#only because a lot either don’t have designs or any refs/info yet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morelikedoccock · 2 years

Text

Mer!Otto AU masterpost

I have to admit that I made this au specifically for spicy purposes, but it quickly turned into something much more extensive in my mind, so here it is!!

I got inspired to make my own Mer!Otto by this art and this fic. The idea was playing around my brain for a while, then someone asked me to draw something I’d been wanting to but hadn’t found the time to do yet and I said “bet,” and then my mer!Otto happened. He’s gone through a few little updates as I’ve continued to write, but I’ve more or less solidified his physical design at this point.

Physical refs here, here, here, here (spicy), and here

And my fics are up on Ao3 under a different handle than my usual one, if you want the link just ask me😆

The good stuff is under the cut!! (warning for spicy) and I’m also gonna include a small blurb on my sad timeline mer!Otto at the end❤️

The Info

History/story:

This particular au Otto has a super long lifespan, upwards of a few thousand years

He’s one of only a few remaining merpeople of his particular species, most of whom died out fairly soon after he reached maturity

He’s been around long enough that he was once revered as a sea god, and people painted him on pottery, most of which has been lost to time

He began his life quite innocent, just learning about the world on his own

Was amused and unbothered by the groups of people who thought he was a god, mostly because he was still fairly young at the time

He became more aggressive as he got older, and had a few phases of about 50 years each (first in early sailing history, then maybe in the early 1600s, and then later in the 1700s) where he fought a lot of whalers/sailors/general seafarers, and was even known to terrorize smaller ships for fun

The seafarers of all kinds who mistook him for either a whale or were hunting him specifically during those times usually didn’t return from their voyages

He has had a decent amount of interactions with peaceful land-bound humans during his lifetime, mostly from people who had heard the myths, who were trying to make some sort of sacrifice to a sea god, or who plain stumbled upon him by accident, his dealings with these types of people have mostly been pleasant

In more modern times he has mostly retreated to one particular hidden cave, in an attempt to live in peace and avoid modern recording and hunting technology, though he’s a little magical so cameras don’t really pick him up properly

Physical stuff:

He’s BIG and incredibly inhumanly strong

His human skin is a very pale blue/green/grey color, his octopus skin is a dark blueish-green

His eyes have black sclera, orange and gold irises, and horizontal pupils (like an octopus lmao)

His teeth are bone-colored and very sharp

He’s got half-inch long dark green claws on each of his fingers

His hair is brown and wavy just like canon Otto (more like NWH Otto)

His octopus half connects to his human half just below his tiddies, and a trail of octopus skin leads part way up over his sternum

He has three hearts (and other as of yet undetermined strangeness in his organs bc of the human/octopus hybrid business lmao)

His blood is blue, which makes his mucus membranes (inside of his mouth, etc) blue-green in color, and also makes him blush the same blue-green

He’s cold blooded but can still function totally normally in water of any temp including freezing deep sea water

His skin can change colors for camouflage purposes and it also sometimes does randomly when he’s asleep and dreaming

He doesn’t need to sleep as much as humans do but does anyway sometimes just because

The tip of his hectocotylus (reproductive tentacle) is shaped a bit like a rounded bud, with six segments that open like a flower, allowing the tentacle to lodge inside a host for better egg-transferring success

His body makes eggs constantly, so there’s always a fresh supply, and any that are over a few days old just get absorbed back into his system

He can also produce several different types of goop, mostly for reproductive uses

Personality:

He’s very similar to how I imagine canon Doc Ock, aka suave, jaded, with a slightly more prickly exterior, but on the inside he’s got a heart(s) as soft as the squishiest marshmallow.

He is initially a bit aggressive toward anyone who finds him, mostly to figure out what they want, but if the person takes long enough to explain themselves and is nice, he softens up quite a bit

He likes music, tasty food, and pretty things

He doesn’t like people who want to hunt him

He doesn’t fall in love often, but when he does it happens fast and hard

When he does love someone he wants nothing more than to absolutely smother them with affection of various different kinds, physical and verbal

Extras:

He eats mostly meat, but won’t turn down the chance to nibble on a variety of other things

He’s ticklish

He has three biological children, carried to term by 2 humans

He has both ear lobes and both nipples pierced, and has several nautical tattoos

If there’s anything else y’all wanna know about, please feel free to ask me!!!

