Stardew Valley picrew-like character creator [xxx]

stolen from @leondxs (hey thanks!) tagging... everyone who wants to do it!

If I had a stardew valley verse for Piter he'd be like this big time JojaMart guy from Corporate, & Vladimir Harkonnen would be the CEO. The JojaMart in the game would be a brand new store that...

Ok back up. So Leto Atreides is the CEO of a rival company, and they have branding like they care about the environment and they're fair to workers and all that, like their branding hinges on an image of being an ethical and friendly corporation with values. And so Leto's general goods store showed up in Pelican Town kiiinda recently, & Leto's people did some really careful and thoughtful outreach with the locals. They're not here to take business away from anybody, they just want to expand as a company and help people in a rural area have access to more products and provide more jobs etc. etc. etc. And everyone's like. Ok I guess. This is tolerable.

And then Vladimir swoops in and buys up Leto's operation and turns it into a JojaMart, bc fuck that guy. Just like in Dune yeah. And Piter doesn't live in Pelican Town or run the JojaMart or anything like that, but Vladimir sends him out there any time he wants to scare people. So he'll hover and inspect the store and walk around with a little clipboard & tell people to follow impossible deadlines, & when he's not doing that he's getting barked at by dogs and bitten by bugs & stepping in cow poop & generally hating The Countryside and all the ways it's Not a City. Villain from a Christmas movie behavior.

But he also genuinely hates his own job & his own boss, & he's a mean & bitter & lonely guy, & if another character catches him in a talkative mood (which is always but like, an emotionally vulnerable and talkative mood) he'll tell them all about how miserable he is & how he chose a career for money & it never made him happy. I don't think he can be properly rescued or recruited, but he will for sure tell you how sad he is, given the right opportunity.

GET TO KNOW YOUR ADMIN !!

name — garlic / hsah

pronouns — she/he/they

preferred comms — mostly dms thanks, maaaaybe discord

name of muse — Fivemind, Chirptune, Antares

experience in RP — started when I was like 15? 16? that's like more than a decade now that i think of it. started off on the gaiaonline forums and then took a long break from it until I got back into it on tumblr. It's been on and off since then.

best experiences — honestly I'm mostly having a good time here, but shout-out to @pzfr for the fun hero shenanigans and , of course, the dodostep saga. Also shout out to @outofthiisworld and @fluxofthemouth who are tons of fun to write and plot with! Also this private discord rp I got going on with a bud who's not even in the tumblr rpc lol

pet peeves/dealbreakers — hmmm...hmmm. I'm kinda real lenient actually or at least I can't really think of anything off the top of my head until it actually happens. I know 'no godmodding' is like a rule page cliche at this point but it does happen... Especially if they get my character wrong...

muse preference ( fluff, angst, smut ) — variety's good ! love to put my funny fellas in Situations but also love to have them hang out with other people's fellas and get groceries or something. I'm generally on the silly side but I do enjoy dramatic tension and mystery and maybe some horror elements :3

plot or memes — memes are a good start and then we can plot from there! plotting straight away's cool too but I personally go by memes reblogged by the other person first because at least that gives me an idea of what they might want

long or short replies — yes to both ! will admit I can get burned out fast if I dont have threads with shorter replies in between. and really it depends on what we're trying to do here.

best time to write — after a quick rest or nap once I'm home from work. Or the weekends. Mostly weekends tbh since then I can be in an rp mood while my mutuals are active. Unfortunately, a lot of my mutuals' peak activity hours are also during sleep and work hours for me ...

are you like your muse?: damn... i sure hope not ! I kid of course. I mean, most people channel some part of themselves (not necessarily personality but yknow) into their main muses and I'm no different. And I mean,,, I'm a super sentai fan writing a super sentai fan of a muse ...I have never been subtle in my life

tagged by: @pzfr

tagging : uhhhhh @schattenmagier , @the-haunted-office , @rage-reloaded , @the27percent , @mechahero and whoever else was tagged in the question above and whoever else that wants to do this

GET TO KNOW THE MUN

NAME?: Lella (not my rl name tho, obv)

PRONOUNS?: she/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION?: I usually like discord better..... buuuuuut lately I've been having a hard time being online sooo.... it will likely be better to reach me through tumblr chat for now

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: Axis, Basille, Li Hua

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: 13y? or so?

