda? so fantastic. i absolutely love the life you bring to her, and i’m so so so honored to write with you. and remember, even when she’s being a brat, jesse loves her mama more than anything.

@o188 / sunny ! holy shit!!! ok so, i need to start by telling you how big of a part you played in me giving amanda her own blog in the first place. when i found your blog and read your writing, i was, for the lack of a better word, s h o o k. to this day, i am still astounded anytime i read one of your replies, because when you write sonny, you become sonny carisi. from writing his dialogue, to his mannerisms, it’s perfection. and you yourself as a human being???? you’re actually golden and ily. you welcomed me into this community with so much warmth and love and i can never thank you enough!! ok, so now for muses. let me just start with the jesse/sonny dynamic. WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE SOMETHING SO PURE???? sonny carisi is the Best Dad, and jesse loves him endlessly, ok? alright, now for sonny and amanda.  listen, i can’t even accurately explain how much my amanda loves your sonny. she would quite literally try and catch a falling star for him if he asked. writing amanda so open and trusting whenever she’s with him is so freakin’ beautiful, okay?? i’ve adored every single thread and meme we’ve ever started with them, from amanda telling him she’s pregnant with g, to the morning after, to post book of esther. their dynamic is so freakin’ important and what we’ve created with them is truly one of my favorite relationships i’ve ever written. oh, and writing them as parents of their precious baby girls?? quite literally makes my heart grow ten sizes. they are so soft, so beautiful, and i am both honored and grateful to have the opportunity to write that with you!!

@painbled / peaches ! cracks knuckles alright here goes!! HI I FREAKING LOVE YOU. you are one of the most genuine human beings i’ve met on here, and i am forever grateful that i chose to write topanga way back when. there was a chunk of time where we fell out of contact, but the second we started talking again, it was like NO TIME AT ALL HAD PASSED. that’s a true testament to our friendship, and i’m forever grateful for that! then, you went and decided to write noah porter benson aka amanda’s lil baby that’s not actually her baby, but she loves him like he is. she would throw down so hard for him, i’m forever emotional about it. the thread we have where liv’s in the hospital has me wrecked, but i also love it because there are so many mama!amanda vibes aimed at noah happening that it makes my heart warmer than the sun. then there’s jess and noah, and good freakin’ lord. THEY’RE SO CUTE I CAN BARELY STAND IT. they are freakin’ in love with each other and icb they’re gonna get married and have a family and liv and amanda are gonna be grandparents to the same kids. listen, both me, amanda, and jesse’s lives wouldn’t be the same without you and your muses in them. you are such a talented writer, and i will forever tell you that whenever you need reminding. thunder, lightning. peaches and honey always!!

@southbronxabogado / adrien ! wow wow wow wow wow. first of all, you are actually rafael barba. i’m convinced. every single thread is so accurate and it brings me so much joy to watch you bring him to life and give him the treatment he deserves. now, the relationship we’ve developed between amanda and rafael is truly one of my favorites. i went from oh yeah they’d be cute, to holy fucking shit they’re perfect in 0.000001 seconds after we first started plotting them. the dynamic they have is so genuine, and the way he treats her just makes my heart so happy. i’ve adored every thread we’ve ever started, from amanda thinking she freakin’ broke the toaster to the throwback thread of him taking her to that fancy benefit. now last but definitely not least, can i just say how wonderful you are ooc? like, i know i can jump into your im’s and start screaming at you enthusiastically in all caps about our idiots without worry. plotting and writing with you has been such a pleasure, and i absolutely adore you. truly. i can’t wait for all the million other things i’m sure we’ll do.

@thingsmissed / jennifer ! ok, so i haven’t really gotten much of a chance to write amanda or jesse with any of your muses, but i absolutely love having you on my dash and talking to you ooc! you put so much effort into all your muses, and it’s absolutely inspiring. you are without a doubt one of the sweetest people with one of the most genuinely kind, caring, and giving hearts that i’ve had the pleasure of meeting on here. you are always so much fun to talk to ooc, and i can always feel your kindness exuding through the screen. you are a very talented writer and i hope you never doubt that!!

