Working with a big cast of characters: Okay. Which one of you fuckers is the real main character?

2024 resolutions:

1. write more

2. get even weirder

the post about fanfic writers updating despite wild life circumstances is funny and great, but to all the slow writers, the writers who can’t focus when life is happening a lot, or who simply like taking time off from writing: you’re doing amazing, fandom is not an obligation, and there are many people who prefer short fics, or who read slowly and are in no rush for updates.

happy normal fuckin day to everyone who doesnt celebrate christmas or rly any holidays today n tomorrow. hope you have an average day. hope its chill like any other

You know sometimes it’s hard to be in this fandom when one of its most popular and thirsted after characters shares a name with your dad

does anyone else randomly feel an intense love for their online friends.?? like yeah, you’re reblogging one of my posts, i love you.

Prompt 8dea - fae taking trans deadnames

That post about death note being "everyone's first anime" (untrue statement) made me curious and now I want to gather data for science

Can you reblog this and tell me where are you from and what was your starter anime?

hello hello! i love your character analysis(?) posts, and i would love to hear your thoughts on Avior 👀 /nf

alright im on the train home from uni so its rantin' time - this'll probably be a long one, so strap in theydies and gentlethems!

avior! avior. his first arc was incredibly interesting to me, as i'm a big fan of moral quandries. the idea of keeping a massive secret from a loved one for their safety is super compelling, doubly so if that secrecy is justified (looking at you, blake).

this guy is smart, which is refreshing. avior might be highly emotional (pin this for later), but he's a strategist by nature. unlike a lot of other characters (looking at you again, blake), avior is able (to a certain point) to put his own feelings and goals aside for the sake of others. however - as we'll get to later, avior also has a tendency to decide what people want for them, rather than asking. admittedly, he's usually right, but his execution almost always ends up making someone upset with him.

avior has a lot of flaws, but that's what makes him so interesting! i'd argue avior's biggest character flaw is his immaturity, with selfishness as a close second. he can be shockingly inconsiderate at times, especially if he believes he's doing it for the greater good. avior often hides behind his intellect as an excuse to be detached from things he deems unimportant. obviously he dials it up on purpose to keep starlight at arm's length, but his real feelings towards some of their less good ideas do start to show through from time to time.

on the other side of that coin, avior is very reactionary when it comes to things he does care about. he's a passionate person who regularly has to handle very strong emotions, and it shows. watching avior torture himself by keeping someone he loves at a distance by being a dick is - well, not fun, but it's very strong and entertaining character work.

i think these two things come to a head in the imperium. avior's desire to keep everything running smoothy clashes with his (for lack of a better term) humanity. we can see this in the way he is distrustful (and rightfully so) of the vampire hoardes showing up on the academy's doorstep, yet he goes ballistic at vega for suggesting that they're disposable soldiers who can be killed for resisting orders. i think it's pretty clear in both the prime and imperium timelines that avior is a pacifist, but is often forced into violence either directly or by proxy. imperium!avior has a lot of people relying on him, and he really wasn't built for that pressure.

as an aside, i think it's interesting to see how each character reacts to extreme stress. it was perfectly put in that one heritage tumblr post - your characters are geodes. to see what they're really made of, you need to break them. avior is very reactionary, so you might expect him to snap, but he crumbles. avior's prime universe breakdown is super interesting (which i know is a wild statement, but i'm making it through a purely analytical lens, so hear me out). he's 36 at time of writing, but that is staggeringly young compared to daemons who have been around since before the beginning of time. he doesn't know who he is yet. avior might resist it when questioned, but he wants - needs - guidance, and he knows that. i think avior struggles with impostor syndrome, especially in the imperium. he's nervous to move away from the security blanket that is the older daemons, and getting booted into a pocket dimension by blake has forced his hand.