(Also about my sad timeline mer!Otto, basically his story is the same as my regular mer!otto except instead of getting wiser and calmer as he aged, he got wilder and angrier and sadder, eventually devolving essentially into a real sea monster. He’s quite broken and fucked up until someone comes along and just accidentally finds a soft spot inside him that he didn’t even know was there any more😭❤️ Cue soft hurt/comfort-style relearning of trust and kindness and love and all that sappy shit💕💕💕)

#cerbin rambles #doc ock #mer!otto #merman au #masterpost #aus #spicy #listen I am more than happy to talk more about him I just need to know what y’all wanna know about #so hmu if you wanna🥰#also #once again if you’d like to use his design please ask first

73 notes · View notes

lumilasi · 3 years

Photo

Finished her pretty quick, I just got an idea surprisingly fast. Also this confirms Ryuu has a type: Redhead, intelligent, wears lot of black and red lmao. Also her pose is a bit wonky, but eh. it shows her outfit well enough.

....This reminds me, I should rewrite Reidou’s bio somewhat, I don’t quite like her BG story yet.

Anyway, further info below:

Age: 27 (she was 20 when she met Ryuu)

Sexuality: Bi

Ezuko’s QUIRK EXPLAINED

BASICS (Pros in normal, cons in bold)

Quirk name: Living ink

Ezuko is able to create ink-like substance into any surface she touches, basically allowing her to create tattoos and art pieces without needing tools. She just needs to imagine what she wants the picture look like, or have a reference to look at. She can also turn liquids into this inky substance.

Ezuko tends to need more time and proper focus if she wants to create larger and more intricate designs. For her to create these images or change a liquid into ink, she does need to be touching the object/liquid.

TATTOOING/ILLUSTRATING

She can easily create tattoos for people with her ability that is pretty much pain free, or graffiti or even basically change the color and design of an entire building, piece of clothing, etc.

The image she’s made, she can shift and change and make move however she wants, even after a long time. She can use these moving images to even temporarily blind people by making the image shift around their eyes.

The process in some cases take even longer than doing the same tattoo traditionally would take, at least if the image is complex and large, and she doesn’t have proper references for it.

For her to be able to make the pictures move, she usually requires having been touching the object/person minimum of five seconds.

Her quirk ultimately is not meant for combat, and she can’t really use her drawings in a fight, only disorient them to either flee or find a chance to use her liquid shifting ability.

LIQUID SHIFT

Ezuko’s ability to change liquids into ink can allow her (accidentally or on purpose) to turn a person’s blood into ink and basically poison them to death near instantly.

She can neutralize liquid based attacks as well by turning them to her ink, which will automatically start to listen to her commands.

She is immune to most acids and poisons (non-digested ones) because she automatically turns these things into ink when they touch her. It’s not her quirk being passive however, but rather a survival reaction she has developed.

In order to do this, she needs to be able to touch the liquid she wants to change, which means in a case of a fight, she needs to either make the person bleed (or get them to spit or whatever, she prefers the blood as its “easier.”)

PERSONALITY SUMMARY

Ezuko tends to be fairly blunt, no nonsense type of person. She’s mostly pretty calm and level headed even in tight situations, but when her temper flares it can be pretty bad. She’s gonna let you hear where you screwed up exactly, in other words.

Ezuko tends to not like people with “strong” quirks by default, because the whole obsession over quirks let to her family disowning her for not having a “good enough” power and wanting to do something else than be a hero or have some other profilic career. She can change her mind about you (like she did with Ryuu) once she gets to know you better, and sees you’re not putting all your value as a person on your power.

She’s quite intelligent and enjoys reading and learning about a lot of different things, partly because it helps her imagination run wilder and thus makes it faster to create her images.

BACKGROUND STORY (A quick summary, details may develop)

Ezuko was born to parents who were all about status, and quite disappointed to find out her quirk wasn’t suitable for heroism. They then tried to push her for something else that could rise their wealth and standing in society. Ezuko herself didn’t want to do this, dealing with a lot of arguments and abusive language from them, up until she moved out at age 18, heading to study arts. After that her family basically disowned her, refusing to even answer her calls. Ezuko quit trying to reach them, figuring she’d be better off without.