BEST EXPERIENCE? I do have a bunch of threads like that rn that touch my soul in unspeakable ways, they get me eager to see more and more <3. Some more specific and old muses come to mind tho, as they were remarkable experiences in general: my babies, Dammion and Lee. Both had a fantastic range, they were very difficult muses to deal with, and this was never, ever, ignored within their threads. They belonged to different closed rp groups, and I LOVED how even though they were generally challenging and hateful guys, the OOC community was so nice and accepting of me lol. It was a really fun experience and I'm proud to say how consistent I felt while writing them! tbh Lee is still on my muse's list, though it's a 'nerfed' version of him.

RP PET PEEVES?: over-formatted replies. random porn/personal/bots following me.

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT? fluff and angst mostly, i've been having a hard time writing smut lately.

PLOTS OR MEMES?: i used to go with 'plot', but now I do think memes allow more freedom and spontaneity. I'll go with brainstorming sometimes tho

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: depend on the plot and situation? but I love to give and receive exciting things to work with (or at least I hope I do that lol). I'll go with whatever works best with the situation

TIME TO WRITE?: ngl, 2024 has been........ slow. I was supposed to get something done this weekend, but I had the THIRD (!!!!) food poisoning of the year and had to postpone the second part of that surgery, and I'm feeling so out of energy

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: I do have at least one thing in common with each one of them

tagged by: @elysiumxii (thanks sm <2 love ya!!)

tagging: @exsanguinatc @elpida @rowan-revelry @saudadexmses @fcrtheglcry @corbcro @fluxofthemouth anyone who wants to do it!

🔹 Verse Info/Wanted Plot Info - Quiet Little World

"You're joking." ... "Nobody noticed I was missing or came back for me?" ... "Well... no, it's okay... well, then, I suppose I'll just take the next flight out. It's okay. Anything heading for Arrakis or Kaitain, I can find my way from there. When does the next heighliner come in, please?" ... "You're joking!!" ... "No, I know this is a quiet little world, but I didn't think... really? Every six months! How do you live like that?" ... "No, that was rude of me, I'm sorry." ... "No, you're right, and I do apologize. Anyways, who can I talk to if I wanted to arrange something sooner? I have, ohhh, I have deep pockets, ha ha. Easily deep enough to coax a heighliner back. I wouldn't have brought it up if I thought I'd be wasting anyone's time... excuse me?" ... "No, right, but I need to get back to Giedi Prime. Within a week at the longest. I'm Piter de Vries, chief strategist of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Your little six month news cycle might have missed some of it, and I don't always see as much credit as I'd like, but I've been directly responsible for a few headlines the Harkonnens have made over the past few years, such as..." ... "No, yes, okay, that was rude, yes. I'm so sorry. It's beautiful here. It looks like a fine place to live. If I didn't have to be somewhere, i would want to live here. I'm sorry." ... "Of course. But who can I talk to, to arrange an earlier flight? I have to get back to Giedi Prime." ... "Yes, I understand, but like I said, I'm comfortably prepared to pay a lot extra for their trouble. I'm looking to create an opportunity beyond what's offered to the public, mm hmm, is there someone I could talk to in order to -" ... "No, okay, yes, but I really need to get back, so if you would just -" ... "Yes, of course, I understand. You're completely right. I'm sorry. Can I please speak to -" The spaceport desk eventually does get him connected with someone who's above them, in the form of a friendly law enforcement officer. They are very helpful in showing Piter where the exits to the spaceport are located. And he does leave, with a ticket for Giedi Prime that will be no use to him until six months from now.

He sits down, dizzily, on a park bench, with his suitcase and its two days' worth of necessities.

What now?

Maybe the Harkonnens will send for him. Maybe he'll find another way to get in contact with the Spacing Guild.

Or maybe he'll be living on this planet for the next six months.

How bad would it be? The lack of access to spice won't kill him. Rationing it won't be fun, but he always carries around a lot more than he needs. He supposes he can get a car and a house on a little world like this for less than what the Spacing Guild would have wanted for sending the heighliner. Which he can then go on to sell to someone else before he leaves. But what will he do with all of the time?