#earlier this week marked #one year as amanda and jesse #i can't believe it #guys this is over 2000 words #aka i'm certain i've written more in this post #than i have written ic in the month of october thus far #lol #it's fineeeee #but seriously thank you guys sm for sticking with me wow #xoxoxoxo #( 05. OOC / should probably be doing homework. )

[unfortunate-rp]

Congratulations, ELIOT! You have been accepted as your original character, JOSEPH ATTALI. I am really excited to have Joseph and I’m also excited about your potential plans for him! Please be sure to complete the steps listed on the NEW MEMBER CHECKLIST and send in your account within the next 24 hours.

Well, young lady, have you been good to your mother?

OOC INFORMATION

Name: Eliot

Age: 21

Pronouns: they/them

Time zone: PST

Activity Level (Please give a number from 1-10 and an explanation): 6-ish

Tumblr account (for contact purposes): REDACTED

How did you find us?: I found you through an RPH’s shoutout/rec post

Triggers: N/A

ORIGINAL CHARACTER APPLICATION

Character Name: Joseph Attali

FC: David Mazouz (primary/preferred), Gavin Leatherwood

Date of Birth: January 21

Age: 17 years old

Character Quote: “I am a little soul carrying around a corpse.”

Gender: Male [Cis]

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexual Orientation: Questioning

Occupation: Student at Wade Academy

Affiliation: Civilian

Neighborhood: Poplar Grove

Personality: Intellectual, Observant, Empathetic, Charming, Rash, Lonely, Easily Manipulated

BIOGRAPHY

Count how many cities you have lived in, throughout your life. If you are the easily homesick, location-bound sort of personality, then perhaps you have lived in one town your entire life, never going outside the city boundaries for more than a few hours at a time. Perhaps you were once this personality, but later took flight and made a home elsewhere. Perhaps you’ve been to several places, finding each one more suitable to you than the last. Perhaps you excitedly follow opportunity like a cat does a rolling ball of yarn. Or, perhaps, you are none of these. Perhaps you are instead the soul that wishes for a permanent home, the sort of soul that finds oneself transplanted against his will. You have lost count of the cities he has lived in, and your social bonds are about as strong as the last withering strand of an old rope. You are the sort that never understands why you are uprooted as soon as you settle. If any of this describes you, then you just might find a kindred soul in a seventeen-year-old boy with a sad smile and kind eyes. If so, your first desire would be to know him, and your first impulse would be to ask his name. “Joseph,” he would say, staring at you with an odd sort of interest. “Joseph Attali.”

Just a brief show of warmth may get him to talk about his life. In his short life, he has lived in over ten different places. Some are large cities, in which he has stayed rather anonymous, and some in small towns, where a few select residents likely whisper of a boy and his father who have come, made their impact, and left. At least, that’s what Joseph likes to believe. He doesn’t like to reveal this. Otherwise, such a tell would belie his deep fear of being forgotten. There are other things he doesn’t tell either. For one, he is never quite sure of what his father does. Two, somewhere, deep within his memory, lies a story of him pleading with his father to stay in one place, only to realize the futility of begging. He represses this memory as best he can. Still, one can try to ask him about his past again. If in a lighter mood, he will talk about the odd peace that comes with an extended car ride, if one would just look out the window, defocus their eyes, and let the sights pass in a blur. Occasionally, Joseph says, a pop of color will catch your eye, and you’ll wonder what it was. As much as he wishes for a state of permanence, he rarely seems like he would understand what to do with such a place. Perhaps he is most comfortable with, or more accurately, most attuned to a state of liminality. Even the music he plays in his free time seems to induce a sense of leaving one’s body, or perhaps a sense of loneliness that has come to characterize his existence.

He cannot stay in his space-between forever, can he? Some months ago, his father had taken him to the peculiarly unnamed City, and they have somewhat settled in. Specifically, right in the homes of Poplar Grove. Joseph has taken to observing the inhabitants of his neighborhood, and then, more recently, to everyone he encounters at school. Observing, however, is not the same as knowing, let alone befriending. It had taken him several weeks to befriend a girl by the name of Emilia Sampson, whose eccentric nature drew him in like a moth to a lightbulb. When it seemed like he and his father would stay for a while, he finally let himself get attached. Perhaps, though, attachment and permanence weren’t the right choices. He had thought that he was merely becoming accustomed to growing roots, that, in time, the earth that trapped his legs would soon become a familiar comfort.