Then, when she was doing an apprenticeship in a tattoo parlor, she ended up having to deal with an abusive customer one evening, where he started harassing her. In a panic, she ended up discovering another, unfortunate side-effect of her quirk, where during the struggle she managed to make the guy bleed, and then swiftly turned his blood into ink, killing him near instantly. Some local residents came to see the commotion, and instead of asking her side of the story just automatically began to call her a murderer as the customer was a regular, forcing her to flee the scene.

The local press and everybody around there started to exaggerate her temper and further paint her in a bad light, forcing Ezuko to flee the place altogether. She tried to reach for her parents for help, but they refused to help her, believing the media that she’d done it on purpose.

Sometime during her runaway spree she ran into Ryuu, who’d only recently gained lot of notoriety, though the girl was unaware of this. He helped her in a fight against some thugs, and she brings the injured Ryuu into her hideout to fix his injuries. They stick together for a bit, and Ryuu even brings her to a person he knows that generally tends to help out with people like her - a broker named Giran. Giran let’s her work in his bar, also making sure that everybody knew not to bother her as that’d be a bad idea. He even helps her to get a place to stay in eventually. Sometime during these years, she hears rumors about “Frostbite” having potentially died, which makes her a little sad initially, though Giran cheers her up be stating that there was probably more to the story than that.

Some years after that, she finds out about Ryuu being alive through Giran, as he sends her to bring something to “an old acquaintance” as the man put it. This said acquaintance turned out to be Ryuu.

Few more extra details;

- She’s the only person out of the people around Kain who actually understands his more scientific talk. They can end up having long conversations about a subject that none of the others have a clue of.

- Her name translates to “Paint” (Pandoru that she pronounces as pandora) and “illustration lake.” (Ezuko)

- The world she lives in is based on my fic Reanimate, which basically means there’s no league of villains, as Tenko never became “Shigaraki.” Giran is the only important member (outside of afo) that is still a criminal in this AU. Because of Kain’s dimension hopping ability, this doesn’t mean she doesn’t get to interact with the more villainous versions of the gang, though.

- Ezuko made Ryuu’s dragon tattoo as a thank you for helping her.

- Her surname is bit of a pun, as it’s written as “Pandoru” aka paint, but after leaving home and her parents behind, she began saying it as “Pandora” referring to Pandora’s box as a bit of a darker joke about her choosing to go against her parents and thus unleashing a lot of bad things into her life. This proved to be even more accurate after the parlor incident.

- Her parents wanted her to either find a way to become a hero with her quirk, or go into some other highly respected profession for status and money, when Ezuko just wanted to do something artistic.

- Ryuu actually didn’t start crushing on her until after they met again years later after their first meeting, when he and Kain returned from another eventful dimension hopping trip to visit their little sanctuary corner and friends, Wasabi and his mums. Up until then he’d seen her just as a friend/acquaintance

- Wasabi digs her a lot because they have similar hairstyles.

- The vine tattoo represents her quirk and spreads around her arms and shoulders more when using her quirk. When using it in extreme amounts (Like turning a large body of liquid into ink for example) her skin around those parts gets so covered it looks like she just has one large pitch black tattoo covering those areas, and you can no longer see the vine details.

Also, the ref sheet base was made by yourultraarchive as usual

#Lumi's art scribbles #my bnha oc #boku no hero oc #my hero academy oc #mha oc #character reference #character ref sheet #Ezuko Pandora #pandora Ezuko #Lumi's chaotic creations

22 notes · View notes

spiral-mouth · 5 years

Photo

Updated Urban with revamped characterization and 2019 ref! Info sheet under the cut!

Name || Urban Age || 24 Race || Skeleton/Veiled (invisible monster-type) Occupation || runs Journey’s Thread, his father’s materials and fabrics shop. Also works as an occasional courier. Gender || Male Height || 5’5 Relationship Status || Taken by Ace Voice Actor || N/A (looking around) RELATIONSHIPS Family >Farren: Father. Fallen Down and in comatose. Despite his aloofness, Urban works extremely hard to keep up with his medical bills to keep his dad under care. >Geneva: Mother. Deceased. Has never seen eye to eye with her, but despite feeling >Altan: Non existent twin brother. Soul was absorbed by Urban’s during Geneva’s parturiency. It’s complicated.