let's talk about the finale, and start of arc 2! avior and starlight are dumped out on the street by ancient deathless gods. cool. the inversion starts. less cool. avior's first instinct is to investigate and report back to the chorus - his curiosity is back after being beaten out of him by spending 2 years completely isolated. he's horrified by the carnage, which is completely expected, but i also think speaks to how sheltered he is. obviously, everyone in the general area is caught off guard by what is essentially shades shooting fish in a barrel, but avior's revulsion is unique. he hasn't spent enough time in elegy to learn real damage control, let alone for a large number of people. david is a good contrast here - of course he wants to help individuals, but he recognises that his first priority should be the safety of as many people as possible. granted, it's his job, but even sam starts to coordinate muster points once he's caught onto the situation (and, admittedly, made sure vincent hasn't torn through a wall looking for lovely).

avior then presents his (*) memories of e'laetum and min'ara to the chorus, as well as calling them for backup at the inversion point, but they're unconvinced. we'll be here all day if i got into chorus politics here - but i think their hesitancy is, among other reasons, caused by avior's presentation of the information. he's panicking. insistant. desperate to get the chorus involved as quickly as possible to stop people from suffering. this is another of avior's flaws - he's a lot more human than he thinks.

you could chalk that up to his age and inexperience, but avior displays a level of empathy (ironically) and care for humans that a lot of other daemons do not. that's definitely not a bad thing, but avior seems to be completely unaware of this fact and thus leaves it unmeasured. i think avior might have had a chance of at least swaying the chorus if he had presented his evidence with logic and detachment. here's a screen recording of meeting e'laetum and min'ara and the information they gave, be it true or not. you can all feel mass casualties in the spellsong. shades are involved, and a lot of them, so the sovereigns are definitely up to something. avior is far too smart to not put the pieces together that this display of raw power by the sovereigns is a sign that their strength is returning. but, unfortunately, the chorus (specifically circinus) only see avior's emotions clouding his judgement, and dismiss him.

i'm worried that an extended period of being completely alone has stunted avior's emotional development, especially considering he never spent much time interacting with elegy in the first place. even someone like gavin (who chose to stay in elegy after years of mistreatment) responded to the inversion fairly rationally, considering he spent the entire time being agonisingly ripped apart at the seams. yes, they're different people, but gavin's exposure to people from fairly early in his life is definitely a contributing factor.

avior has a lot of potential directions for his character to go in, but i think the most likely one is his emotional regulation. he's too focused on the immediate future, which is a microscopic amount of time for a daemon that lives for an indefinite amount of time. he's childish. again, not a bad thing - but avior's inexperience and lack of emotional development have a strong effect on his behaviour. i hope he learns to recognise that before it bites him in the ass.

FIRST REDACTED LOGO DONE!!!

Damien is done! I’m gonna see about framing it in a hoop. Already started on the next one, guess whooooo 🌱🪨🌿

Cant wait to have the whole DAMN crew!

Some tips for using a few words to describe voices:

1. Tone Words: Use tone words to convey the emotional quality of a voice. For example, you can describe a voice as "melodic," "soothing," "sharp," "gentle," or "commanding" to give readers a sense of the tone.

2. Pitch and Range: Mention the pitch and range of the voice. Is it "deep," "high-pitched," "raspy," or "full-bodied"? This can provide insight into the character's age, gender, or emotional state.

3. Accent and Diction: Describe the character's accent or diction briefly to give a sense of their background or cultural influences. For instance, "British-accented," "Southern drawl," or "formal."

4. Volume: Mention the volume of the voice, whether it's "whispering," "booming," "murmuring," or "hushed."

5. Quality: Use terms like "velvet," "silken," "gravelly," "honeyed," or "crisp" to convey the texture or quality of the voice.

6. Rate of Speech: Describe how fast or slow the character speaks, using words like "rapid," "slurred," "measured," or "rambling."

7. Mood or Emotion: Indicate the mood or emotion carried by the voice. For example, a "quivering" voice may convey fear or anxiety, while a "warm" voice may express comfort and reassurance.

8. Resonance: Describe the resonance of the voice, such as "echoing," "nasal," "booming," or "tinny."

9. Timbre: Mention the timbre of the voice, using words like "rich," "thin," "clear," or "smoky."

10. Cadence: Highlight the rhythm or cadence of speech with descriptors like "staccato," "lilting," "rhythmic," or "halting."