Joseph soon felt that that was not the case. It was not a matter of attachment. It was a matter of feeling that, after wandering the physical realm where he longed to belong, he has finally stepped into a dark limbo full of dead beings that sense he is alive. It was the feeling of eyes on him, at a constant. It was the feeling that, after thinking of his father as a fellow living being, that he, too, might be a ghost. It was him noticing that his friend, his now dear, eccentric, lively friend, the light in the dark, had temporarily gone missing. It was him noticing that she had plenty of secrets to keep, and tended to run as soon as one might slip out of her mouth. It was him seeing her run away, into a neck of the woods, only for her to return the next day as if nothing had happened. It was the numerous pairs of eyes he would see from the tinted windows of a house every time he walked her home. Finally, it was the loose leaf of paper on his desk that set aflame for a moment, before he patted the fire out in a panic.

CONNECTIONS

Please include up to 3 connections.

Isaac Attali (WC for more details later) Isaac Attali is Joseph’s highly educated and even more highly adaptive father. A polyglot with several skills under his belt, he has had more jobs than you can name. He also has a long history with the VFD, which he has kept a secret from Joseph. He knows exactly what the fire starters are capable of, and every time he saw one from the corner of his eye, he and his son relocated. His only reason for returning to the City is that, after a while of realizing he can’t run from the fire starters, he thinks he can at least enlist the help of the fire fighters in keeping himself and his son safe.

Emilia Sampson (WC for more details later) Emilia Sampson is the first friend Joseph made in the City. What he doesn’t know is that she is also a neophyte fire starter following a tradition set by her family, raised on secrecy and dubious morals. Part of her wants to embrace the freedom such a dubious path grants her, and another part sways toward her own idea of “good.” While Emilia wants to be a friend to Joseph, she also has to understand that he is her assignment. Why? Because she has been informed that his father is of particular importance. Not that she would tell him that. She won’t explain the reason behind her temporary disappearance either.

Piper Gardner Joseph has never taken a liking to Piper, as vivacious and popular as she is. Perhaps he just could never empathize with those who seem to have it all. Unsurprisingly, Piper hasn’t taken much of a liking to Joseph either. What Joseph hasn’t quite grasped, despite his keen observation, is the connection between Piper and Emilia. The only thing he has noticed are the strange stares they’ve exchanged in passing, but then again, he’s seeing a lot of things, isn’t he?

ADDITIONAL NOTES

3 Additional Notes/Facts/Headcanons:

Joseph Attali and his father are Sephardi Jewish, and Joseph has some command of Hebrew. One can expect to find a mezuzah on the doorpost of his bedroom. His knowledge of both English and Hebrew has led him to develop a code loosely based on Gematria, and he uses that code when he writes in his personal diary.

Joseph’s mother, Yael, had died in a freak accident when he was five years old. To this day, his father can’t quite explain the circumstances around it, but he suspects that the fire starters had something to do with it. Isaac took Joseph and left town shortly after, and it was the first time Joseph remembered being uprooted from a place.

Joseph has a love of “people watching,” and has used his findings to become an excellent mimic. However, he can’t keep up certain acts for long, as he will feel incredible exhaustion after a while of socializing around people very different from him. Only around very specific people close to him will he drop whatever act he’s putting up.

What potential plans do you have for this character?

I had put “Questioning” under Joseph’s orientation, and I plan to explore that in my writing. Heck, it might even be explored in a situation where he has detached himself from Emilia and starts making other friends – guy friends. He might strike up a friendship with one guy his age, initially to get his mind off the trouble Emilia would undoubtedly put him through. At first, he would assume that he’s just feeling a sense of relief from having a normal, not dysfunctional friendship. After a little while, though, Joseph may realize something about himself.

Joseph may meet kids his age who turn out to be fire fighters. A kid may be assigned to look out for Joseph’s well being without Joseph even knowing. It would be kind of funny if a well-intentioned neophyte Volunteer had accidentally angered Joseph, making their job of protecting him that much more difficult. Cue a series of interactions in which Joseph repeatedly asks the poor kid, “Why are you following me?”