Significant Other >Ace: Current Boyfriend, and the relationship is going strong despite either of them having little to no real dating experience. Opposites attract, Ace fills the goob-shaped hole in Urban’s heart.

Friends >Octi: He’s a weirdo, but not bad in urban’s eyes. Definitely don’t ask about his interest, and especially don’t ask or bring up the fact that he draws. >Frisk: Urban was pretty apathetic towards Frisk as first, not knowing that they were a human. But through Ace, he comes to learn more about Frisk and loves the little squirt, designating them as his flirt prodigé under his wing. Gave the kid a candy stick that looked like a cigarette upon their first meeting. >Roman: hahahhahaha no actually that was a joke >Sans: One of Urban’s close buddies. They used to be closer… but it never would have worked out in the end. Papyrus: Associative friend through Sans, talks to him from time to time but not very deeply. Took a bite of his food once and has successfully avoided it ever since. #W̬͇̣̦̼͚͉͇̩.҉̧̪̬̟̗͔͎̹͡D̹̩͕̦.̴̻̙̤̝̰͞ ̸̸͎̩̤̻̫̥̕G̨̰̙̬͔ͅa̶͓̦͕̕s̺̮͖̝͠t̶̘̙̖͚̻͚͚͘e͓̗͉̯̝̗͝r̭̼̙̱̩͟:҉̳̫͖͕͙ I̧ǹ his̵ ͝yo̸u͠th,̴ ̷U͢r̸ba̶n͢ ̀wa͝s̶ i͜ǹvite̢d in͘tơ ̢h̸i͡s ̷la̧bş ̸a̶ś ̵a͏ ̴res͡p̵éc͡te͟d͡ ͏s͝ub̀ject ̢o̕f̸ ͠s̀t̶ùdỳ ̶t̴o͠ bet̛ter͜ ͢u̶n̡der̡s͞t̢and ͢h̀is͡ ̷men͝t͜a̷l ͡a͠nd ̶s̀o̸ul҉-b͠a̕s̶ed ҉si̵tuat͜io͟n̡.̷ A͠fte̛r̴ beco͜m̀ing̢ ́reda͟cte̷d fro̸m ͜t̶h̵e̛ ̛w͢ǫrl̡d h͝ow͠ever͝,̢ Uŕba̶n ha̴s no r̀èco͏llect̵ion o͜f ev͡er ǵo͜ing͠ to t̛h̸e͏ ͡Ĺabs̷ ex͢cep̡t̴ ͝f͞o̸r͠ ͠th͟e͏ ̢r͡ar̀e ̡del̢i͡v́e͜ry͡ tḩe̡rȩ.͞

???

>Slick: Their relationship is messy and complicated. Urban is currently unaware that he and Slick are one and the same, instead believing they are two people with two different lives. Is Slick his own person, who is he? It’s a question he has found himself asking time and time again.

Other Urban casually hooked up with a lot of women, but no one has ever become anything more than One Night Fun Nights. PERSONALITY Flirtatious | Loud | Playful | Crude Humor | Natty | Excitable | Selectively Dependable A simple way to put Urban is to think of him as a goon with a heart. He’s ballsy and a tad rebellious against rules (if the occasional weed stash in his house is anything to go by), and enjoys thumping to hard beat music but truthfully, he is generally easygoing guy and fun to hang around, with no real need for confrontation. In fact, instead, he tries to make any and all situations something to laugh at, whether a crude joke or directing tension to something more interesting and off topic. Let no one ever know thought he gets mushy with his bae, Ace, he’s got a reputation of keeping his Cool Guy Syndrome up. Likes: weed | little animals | his tattoos | chains rings and tags | wrasslin’ | hats and bandannas | “Gettin’ it on” | comedy movies | swimming | hard rap/hip hop | underground music (no pun intended) | ironically dabbing in front of people | dancing | his own fashion sense