11. Intonation: Convey the character's intonation by saying their voice is "sarcastic," "apologetic," "confident," or "questioning."

12. Vocal Characteristics: If applicable, mention unique vocal characteristics, like a "lisp," "stutter," "drawl," or "accented 'r'."

(this is lucem-stellarum. hi! sideblogs can't send asks unfortunately) for the kareoke night game - because you KNOW that boi is going more than once... what is Asher's 3rd kareoke song? whatever you think his music taste is, every time he will sing "hungry like the wolf" because of course he does

Oh my god this is so funny, before you even asked this I had the thought that Asher would definitely sing Hungry Like The Wolf, and David would be rolling his eyes like “he does this every time”

By Asher’s third karaoke song, he’s already sang that, and a Fall Out Boy song, I’m thinking Thnks fr th Mmrs.

By now he’s really getting silly with it and has busted out the Evanescence. He’s singing Bring Me To Life. Trying to sing both parts at once. To mixed, but hilarious results.

Send me a Redacted character and I’ll tell you their karaoke song!

I'm not 100% sold on this yet myself, but...

What if chronically-ill Guy?

This is the 2nd sick video he has. I'm sure it's more due to the fact that Guy is pretty close to Erik's natural voice, and he doesn't have to worry about adding things like the magical sound effects or multiple characters, things that would require a lot of effort on the back end, or weaving in complicated plot heavy elements when he's not feeling well. But... have we gotten sick videos for any other character? I appreciate Erik wanting to continue providing content for us, but there are so many other character options. It gives us an opportunity to explore character depth.

I know it's a bit of a running stereotype that chronically ill (assorted flavors) overlaps with neurodivergent (assorted flavors) overlaps with writing (as both hobby and profession) but... what if though? He's got the latter two, so why not the first too? While its not impossible that he has some sort of obvious physical impairment (such as amputation, or requiring a wheelchair), if it was meant to be canon from the get-go I feel like Asher or Gavin/FL would have made a specific mention of it when they interacted with him. I sincerely doubt that he'd pull a JKR-Dumbledore and be all 'it was toootally there it just wasn't relevant to the ~story~' after the fact. Erik is decently good about #representation, though he does have to balance it out with wanting to keep his characters as physically vague as possible so we as listeners can project our own mental expectations. But, neither writing nor pizza delivery are necessarily automatically overwhelmingly physically demanding (plus, amputees/wc users absolutely can drive with proper assistive devices) so that doesn't automatically exclude invisible conditions either.

I'd have to do a bit more research before I decide if I want to hc a specific condition, of course. Especially if it's something I don't have myself. There are a couple qualities I have in mind, some criteria that I think would make sense with what we know about him. I also have do decide if there's any expectations I'd want to subvert with this. Like, I don't think something like celiac's or Crohn's disease makes sense because he works in a pizza shop, and seems to voluntarily eat that kind of food frequently. He's also super chaotic and high-energy just... all the time, even when he's sick, so something mental and depression-adjacent also doesn't sound quite right (with the caveat that ADHD and depression can coexist in ways that seem incompatible at first glance). I'm kind of vibing with something (or a treatment for something, like steroids treating eczema or COPD) that leaves him at least a little bit immunocompromised, because he seems to be frequently sick whereas Honey doesn't seem to catch it even though they're both worried it's contagious. I don't want to say anyone else's headcanon is invalid, but I'm still in the process of integrating this idea into my brain so I'm open to suggestions. I'm not afraid of ignoring minor canon details when it suits me, if there's something that would otherwise fit him perfectly.

Does anyone else have any specific ideas? Thoughts? Added dimensions that I'm missing out on or things I haven't considered yet?

Y'all like I'm not gonna be that person at work asking if they had a brother or something with a specific first name but ngl I did have to double take when I learned the new girl's last name was Jessup

The jokes are embedded in my mind and I sincerely hope none of the flashbacks showed on my face

reblog for larger sample size :)