ok hold on. Ok guys hang on wait listen hear me out. Ok listen guys hang on, wait, wait -- guys wait listen to me
actually I don't really have a way to explain myself here . Yes I turned the pizza guys into animals I'm sorry. You don't understand i'm having a moment here, this has been driving me insane for days
I CAN explain my design choices however
Pizzahead - fox - I think "triangle head," my brain goes immediately to fox. Foxes just got that Shape, yknow? I almost went for a hyena for funny laugh, but outside of hyenas having a bit too stocky of a build (and not quite the tail I wanted), I figured foxes also make silly little noises so hey. Whatever
Peppino - tasmanian devil - You already know why .I mean come on. But also the color scheme worked out rather nice, with the white patch being his 'shirt'
Gustavo - little owl - I wanted him to be small and relatively round but also some creachure that has a natural rivalry with rats/mice. I could have gone with cat, but decided Nahhh and went with funny little owl instead. Brick meanwhile is still a rat because I think that's funny
Pepperman - capybara - Ok listen. He looks awful here. He looks downright terrible. But also I want to keep him that way.
The stem does not help but without it he looked bald .
Anyway I had a rodent theme going for the tower gang initially, and even if that changed as Noise became a rabbit, I still liked Pepperman being a big fucking capybara because I think it's Silly. Also because capys are one of the few rodents that come in a reddish color in certain lights. So
Vigilante - guinea pig - He is small. He can tuck his legs in under himself and look like he's got none. He's not threatening in the slightest. The most he can do is squeak really loudly at you. And I think he should stay that way. He is a leftover from the tower gang having a rodent theme
Also look up guinea pigs wearing cowboy hats. you will not be disappointed
Noise (and Noisette) - rabbit - Ok everyone listen. I know it's a popular thing to turn this man into a rat, and I'm totally on board and I agree, and I originally had him as a rat, however. It created a sorta Pluto and Goofy thing between him and Brick, which would be funny and fitting, but I just didn't vibe with it. Plus that one comic with Pepperman calling Noisette's hats "rabbit ears" has stuck in my head like some sort of parasite and I can't get rid of it
Fake Peppino - he is just peppino but his anatomy is fucked up and he's goopy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gerome - cat - there is no intrinsic value or reason for this I just wanted to turn him into a small cat
Mr. Stick - heron - It was beamed into my mind like a prophecy. Tall lanky ass bird (to fit with Gustavo also being a bird) with big long beak. what else could you ask for
anyway. um. Yes. Sorry . I can't really explain myself for this one outside of that . yea. ok. bye
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so i've been curious about this for a while: how exactly does the black familly specialty work? i assume that we'll get more into it later on, but i'm impatient lol
OKAY SO
you are correct that we will get into it more later - it's going to be a huuuuuuuuge plot point/plot arc?/plot thing, you know, so you will get many opportunities to ask for more details!
this isn't really spoilers but i'm going to put it under a cut anyway, because...... idk the vibes are correct. it's like, not really spoilers, in the sense that it's stuff people MIGHT have put together already, but i doubt most people have, so it's connecting some dots fairly early on. no big spoilers though so definitely not worthy of the spoiler tag
oh and some content warnings: part of the black specialty involves blood magic, so there will be references to self harm (a little more intense than what's in set those ghosts alight, for example, but not much more)
we already have our cereal metaphor for how an affinity for the black family specialty works. suddenly, you're wielding more magic than the average magic-wielder. you just have the additional capacity for it. like a family size cereal box? idk maybe i'm trying to push the cereal metaphor too far lmao
BUT that's just the affinity. that's not the actual practice of the specialty (which in and of itself strengthens an individual's affinity as well, like building up muscles). if you have the affinity, you have a greater capacity for magic - like, it flows through you easily. if you're using the specialty, you're *actively* drawing in and using that magic, and it has more dramatic results than just having the affinity and vibing
so, how does it work? in a word, RUNES! regulus says as much way back in chapter 5. but naturally it's a little more complicated than that lmao
the longer explanation is that since the black specialty involves drawing the magic into your body, the runes go on your body to tell the magic what to do. placement matters - the safest locations are basically as far away from your vital organs as possible. (your non-dominant wrist is a great choice for both convenience and safety reasons. plus if you dress the way regulus does, it's very easy to hide evidence of practicing highly illegal dark arts under your tightly buttoned cuffs!)
by placing it in the extremities, you slow down the rate at which the magic reaches your core - this is good because it gives your body the maximum time to adjust to having that extra influx of magic before you use it.
now, what about the runes themselves? sometimes they shape the magic for a particular purpose. more often, they have to do with the influx of magic itself - you don't want to just throw open a massive channel, you want to keep it very narrow and basically ensure that you're bringing in the minimum amount of magic that you need. so the runes control the rate at which the magic enters your body, and also how actively you're pulling that magic in (there's a spectrum from 'totally passive', aka not using the specialty, to 'grabby hands').
the safest rune chains are pretty complicated, so the black specialty (in its least dangerous form) takes a lot of prep time - i mean, the phrase 'a lot' is relative, but you almost certainly wouldn't catch someone scrawling runes on their arm in the middle of a battle. (they might do it before the battle, though, if they know it's coming)
okay, now on to methods. as i said, the runes go on your body. there are a few different ways of doing that (and here's where the references to self harm come in). here they are, ranked from least to most effective:
tracing them on with a wand
writing them with ink
writing them with your own blood (using someone else's doesn't really work as intended)
tattooing them on (bad idea)
carving them in (even worse idea)
as you might be able to tell, the more effective ones also tend to be the ones that leave more lasting effects and/or the ones that involve using your blood. the reason that carving the runes in is more effective than tattooing is because the user is literally opening themself up to the magic - this is NOT GOOD because that means the magic is going to pour in much, much faster.