Dislikes: drinking | the cold | having his facial damage visible in front of others | arguments | being sick/puking | being alone | people looking like a fool with their outfits | working out | when people mistake him for Slick Brief History Urban was born in New Home with his father, Farren, an ex-nomadic crafter and his mother Geneva, who he has grown up to have very shaky relationship with due to his birth causing her to be permanently weakened and with only one child when she was supposed to have twins (as his soul had absorbed his twin’s during conception). They did not hate each other, but love was tough and hardly spoken between them. Urban found most of his parental love from his more forgiving and sympathetic father. During his early adolescent years (around twelve years old), Urban had unknowing formed a second personality in the form of Slick, who in turn became his own being through Urban’s malformed soul. It is reasonably assumed that Slick is a creation of both mental stress and the physical conundrum of Urban’s soul, since absorbing his twin’s left a separate magical imprint from his own. Because Slick differed from Urban in personality, introvert and reclusive but rebellious and artistic, it’s not very long that these switches between Urban and Slick give the former trouble, including holes in his memory. Several years after, Slick’s purpose of shutting out everyone, opposing any and all forces, came to a head when a confrontation with the wrong Royal Guard at the wrong time left him with half his skull blown into. This Royal Guard was relieved of his position after the incident, and Urban has yet to know of his identity. Urban was admitted into medical care by healers (who did all they could, but they told Urban’s parents the bone would never completely heal over) and almost immediately after taken in for therapy, where he finally admits of the existence of Slick, who he believed he was—but after close observation, proved to be completely false and made up in his head. Either way, this condition had already proven dangerous to his health. It was around this time his mother had dusted to due her own failing health. His condition was a medical mystery until Urban’s case caught the attention of Hotl͢and ̴La̡b͢s̸, ͢and́ ͏o͘n̡e̴ Dr. W.͢ D.͠ ͡G҉ast͞e͢r.̷ ̴It҉ ̡di̢d͟n’̧t ͟t́a͜k̵e long fo̸r҉ U̢rb͝a͜n tò ̀be̢ ͠w̛e͜ļc҉ome͘d͡ ̷i̧n͜ ̀a͘s a ̀re͜speçted stu̕ḑy̕ s̷ub͞ject ͠a̸nd͞ ̶Ur͜ban s͡t̀ay̧s̀ in ͢t̢h̀e La͠bs͡ ̡f̡or ͢a c҉o̴upl͘e ҉of́ ỳe̴ars͠ ͞a̛s th̢os͜e p͜a̧r͡t҉ óf̨ ̡hi̴s͡ c̴a̷se̛ s̨tudy f̶i̧gure̵ o̢ut how ̵h̸is͠ ̢m͏i͠n͠d ̸works ̶i͜n t͠a҉n҉dem̧ w͢it̀h his ͟ma҉g̷i҉c.̧ They were trying to find any results if this was really mental, or if it’s partially the result of remnants of his twin’s absorbed soul trying to become a singularity within Urban’s body. At seventeen however, after Urban had gotten news that his father had become one of the victims to Falling Down, he left t͏̶h͘͘͏è l͟a̡̛͜b̨̡s̸͢ in order to maintain the store in the capital, an income, and tries to pick himself up into continuing life on his own. Presently, he lives at the edge of the capital where rent is cheap and works small jobs from within the city (and sometimes in other parts of the Underground) to make ends meet. Magic and Weapons >Urban’s arsenal for FIGHTs include >Bone-based attacks >Invisible attacks (outlined, hard to see) >Orange and blue attacks >Switchblade

Trivia >Urban has a short gold barbell tongue piercing >Urban’s magic is purple, the symbolic color of perseverance >Whenever he goes through a magic swap (Urban’s purple to Slick’s green and vice virsa), he immediately pukes that current magic; it’s his body’s way of ejecting the previous “foreign” magic >While Urban passes as a full Skeleton, he is half Veiled from his father’s side and as the hereditary ability to turn invisible. >Under the light of a full moon, glowing patterns appear on Urban’s bone, another trait carried over by his Veiled ethnicity >Almost all tattoos were gotten by Urban, except for the flower tattoo on his right arm, which Slick had gotten himself

>Urban’s jacket logo and the Veil culture is based on the Bohemian culture!

133 notes · View notes

fountainpenguin · 4 years

Note

P & Q

P: How much do you plan in advance versus letting the story unfold as you go?

Story-wise, ends and general events are always planned early on (All 130 Prompts, most of Identity Theft, Hawthorn Haven, Little Imperfections, No Anesthetic, Factor It In, Devil’s Backbone, and so on are already planned even though I won’t be posting some of these things for years), so it’s just a matter of doing the actual writing. Beginnings come next and middles come last.