He sighs deeply; a drawn-out, piteous groan; and gets up off the bench. There's a lot to do, and he'd best get moving.

interest check for a sci-fi horror themed group thread on discord!! Open to non-mutuals & also to ppl I already have threads with. It could be fun to come up with a role for our character in this situation & throw it all together and see what happens, as like a big indie thread with multiple writers. Let's write something scary!

The setting :

In a generic sci-fi setting that can incorporate elements and aliens from lots of established science fiction (or even fantasy!) franchises (Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.), there is a planet nicknamed 'Wolfhound.' Unruly snarls of gray vines, grasses, and vegetation cover many of its habitable regions, like a dog's thick fur. Most of the light that reaches Wolfhound from its star is in the infrared region, below the visible spectrum a human can see. Because of this, the planet's lifeforms look dull and dark, though they would surely look much more vivid and colorful when viewed by a being who can comprehend their proper color spectrum. Whenever there is a patch of color that humans can see, that color is usually red.

There have been several attempts to build settlements on Wolfhound. These attempts have generally ended badly, sometimes in mysterious ways. This has led to an abundance of chilling rumors. Perhaps the planet is home to unknown dangerous predatory animals. Perhaps the planet is home to a mysterious disease or fungus that humans have no defense against. Behind the blurred fact and fiction of a hundred murky stories lies a somber truth: some of the alien life on Wolfhound is definitely threatening to humans. There are few remaining active settlements on Wolfhound. There are sites of failed settlements here and there, which could be looted or used as shelter.

Wolfhound would have been a valuable planet to settle because it sits at a convenient location along trade routes. When dealing with the planet's environment proved dangerous and scary, enterprising agencies looked to Wolfhound's single dusty brown moon, nicknamed Whippet. Over the years, Whippet has become the interstellar resting and refueling hub (and occasional mining site) that Wolfhound refused to be. About half of the moon's entire surface is covered in human activity: safety, friendliness, and twinkling lights.

The story so far:

A large conflict between starships has just ended, with massive casualties on both sides. The conflict happened close to Wolfhound and Whippet. Anyone who survived the conflict now desperately needs to land on the planet or its moon before their escape pod or damaged starcraft runs out of power and can't provide life support anymore.

If you're writing a muse who was present in the space battle, where do they land, the cursed planet or the relatively safe moon? Do they expect anyone to come looking for them? Is there anyone they need to go looking for?

How willing is your muse to cooperate with former enemies to work towards the survival of the ones who were stranded on the dangerous planet?

If you're writing a muse who wasn't present in the space battle, what is their role? Are you writing a rich explorer who has set out to discover the secrets of Wolfhound? A kind first responder from Whippet? Some kind of zombie or Creature on Wolfhound?

Interest check!! 'Like' this post & I'll get back to you. If this looks fun but your muse isn't quite a sci fi muse, imagine them into a sci fi AU & you're all set. Please take a look at my rules and about page if we haven't written together yet. If multiple people join the thread, read their rules/about before writing any IC interactions. I think I'll write my guy from Dune as a survivor of the conflict who landed on Wolfhound and wants to be rescued by the inevitable search parties from Whippet.

Open to: 18+ muses

Plot: Whether they know it or not, your muse is a political target of value in a science fiction or fantasy setting (does not have to be the Dune setting). One night, they meet an assassin who’s going through a mid-life crisis. Could lead to enemies, allies of circumstance, or even friends. Not looking for a romance angle. Crossovers welcome!

Made with legacy editor.

“Psst! Wake up! I was sent here to kill you - yes, yes, it’s not important - sent here to kill you, and I just wanted to inquire about whether you’d consider making me a counteroffer? If you call for help, I’ll finish this and save my offer for the next poor wretch, don’t test me - listen, my job is terrible, just awful, and I thought perhaps demonstrating the skill it requires to get in here tonight could recommend me for - HEY! I’m serious! - Oh, but it doesn’t matter. Truth is, I’m rather desperate right now. I'd basically take anything. As long as I can be sure of protection from the organization I work for at present, I’d even -”

He sighs deeply and shakes his head. “You’re right. I keep doing this. I’m always talking over everybody. Would you like to talk? Why don’t you talk. Don’t call for help, though.”