Joseph may eventually find out the truth about his father, or the truth about Emilia – whichever happens first. Whatever the case, all of this secret-keeping would send him in a rage. He’d do something terribly impulsive, and he won’t be able to dig himself out of the consequences of his own actions. Example: seriously angering one of the fire starters.

An overall potential path of growth: Joseph may learn to trust his intuition and develop a steadier resolve. In time, he may learn who he should and shouldn’t trust, and he can soon learn to resist the manipulation tactics of anyone acting on ulterior motives.

What do you hope to bring to this roleplay with your character?

If nothing else, I’d like to bring a character that ties to this roleplay (and the ASOUE universe) thematically. Since he is new to the town (but his father isn’t, not entirely), he will have the constant experience of not knowing most people, yet most people somehow knowing him. That in and of itself could bring about really interesting interactions and conflict. (A rather funny situation that could come about: Joseph, being the excellent mimic, accidentally mimics a few VFD codes, tricking someone into thinking he is knowledgeable of and affiliated with VFD)

As for Joseph himself, he could bring a different experience as to how a teenager relates to and reacts to the existence of VFD. Piper jumped right into the fire-starter side as an escape from the mundanity of her upper crust life. Natalie became a fire fighter to do good, put their engineering skills to use and access opportunities previously barred to them. Avery is dealing with the potential to become a double agent. Arnav wants to bring joy to other people through music (fitting, considering his own experience with depression). In some way, Joseph is like these kids, his life touched by VFD in ways he doesn’t fully understand. 

However, he’s also like Adriana, who is unwittingly connected to the two different VFD sides, and Victoria, who herself is quite the actress (and is unwittingly connected to VFD through her father, Arthur). Really, he’s in-between them. Not quite so well known as famous actress Victoria, but not so disconnected (either from VFD, or from family) as Adriana. 

Enough rambling about potential connections; another thing I’d like to think about is Joseph wandering about the town, merely stumbling upon the other characters doing the oddest things (Joseph catching Natalie tinker with a rock throwing machine on the beach, or passing by Arnav’s home when he happens to be playing and feeling a deep, uncertain sense of loss, or stumbling upon Piper running away from her high society party in a now somewhat dirtied dress, or accidentally catching Victoria in a rehearsal for a school play). 

Anything Else?

Upon acceptance (if this happens), I will submit wanted connections for Emilia Sampson and Isaac Attali, which will have lengthier descriptions that will both describe the characters and set a certain tone for them.

Sidenote: I chose Emilia’s last name because Sampson comes from “Samson” – as in, Samson and Delilah. ba-dum-tsss

WRITING SAMPLE

All of those windows have eyes.

Day twenty of Emilia Sampson’s disappearance. He was sure of it. He had kept careful track of the days in his journal, each day labeled with a new letter meant to represent a numerical value. Or, rather, the first day he had noticed her gone. In his notebook, next to Hebrew letters spelling out something that roughly translated to “Day A,” he had made a note, in code, that that was the first day he had realized she had been gone for some time, and that she might have actually been gone for about three days already. Each day that she was gone, starting from the day he had actually come to the realization, he had written it down, in the corner of the page where he started a new entry. The date itself would be written on the first line, also in code. Everything was so carefully hidden. Only the Hebrew would give any indication as to how to solve his code, but even the most astute individuals would be at least a few steps removed from decoding his journal.

Standing in front of her home now, he tried to recall if he had written it down. Yes, yes I did. He had written it down, on the round corner of the page, that it was Day 20, or rather, Yom K. He had written it down, and then he had written in his journal, in code, that he had planned to visit her home. One thing he noted in his journal: she had told him not to speak to any one occupant of that home for too long. Another thing he noted: he could not figure out why she would say such a thing. In fact, she had not wanted him to see her home until circumstance made it necessary, at which time he had to walk her home in the middle of the night. Something was odd about that night too, the way details of it came back fuzzier than they should have, the vagueness with which Emilia had spoken about her troubles, the curtains pulled on each set of windows Joseph passed, and, finally, the pairs of eyes that Joseph had seen peeking out of the windows of Emilia’s house.

They had been there for a split second, and then they were gone.