For me, writing is a matter of saying, “Here is my destination. Where are we coming from and how do we get there?” Depending on what I’m writing, sometimes where I’m coming from is the previous chapter, sometimes it’s a specific point in my timeline. Chapters don’t require a lot of set-up because readers should more or less remember what’s recently happened to a character, but with one-shots I have to clarify not only the setting, but recent events as best as I can. There’s a different mindset there.

Origin, Knots, and the Prompts are divided into over a hundred different files in Google Docs, so I can’t give an accurate word count, but I probably have 200k words on hand for both Origin and Knots and at least 300k for the Prompts. I wrote scenes I consider significant early on and I’m working my way towards them, correcting inconsistencies along the way.

What I plan worldbuilding-wise for a fantasy series is another topic altogether (Expanded on below the cut).

Sociopolitical Aspects

For my Mario works, for example, the first thing planned was how the Koopa Kingdom is laid out, and where the Koopalings fit into my ideas. Then it was a matter of deciding which parts of canon I want to draw from and what I want to do with it. I didn’t rule out the new kingdoms revealed in Odyssey, but I definitely didn’t erase Sarasaland and the Beanbean Kingdom either. I worked out the political systems of a few countries, what the social norms and big crimes are, and the basics of Bowser’s inclination towards violence.

I have a document noting what the people of each land are called and what their native languages are so I don’t have to worry about contradicting myself later, which has been extremely useful. I even determined populations for different kingdoms, with the Mushroom Kingdom at about 235 million people, the Koopa Kingdom almost twice that, and the Beanbean Kingdom a measly 4 million. Even if this info never comes up in story, it helps me understand how people interact with one another and fit into this system.

In my FOP works, I worked out the history of Fairy/Anti-Fairy conflicts, drawing from aspects of canon such as the known war over human godchildren. The Pixies fit in there too as the neutral party. Then there’s the matter of fitting in the aliens and humans. Deeper yet, the Ghosts and Beasts. Figuring out the international relationships up front works best for me, and then I can later determine how characters with this background interact in this environment.

In my Danny Phantom works, I drew from a comment Butch made once that although King Pariah was a tyrant, he did keep the Ghost Zone organized and it’s fallen to chaos since he was overthrown. I worked out Ghost-Skeleton relations, how the Observants play into things, and what the space within the world might be like.

In my WordGirl works, determining how Hexagon functions was crucial to what I decided to do with Kid Math: In this case, his planet is obsessed with math to the point they only have spoken language, not a written one. They use numbers and mark up blueprints, but written language is for the Lexiconians [Insert snobby scoffing].

When writing Rhyme and Reason backstory, I worked out how common powers are, how those with certain powers are treated by society, what kind of education kids with powers get pushed towards, what laws might exist, how many heroes there might be, and how police involvement works in cities that have heroes. In this alternate world, there are things called charm schools that are “finishing schools” for kids with powers, and Rhyme was almost sent to one until she ran away.

Physical Aspects

I made the Mushroom Kingdom an archipelago and chose Indonesia as my main inspiration country, researching the climate, seasons, plants, and meals typically found there. I know exactly when the dry season ends and the wet season starts and how this affects the Piranha Plants.

In FOP, I understand the landscapes of Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World, what kinds of mountains and water features they can have, and the flora and fauna found in each location. I know ways to move between locations, what travel is possible with magic, and what happens in times there isn’t any magic. I know what the major buildings are, where they are, and what they do.

In my DP works, there are certain stable parts of the Ghost Zone and certain unstable parts. It’s easy to get lost if you’re new there and not used to things moving around, but as you learn the rules of the world, you’re able to identify landmarks. I know which populations live where and what those landscapes are like. I came up with rules for how lairs work and how far things can move about the Zone. I know how things work and which characters know X amount of information about their surroundings.

Cultural Aspects

I pored over a LOT of small details in canon for my Mario works. I took painstaking notes about the Soybean civilization, the ancient Luffs, the fallen Bask Kingdom, and all sorts of historical tidbits and worked those into modern canon. Some stuff didn’t cross my path during my personal gameplay, but I like knowing about it anyhow.

I considered Peach’s pathway to becoming queen and how she fits her role, especially compared to her predecessors. I made stars important in Mushroom Kingdom culture and the moon important in Koopa culture. I created lore for why karting exists, canonizing all locations and the general idea of kart racing even if I’m not going to make every kart track canon or organize each game in a timeline.