@indiestarter​

Suddenly, he sees what the paper is, and he drops it as if it had bitten him. But alongside the fear now signposted across his features is a kind of giddy delight.

"I never touched this!" Piter exclaims, putting both hands to his mouth excitedly. Curiosity overwhelms caution, and he soon picks it up again to study it properly: a copy of a political cartoon depicting the Princess Irulan as Claire from the Nutcracker Ballet, fighting back against a blue-eyed Rat King who could only be the Emperor Paul Muad'dib (Paul the desert mouse).

It's so good. And the artist could die for this, if caught. And the House Corrino sympathizers who have evidently been passing it around could die for treasuring it. What a bold thing to do! What an absolutely delicious piece of gossip. What a delectable slice of forbidden fruit. That's really, really funny!

"Where did you get this?" Piter asks, putting the paper back down on the table between them. He asks so casually, but the answer is probably for sale. And even as he asks, his mind is working quickly along the familiar grooves of his Mentat training. An Old Earth reference suggests a well-educated artist and audience. The art style betrays subtle inspiration from entertainment media local to Kaitain and nearby worlds. Oh, how the feathers of the old guard ruffle!

I'm sure I've posted about this before, but it's on my mind again.

In a Lord of the Rings verse, Piter not only replaces Wormtongue and carries out Wormtongue's role in the story, but the reason he's an agent of Saruman in the first place is that he's one of the two mysterious blue wizards you never hear about. Saruman is the leader of the wizards, so of course he can tell the blue wizards what to do, send them on missions, expect their loyalty, etc.

Lord of the Rings has some pretty heavy-handed and somber addiction metaphors that come from a soldier's perspective on veterans' post-war PTSD. Drinking and smoking in Middle Earth is generally portrayed as a safe gentleman's passtime or an ordinary part of life. But there are magic influences out there in the world that threaten to warp and destroy you and make you a shell of your former self. Gollum and the ring, Denethor and the palantir, Theoden and Saruman's corruption, and so on.

Dune takes a different approach. Frank doesn't downplay that addiction is dangerous, but he'll also write about addictive substances more casually. Like, here's a thing that's in the world. And he won't cloak addiction in the kind of magic and mystery a fantasy story needs look at something horrifying or shameful at an angle, to make it more bearable to talk about. He'll just invent fictional drugs right out there in the open. The horror stories exist alongside the mundane stories. Compare sapho juice to coffee; an everyday addictive drug that can stain your mouth but won't turn anybody into a Gollum and might even make you more productive at work for your trouble. Is it good or bad? Do people still drink it? Next to Dune, the Lord of the Rings has the intensity of an anti-smoking campaign.

In order to translate this character effectively, I think Piter as the blue wizard should have a cursed artifact that he has a disturbing magic-fueled obsession with, because he is in a Lord of the Rings setting and that setting only talks about addiction through metaphors with magic. But he's still a Dune character, so this is simply a thing that happens. It's even probably bad for him overall, but that's also his problem. It can be bad for him without quite being a warning or a horror story for the audience. For consistency, the artifact works a lot like spice. Piter looks a little younger and more vital than he 'should' for his age, and sometimes he can see snippets into the future. He's got his strange blue eyes like from Dune, & sometimes it's like he isn't quite all 'there.' He would try to murder anyone who tried to take the artifact from him, though, with a very Gollum-like intensity. And he's had it long enough that if anyone actually did take it from him, yeah, he'd probably die.

As with Gandalf, the scope of what Piter can actually 'do' as a wizard is murky and undefined. He kind of sucks as a wizard compared to Gandalf and Saruman and Radagast, so he might make use of down-to-earth methods such as sneaking, stabbing, and poisoning. The wizard thing helps him make really good poisons, I bet! Maybe the other blue wizard is blue like the blue of the ocean, and Piter is blue like the blue of the sky. Maybe his specialty is divination, looking for the future in the stars, and maybe that's what he sought out his cursed artifact to augment.

Maybe his role as Saruman's henchman started to form when he tried to tell the other wizards about visions of a dark and terrible future threatening the land. And it's not that they didn't believe him, they just got bored with how depressed he seemed about it all the time (and how are you supposed to handle constantly being plugged into a doom and gloom news cycle?). And Saruman was the one who was like, hey, I like your visions though.