Joseph had asked if Emilia had seen something, to which she had asked seen what? He hadn’t answered. He hadn’t said that he thought he saw pairs of eyes in the windows, eyes that didn’t seem to be attached to anything. He had simply shook his head, said nothing, and wished her a good night. She had wished him a good night, too, and said that she would see him tomorrow, as usual. He had not thought much of it, then. He had not of the reluctance with which she had said it, or the hurried nature of her departure after that. He had only thought of the eyes that reappeared in the windows after she had closed the door on him, and the quick disappearance of those eyes right after, as if they suddenly thought to hide from him.

Only now, staring at the few upward steps it took to get to the heavy wooden front door, did he think to ask himself why she had spoken to him the way she did.

Tightly gripping the straps of his backpack, he worked up the courage to walk up those few noisily creaking steps and rap the door knocker. Then, he waited. Waited and thought about the eyes he thought he had seen in the windows. Waited and peered at the peep hole fixed just above the door knocker, thinking that it looked like an eye. Waited and shifted his weight in such a way as to make the floorboard beneath him creak. Waited and tapped the fingers of his left hand against the seam of his backpack strap. Waited and blew a slow, quiet raspberry, his eyes darting around at the peep hole, and then at a section of the door post where he would have thought to affix a mezuzah. Mostly, he tried to ignore the unwanted warmth settling in his chest as he waited for someone, anyone, to answer the door.

Joseph bid his time until he could not take the warmth in his being anymore. Taking another look at the peep hole and thinking that it resembled an eye he had seen in the windows of Emilia’s home, he decided to turn around and just walk away. He would come back another day, he thought, when he could work up the courage to do so. Until then, he would have to settle for searching Emilia’s usual spots again and again, like a cat futilely sniffling around familiar bedsheets in search of its human companion.

#accepted #david mazouz #david mazouz fc #city rp #crime rp

[allisonilluminated]

The Seven Sins of Fanfiction

Hey all,

This blog is primarily focused on helping newer writers (and maybe some older ones) improve their fanfiction and increase their views.  Since that’s the case, it’s important to understand exactly what not to do when you’re writing.

These are the worst things you can do while you’re writing.  I can guarantee everyone reading this post has done at least three of them, and probably all in some shape of form.  This is the sort of thing that makes you want to click away immediately, that you cringe at when it’s in the first paragraph or laugh at how bad it is.  These things that make you stop reading other stories, just think about it for a moment.  What if fewer people are reading your own work because you’re making the same mistakes?

Yeah.  If you want to improve, you gotta know what you’re doing wrong.  Number Seven is the least worst, then the list descends to Number One, the worst thing you can do in fanfiction.

Note: This is a subjective list.  There are people who disagree with some of these points (especially the non-grammar ones), so it’s important to remember that these are the things I find most degrading to the quality of the story being written.  As a writer, you have the creative liberty to write whatever you want.

#7 – Bad Romance

“Wo-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o, o-o-ah, caught in a bad romance fanfiction but it’s the only 100k fic for my OTP so I’m like contractually obligated to read it.” - Lady Gaga, mostly

We’ve all been here.  You know that moment when two characters meet, then suddenly decide to kiss, and the next thing you know they’re screwing on the patio with some kinky ass BDSM shit.  What about those cringe fics where suddenly Harry is spouting some creepy possessive stuff like “my only” or “softest light of my life” to twelve year old Ginny.  You know what I’m talking about.

Good romance is an art.  It’s about flawed characters (later) coming together in a beautifully intimate way (later) to make something even more beautiful.  There is so much bad romance on FFN and AO3 that it just blows my mind.

Giving tips would take an entire post, so here’s a good article on the absolute basics you need to write a good romance: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/romance-writing-mistakes/

#6 – Bad Dialogue Tags

“No!” he howled.

“Yes,” she growled angrily.

She retorted snarkily, “Well, screw you.”

“Fuck you too,” he scowled sadly, before gratingly mumbling “I still love you though.”

Alternatively:

“No!” “Yes.”  “Well, screw you.”  “Fuck you too.  I still love you though.”

There’s a glorious word in this social construct we call English, and it’s “said.”  Use it.

You don’t need a fancy word for every tag.  You don’t need a fancy word for almost all tags.  Eighty percent of your tags should be said, exclaimed, and asked, and more of said than the others.  Maybe a whispered or a yelled for some flavor.