as for tattoos, they're not a good idea because they last. temporary is safer.
tracing the runes on with a wand is very brief - it just lasts for a few seconds, maybe up to a minute depending on the runes you use. writing the runes on with ink lasts until the ink is too smeared/faded to actually represent those runes, at which point the channel closes. writing them with blood works the same way, but because you're using your blood instead of ink, the magic comes in faster
and where does that magic come from, you ask? great question! it's ambient magic - they pull from the air just around them, basically, and more magic rushes in to fill the gap. it's easier to use the specialty in a highly magical atmosphere - old magical buildings, like any of the blacks' estates, or hogwarts, are a good choice. (i say they're a good choice because if you are sensible, you will note the highly magical atmosphere and be VERY RESTRAINED in your choice of rune chains, and you will get the bare minimum you need quite easily, and then you will be done because you know your limits)
there are ways to pull magic from something/someone that is innately magical, but the blacks generally avoid doing that because that's the sort of thing that tends to get them Noticed (in a bad way). oddly enough, people notice when they have magic and then are drained of it - and the thing about being a magical being is that when your magic is taken away from you, it does not do good things for your health
plus, you thought drawing from ambient magic was intense? drawing from an actual magical thing/being is even more so - and, as we've established, that's bad for the user's health!
ok, moving on to clarifying all this ominous stuff i've been saying about health problems. aka: IT'S BLACK FAMILY MADNESS TIME BABEYYYY
the black family madness is a development from like... the last 500 years. before then, they just died young. they still do, by wizarding standards - it depends a lot on the person, but there has been more than one rumor about the blacks poisoning each other because they tend to die young and sometimes it's very sudden and medically inexplicable (because the blacks sure don't want to explain why and how it happened)
the key there is that humans are not meant to withstand that much magic. everyone has their capacity - someone with an affinity for the black family specialty has a higher capacity than someone without. the more someone uses the specialty, the more damage it's doing, in essence. in the first several centuries of the blacks using this magic, their affinity wasn't very strongly developed, and as a result, people who used the specialty a lot tended to die from magical overload before there were any noticeable mental effects
the stronger your affinity, the more magic you can handle, but basically what it does is it puts the negative effects into slow motion. you can get away with using more of the specialty without experiencing ill effects, but you're not immune, and if you go over your limit (acknowledging that your limit is higher than other people's), it's going to harm you
so how do you find your limit? uhhhh. in an ideal world, you don't. there's no safe way to actually test it, or at least nobody's found one (the family is perpetually doing more research) - the best thing to do is just minimize your use of the specialty and take long breaks in between uses
so birl, you say, this all sounds lowkey horrible. i don't want extra cereal if this is the price i have to pay. why have the blacks been developing this specialty for a millennium?
answer: first of all, the blacks, as a family, are really bad at giving up. second of all, having all that extra magic is a huge fucking flex. third of all, they didn't really connect the specialty to the early death/madness until after a few generations had gone by and by then the affinity was already strengthening and they were getting better at handling it, so they figured they'd just continue to get better at it. which is the truth!
fourth of all, you *can* recover from the madness - what you need is to notice it early and stop using the family magic entirely until you're 200% recovered, and after that, be veeeeery judicious about when and how you use it, because the madness creeps in more easily after the first time
if you're a family that prides itself on its long history, pure blood, and therefore on its loooong line of magical ancestors, wouldn't you want definitive proof that actually, you are better at magic and more suited to using magic than literally everyone else?
and regulus and sirius are the most recent generation of this family, with double-strength affinities for this magic. every new generation of the black family is better suited to the family specialty than every generation that has come before, but regulus and sirius take it to a new level (thanks incest). let's hope it works out for them!
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>> oc tarot quiz
was tagged by @aartyom to take this test for my ocs, thank you so much!! tagging @coffeebucko, @awful-roffle, @quinndecker214, @bluemojave , @henbased, @coyote-skull, @dieselsardine, @radioactiveshitstorm, @turbo-virgins, @necro-hamster and anyone else who wants to do this :D <3
the hermit
it’s a skill, to look inside yourself, one you have mastered. the endless corridors and shifting thoughts are mapped to very carefully. this all takes time, of course. and those twisting hallways are so very difficult to map. it would be so easy to get lost. you know this space so well. wouldn’t it be a lovely place to stay? so well-known and comforting. why go back? how nice, how easy, to dissolve, to hide from the rest of the world and all the people in it. why bother, when you are so good at looking inside yourself. like enlightenment, the self. retreating this far inwards is like retreating just as far out, into the vast ether. so comforting. the thing that was you looks at the thing that was the old woman. there is no you anymore. goodbye
attempt 1 - death
a cheery woman’s voice chimes from above. "game over! please restart and try again." the old woman holds a baby in her arms and makes to pass it to you. will you take it?
attempt 2 - justice
what would you do to ensure justice? you know full well i don’t speak of lofty ideals and courts and magistrates, dearest. what would you do to those that hurt you? if i dropped them in your lap, what would you do? what kind of pain could you possibly inflict upon them? you are right to do so. you are right to want to do so. ignore the screaming, dearest, you are the hand of justice now, and they hurt you. do not look too closely at their faces, dearest. you are within your rights. you spell out your own rights, now. are you happy about it? are you certain that this is the right person you hold by the hair? does your anger hurt less now?
the moon
you avoid corners and doorways - do you know why? have you looked inwards recently? do you understand what is happening there? your mind is muddled and dusty, a mirror you haven’t been able to clean properly. smudging the nervousness just leaves streaks on the glass, which makes your face harder to see, which makes you nervous. what are you nervous of, darling? what keeps you up at night? why haven’t you confronted it? do you know what it is? can you answer my questions? are they making you nervous? am i frightening you?
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