He is also really good at math, and he likes to keep up to date with advances in the field made by monks or scholars or whoever it is in LOTR who's doing math. It has no direct practical benefit to him, and no influence on the plot. He just likes it. The artifact showed him a vision one time that someday math will rival magic, but he knows by now not to share the weird ones with anybody.

Another good thing about having a dune messiah verse is that the questionably moral emperor at the center of Arrakeen's rise to importance doesn't have to be Paul. If the other mun has a death note character, maybe it's Light Yagami. If the other mun has a disney character, maybe it's Kuzco. I would love to write an off-the-wall crossover that actually totally works.

The cafe has a big chalkboard on one wall. About a third of the space is taken up with a seasonal drawing and a reminder to check out some limited time menu options.

The guy came here around noon on a lunch break. Two hours later, his food is half-eaten and cold, and he's just about filled up another third of the chalkboard space with math. He isn't necessarily bothering anyone, but the trance-like obsession he's directing towards his calculation has an unsettling quality to it, and no one is sitting at any of the tables nearby. Sometimes his fixation flares with real anger, and he goes back and fixes symbols he's written previously with moody slashes of chalk. More often, though, he just looks tired, and might mutter things like, "but why doesn't it match the prediction," or, "but that can't be right," as he painstakingly re-checks everything on the board, as well as several sheets of handwritten notes.

He's as surprised as anyone else in the cafe when someone actually approaches him to ask what he's doing. He stares back at them for a moment. When he decides he can't detect a high level of malice in the question, he seems to also suddenly notice his surroundings, as if he'd been set here by unknown means just now.

"What time is it, please?" he responds, politely.

I started typing up info for a canon divergent Dune Messiah verse, where Piter survives book 1, quits his job anyway, moves to Arrakis, and becomes an information broker and hotel owner and general scammer of wide-eyed pilgrims. The post was getting really long so idk when the full details will be ready. But anyways! I wanted to have a verse on hand where I could easily interact with characters who fit best into the Dune Messiah timeframe, and I'd done enough ghola plots already to want something new besides that. So I'm posting this now to say that the verse is open for plots!

“What do I do?” His pleasant, curious, conversational persona deflates abruptly as the topic switches from the other person’s job to his. “Oh, what most people do... suffer and get paid, no?" He tries to rescue the moment. He's sure there's useful intelligence to be gleaned from asking his target the right questions. "...Which is why I find your career all the more fascinating! How did you get into it, anyway? You're so lucky!"

Open ( @indiestarter )

Open to 18+ muses

Made using the beta editor

Plot: In a world of feuding nobles (could be fantasy or sci-fi, does not have to be related to the Dune setting), Family A's faction has a long-standing and well-deserved grudge against Family B's villain faction. Your muse is an important member of Family A's faction (they could be an actual member of Family A, or they could be a trusted member of A's court). Several years ago, your muse survived an assassination attempt from the evil Family B. The assassin was never caught.

Currently, Family A has recently been through a crisis: Family C has swooped in out of nowhere and has completely taken over Family A's territory! The survivors were forced to scatter and try to regroup. Enough of the nobles have survived that retaking their territory could be possible someday, but they are currently at a huge disadvantage. Your muse has just returned to Family A's old territory, now held by Family C, in secret. They have taken on a false identity as an apprentice landscaper. Family C had allowed Family A's landscaper to stay on and work for them, and the landscaper secretly retains strong loyalties to Family A. The plan is for your muse to use their apprentice landscaper position to get closer to Family C and enact revenge.

However. The experienced landscaper is not done scheming against Family C. And they do not feel particularly compelled to take orders from your muse just for old times' sake. Shortly after your muse arrives, their new boss introduces them to another new apprentice: the very same assassin from Family B who tried to kill them years earlier! Oh, and the two of you are like. Actually expected to do yard work.

"What! What! Oh, but I know you!" the other "apprentice" exclaims. "I know you!" He looks genuinely happy to see the other, and he looks from them to the head landscaper with a kind of giddy social amazement that wouldn't look out of place on a golden retriever.