Adverbs are your enemies.  I struggle with this, but you should use them extremely sparingly.

On the flipside, if your reader doesn’t know who’s talking, your dialogue is meaningless to them.  Also, use line breaks every time there is a new speaker.

The trick is finding some happy medium between the two examples.  A handful of fancy tags, a lot of said, and if there are two people talking back and forth you don’t even need to tag every sentence.

#5 – Bad Messaging

I don’t want to put down an example for this one, because I think writers feel liberated to write some really awful shit in fanfiction because it’s “not a serious medium” or “it’s the internet, I have free speech.”  Let me say this right now:

Stories that make rape a positive thing are not okay.  Stories that portray suicide in a glorified light are not okay.  Stories that show slavery, or torture, or all of the other horrendous things human beings do to each other in a romanticized or glorified manner are not okay.

I don’t care if it’s your fetish.  I don’t care, it’s just not okay to write about these things in a positive light.  The only reason this is so high on this list is because these stories aren’t as common as the rest, and are mostly marked M/Explicit so you can avoid them.

#4 – Overdescription

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). [[I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow – My Immortal

Oh boy.

Writers, let me introduce you to this wonderful thing called your profile.  Assuming you aren’t drowning in copypastas, this is the perfect place for your character descriptions.  Alternatively, have you heard of Tumblr? Literally, stick them anywhere except the middle of your story, and I can guarantee you the readers that actually care will find them if you mention them in your A/N.

Show, don’t tell is one of the fundamental principles of writing. When you’re describing a character, you probably don’t need more than three adjectives and a one sentence description of their outfit. Yes, that applies even if your character has a special non canon outfit.  If we must know, work the details into the story. Info-dumping description is telling, and is one of the worst world building and characterization mistakes you can make.  Period.

#3 – Epithets

The blond girl walked to the door, and started as a burly man opened it.  “May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to get a consultation,” the graying businessman said as he ran a hand through his oily hair.

The youthful therapist nodded as she shut the door behind him. Rummaging on her desk, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“Well,” said the jaded economist to the buxom woman.  “This author thinks they’re being clever by not giving out names, but they’re ruining this story.”

The best way to get someone to leave your story is epithets.  

Epithets do not create mystery.  Epithets are not a good substitute for proper nouns.  Epithets will not make a clever opening, or add variety to your dialogue.

Epithets will ruin your story, and should not be used.

They come in varying degrees of horror.

The noun.  You might be able to get away with saying just “the woman” or “the child” under certain circumstances. This is almost an excusable offence.

The noun with one adjective.  This is already unacceptable. If you though you were going to solve Sin #4 by doing this, you’re digging yourself an even deeper hole.

The noun with one modified adjective.  Because they can’t just be sexy, they have to be shockingly sexy.

The noun with multiple adjectives.  This is automatically overdescription on top of being a horrible thing to subject another person to.

The noun followed by a relative clause.  Because there’s always a way to make it worse.  “The girl who was now holding his hand” is absolutely disgusting, and so is “The girl that was sitting across from her” or especially “the girl she knew had a chocolate bar somewhere in her pocket.

The noun followed by a relative clause with adjectives.  Put it together and what have you got?

Compound Epithets.  Oh. My.  God.  This deserves its own sin.  Even if your character has blue hair, you should never ever ever call them a bluenette.  Ever.  Ever ever ever. AAAAAAAAH!

The author has made her point.

#2 – Bad Grammar

I find bad grammar extremely agitating, mostly because there are a lot of great tools and easy fixes to solve the problems.  Most word processors have a built in spell checker, and a lot of them check for grammar as well.  If you need an alternative, grammarly.com has a good free version that’ll catch a lot of mistakes.  Of course, proofreading your work before posting is always a great idea.  Here’s a quick list of some of the most common grammar issues you should be on the lookout for:

A new paragraph for a new idea.

A new paragraph for a new speaker.

Dialogue formatting

Periods

Commas

Run on sentences

Using line breaks

Spelling

Capitalizing starts of sentences

Capitalizing proper nouns

Choosing CONSISTENT capitalization for canon terms (Pokemon vs pokemon, for example)

Repeated words.