"You sly old fox!" he says gratefully to the head landscaper, reaching out to shake their hand. "You really have been planning something grand, eh? I knew I would not want to miss out on the job you described to me, but you even brought... this is just so much better than I expected!"

He turns back to the one he greeted like an old friend. "When we last met, the circumstances were... please understand it was just business, it was all just business!" He holds out his hand to shake. "Piter de Vries, at your service."

Open to: any Setting: science fiction (open to crossovers!) Scenario: a villain organization has a fire drill @indiestarter​

There’s sparse chatter in the air, ranging from hushed to grumpy. The weather isn’t unpleasant, but this parking lot sure is. The gathered crowd looks out of place, all dressed up to stand around on the asphalt. The fire alarm is still blaring away with meaningless urgency inside the building, earning more dislike with every tone.

Piter is standing a little ways apart from the crowd. From the looks of things, he seems grateful for a disruption of the day’s monotony, and it would be fair to say that he thinks this whole thing is really funny.

There’s a snake coiled around his wrist.

The crowd keeps shifting around, slowly and restlessly. Someone ends up standing fairly close by, perhaps without meaning to.

“Venomous,” Piter says knowingly, with a friendly nod, indicating the snake. His tone is conversational. Judging by the thick gloves he’s wearing, and the care he’s taking to stand off to the side, his warning is more real than the alarm inside.

There’s an unexpected knock on Piter’s door, and it’s really a startling and terrible sound. There’s just no good reason for someone to try and contact him here, at his home address! House Harkonnen does not participate kindly in the wider galactic community. There are dozens of factions, local and wider-reaching, that take that personally. Assassinating the Court Mentat of House Harkonnen would hurt the greedy Baron quite a lot! And there are others, still, individuals, who have every reason to nurse a more specific grudge. Piter has lost count of how many faces he’s looked into that deeply, desperately, wanted him dead.

If he had actually lost count, of course, he would not be very useful as a Mentat. But it’s how the saying goes.

Piter aims a sulking glare in the direction of the door, takes a “decorative” weapon off of a display on the wall, and heads over to check his security system. It does not break the commandment to never make a machine in the image of a human mind, just to show a video feed. If Piter had access to any of the older tech that boasted facial-recognition capabilities, he would probably overlook the commandment and install it, even despite his pride at being the more sophisticated work of technology.

He studies the screen with a frown. He's going to need some answers.

dune universe plots...2! (continued from [xxx])

(please don’t reblog!)

One of our muses gets into a nasty fight in a common area on a heighliner ferry, a large ship the Spacing Guild uses to transport smaller craft across space using their closely-guarded secret process for faster than light travel. Muse A loses that fight, and their opponent(s) don’t want to catch the attention of the Spacing Guild for a death on a heighliner. Their solution is to hide the body in the cargo hold of some random ship and let it be someone else’s problem. Muse A isn’t actually dead, though... and now someone’s opening the cargo hold, & they’re on a planet they didn’t want to go to, & maybe there won’t be another heighliner stopping by for months. Muse B is an important new connection that Muse A makes through this situation; could be the captain of the randomly selected ship, or part of the crew, or someone who lives on the world that it landed on/has been stationed there. Muse B had problems of their own before all of this started, could Muse A help with that at all? If whoever tried to kill Muse A finds out they’re not dead, is that going to be a problem?   

Piter is working alongside your muse, an important professional contact. They’ve come to a point in their work where further progress can only be made on Giedi Prime; perhaps because they need to use the Harkonnens’ sophisticated lab equipment, perhaps for another reason. Unfortunately, your muse doesn’t feel safe on Giedi Prime, at all, and is seriously considering backing out of the project. After a long, mutually frustrating, and somewhat circular conversation about options, Piter offers to let them stay in a spare room at his place, and to personally keep an eye out for them. Their professional relationship is solid enough for them to at least trust him, and rightfully so; he may be violent and dangerous, but he isn’t one to sabotage his own career. Will your muse actually need the protection of a Mentat assassin? For all of the back and forth leading up to this, this awkward Saturday night board game sure is anticlimactic. Not a romance plot; it’s just that I’m the dragon from the iguanamouth comic that hoards awkward interactions.