Sentence fragments

Tense

#1 – Bad Characterization

“What?” you’re probably asking yourself right now.  “How is bad characterization possibly worse than poor grammar?  Than epithets?”

Allow me to explain.

When an author writes a story, a good story, they are creating characters who act like people.  They have wants, needs, hates, motives, and a concept of who they are, even if they’re only fictional.  The author gives them life, spirit, a spark that keeps you reading and wanting to learn more about them.

That sense of identity is what makes them real to us.  Why you binge a show on Netflix, or read a novel in one night.  Reading is a connection with these characters on a deeper level than you might realize, and this connection brings them to life.

Take that away, and your story is dead.

Your gray OOC Gary Stu overpowered Ravenclaw Harry who grew up with Snape and has a goblin half brother AU is not a story about Harry Potter.  It’s a story about an OC named Harry Potter, and Harry loses any integrity he had as a character in Rowling’s books.

That’s why there are fics with horrible grammar and massive following, alongside fics with incredible grammar and sentence construction but no followings.  Unless you maintain a basic level of your character’s identity, the essence of what makes them empathetic, you’re not writing about that character.  This is the worst sin, because even with all of the others in play, if there is good characterization you can still create an incredible story.

Just by fixing these seven problems, your fic can instantly jump from bad/meh to incredible in the way people perceive it.  Hopefully this list can help you determine things to either go back and revise or work on for future chapters.  When have you committed one of the seven sins?  What other sins do people make all the time in their writings?

Thank you to all of the amazing people who have followed, Allie

Support Me:  Fanfiction.net - Archives of our Own 

#fanfic #fanfiction #seven sins #writing

[kyanve]

Tocosar Delvaren, Plan-Ruining Lawful Good Assassin Extraordinaire

So the previous story of Toc probably gave a pretty good idea how much of a creep my old stalker was trying to be, even if it completely failed. He also was not very bright at following things that didn’t fit normal patterns, like grasping how a Lawful Good character functioned. And that led to the second time Tocosar Delvaren foiled his best laid plans. These plans, thankfully, were less fetish-fuel, and more just him trying to go for melodramatic angst. Toc didn't foil them by being Too Queer And Ace For His Bullshit this time, but by being too Lawful Good. It probably would’ve worked, too, if he’d thought more about the party composition and who he wanted to target.

So as mentioned before, Toc was an assassin build rogue. Toc was also Lawful Good. Toc’s background, before the party found them, was that Toc had worked for an organization that tried to protect the citizens of a city by dealing with threats with as little collateral damage as possible, which usually meant "Quick, fast, and the target doesn't see it coming". (I'm going to give old anime geeks a minute to get any Weiss Kreuz jokes out of their system.) Now, obviously, this is a position that could easily be abused, so there was a code and set of rules about valid targets; Toc had to either have enough evidence to be DAMN SURE the person was a threat to the general public, weak, and defenseless, or the target had to be in the act of threatening lives/etc., which did include a self-defense clause. Toc took their code incredibly seriously. Toc had ended up adventuring after getting sold out in political maneuvering by someone in power who was corrupt and didn't want to risk the city’s watchdogs coming after them, so this person framed Toc for some pretty serious crimes and got him shipped out, where he got grabbed by a powerful sorcerer intending to use him for experiments or something; the party bargained the sorcerer into handing Toc over, shortly before Toc ran into the magic trap mentioned in the first story. Toc was still incredibly committed to their ideals and code on sheer spite, reasoning that what'd happened just proved there was a need for people like him working to protect those who couldn't defend themselves, even if they were a little bit bitter and prone to sarcasm and being a little more cautious and suspicious of people's motives. It was generally known among the other players and rest of the party members in-character that Toc was actually the absolute hardest person in the party to provoke into violence and the safest one to be around. So the party comes into a town that’s having a string of brutal, horrifying, bloody murders that don't really follow rhyme or reason, committed by equally random townsfolk that just seemed to “go crazy” one day. (Look, if you think this guy was at all respectful of actual mental illness issues and how cringey that is, I’d like to redirect you to the first story and why Toc ended up turned into a fox to begin with.) With the main thrust of the party being good-aligned, naturally they hear about it and volunteer to help solve these horrifying killings and find out why they're happening. Not long after this starts, the DM starts passing notes. I found out later that everyone else got notes saying that nothing was going on and to disregard the note but not speak of it, while Toc was getting notes that various people around them seemed suspicious, and oh maybe that person was up to No Good, and this party member had been Acting Out lately. These notes got worse and worse in the Weird Suspicions category, with a list of “This person was around for this, maybe THEY'RE the mastermind” sort of things and encouragement toward violence. Every time, Toc would run down the mental list of what would be valid for someone to be a target, find a lack of anything that would work, and conclude that they needed to continue gathering evidence until they were sure they had their mark. The DM got increasingly frustrated as this plot progressed and turned into basically a very calm fantasy police procedural, with a weird lack of new killings while we were on the trail. Agreeing to not talk about the notes OOC did not mean there was any ban on IC conversation. After a particularly egregious case of Weird Murderous Intrusive Nonsense Thoughts, Toc turned to the (Chaotic Good) party cleric, and explained the entire litany of shit that'd been going on since they'd arrived, and that Toc suspected that it might be what'd happened to the people who turned murderer suddenly and “for no apparent reason”. The cleric did their own investigation with various detection spells, and the DM looked increasingly sour as yes, there was signs of outside influence because Brayden (the cleric) had VERY GOOD STATS for these checks and rolled very well with his spells. So we tracked the dark magics trying to manipulate Toc back to their source, finding signs of a small group worshiping an evil deity of slaughter and violence. Toc, knowing the evil priest had already gotten inroads to influence them, opted to wait in a secure location with one of the local guard while the party went in, in case the priest responsible tried to compromise them further. While waiting, as relayed by the GM, the Guard got antsy about being stuck with a Possible Murderer and attacked Toc; Toc struck back, and killed him, then realized after it'd been a very detailed illusion. The only way the priest of slaughter had been able to get Toc to compromise their code was a full sensory hijack illusion. The party managed to bring down the cult and get further proof of the manipulation, exhonerating the captured “killers” that were all alarmed, guilt-ridden, and confused as to why it'd seemed like a good idea; everyone in the party earned a decent reward, including Toc, who had been instrumental in identifying the problem. I spent a minute looking things up and checking, and announced that Toc’s share of the reward was going towards the local temple for a True Resurrection for the guard they’d been manipulating into killing. The DM stared at me. “Are you sure?” “Lawful. Good. Toc was manipulated into it, but that still makes Toc partly responsible, and Toc is going to set things right as fully as they can.” The townsfolk and the newly back from the dead guard expressed appreciation for the party’s efforts, and we moved on. Later, after game, the DM was sulking; he’d put a lot of work into planning that plot as a bloody psychological horror with the party getting set against each other. The entire rest of the party stared at him and tallied off their character’s alignments and occasional propensities for violence. Brayden was Chaotic Good and kind of reactive and didn't always think things through. Our mage was a Chaotic Good fire specialist prone to solving problems by burning things. We had a Chaotic Neutral aligned fighter who was often drunk and mostly just acted on impulse following the party because they got good loot and were a good gig. I just reminded him that Toc was Lawful Good with a strict code. After this tally, there was an almost in unison “AND YOU PICKED THE LAWFUL GOOD ONE WITH A CODE STRICTER THAN SOME PALADINS AND DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING?!” tangent from the other players. The DM sulked, and gave up on it, with occasional moments of mourning how “dramatic” it would have been if we'd cooperated; the rest of the party rolled their eyes. The campaign didn’t last very long after that, mostly due to the semester breaking for summer which meant we scattered to different places, and after that the whole “stalker” thing I'd mentioned came to a head which kind of killed involvement. If I sound casual about it, it’s been over ten years now away from him with some work at dealing with various rattles and trauma bits, so there’s a decent amount I can talk about fairly easily, and.... well, the D&D stories that he was involved in are often ridiculously dumb, whether he was DM’ing or a fellow player. Yes, I did have standards where there was never really any kind of relationship except in his head. Yes, he was often dumber than a box of rocks despite all of his pretentions of being “brilliant”. The group was wonderful and I’m still very attached to Toc, whose Gender was Honor and whose sexuality was Justice.

#d&d #tales from tabletop #tocosar delvaren #Too Lawful Good For That DM