FOP worldbuilding involved gathering as much canon from the show as possible, collecting info from folklore, plucking bits and pieces from insect and bat biology, and marrying the three together. It was important to me to give Fairy World a distinct culture different from any on Earth, and really examine how magic affects daily life in this world.

Anthropomorphizing insect behaviors gave me Fairies who lick faces as a form of greeting and who favor those with freckles above those without. Not exactly accurate to show canon, but it works great. Gyne and drone relationships have been fun to build, and I made sure my timeline included points in the past where such relations were different than modern times. Changes in relationships over time is something that really fascinates me.

Anti-Fairy World also gets a unique culture. Since they’re evil antagonists in show canon, I certainly didn’t want to race-code them like any group of people on Earth. I’ve tried to design them their own culture, heavily inspired by bats and a belief in luck above all. Bats aren’t sociosexual, but they are promiscuous, so I don’t stick wholly to bat behaviors either: they’re partially based on bonobos. Most importantly, I made sure everything I did was fun for me to write.

With my particular writing style, it works to have deep, complex culture for the Anti-Fairies. If I wanted to write short, lighthearted pieces, that would impact where my worldbuilding priorities lay (Probably lots of cute holiday traditions and less focus on why Anti-Fairy culture revolves around causing others harm).

General Research

Heights, timelines, food, and clothes are all things I settle as soon as possible, and I keep ref sheets on hand so I can fact check myself at a glance. Fairies and Anti-Fairies, being a species who live in the clouds, have easier access to silkworms than cotton plants. That determines what their clothing is made of, what products are expensive, and what gets worn on certain occasions.

I draw from canon where possible, using screenshots or known character heights (Mario canonically 5′1″) and comparing them to others. Being of a different height can impact how others view you. Dining etiquette is a fun cultural difference that can create conversation or social awkwardness and really set the mood.

With fanfics, I dig as deep as I can. Did you know Wario canonically doesn’t know how old he is because his mom never threw him a birthday party? Or that he keeps a matchbox of ants in his cabinet and is “waiting until they worship him as a god”? I drink details like this by the gallon.

I prefer nailing this stuff down before getting far in my writing because that’s what works for me personally. I worldbuild further over time as I think up new questions I didn’t already have answers for.

Unique Aspects

Magic systems are complex. They generally take me longest and are more work than play. I like to have an outline of how a magic system works, write the story, figure out what I absolutely need magic to do and what I don’t want it to do, and then tighten the system during the revision process. For example, I weakened shapeshifting in my FOP works so you can’t easily hold another form while aroused- I personally didn’t want age changes to be involved in lovemaking. That expanded to making it hard to hold a form when you’re drunk too.

It was important to me in my Mario works to have 1-Up mushrooms exist and be capable of saving your life, but I also needed a reason why people don’t walk around with 99 lives and consume 1-Ups at all times. After wrestling with plans for a while, I decided to make them time-sensitive. You have to consume them often to have more than one life on a regular basis, and they’re pretty rare. As long as I can justify why someone has access to this rare item, I can utilize a 1-Up’s power, but I can also justify killing someone off if enough time has passed since they last consumed one.

With Fairly OddParents, I’d seen enough episodes to understand the basics of wishes, magical backup, and Da Rules. When I became serious about writing FOP ‘fics, I started noting the times Cosmo and Wanda failed to use magic for reasons other than Da Rules (Not in sync with each other, low battery, lack of belief in magic, Big Wand toppled over, etc.) and built my version of the FOP magic system to accommodate as many of these “inconsistencies” as I could. My take on magic is complex, but I can stretch the system many ways, so it works great for me.

Will I use everything I’ve worldbuilt in story? I might not say it directly, but having a pool of information I can draw from helps me find ways to flesh out a character’s life. Some stuff makes it in, other stuff is only vaguely glimpsed. To me, diving into worldbuilding is fun. Taking what I have and creating something with it is even more fun. I could whip out a bunch of one-shots about basic slice-of-life events without doing all this work, but tying my stories to social, political, or culture aspects of the world is what I really enjoy.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

//Laughs

I don’t like deleting things, so I move them to scrap docs instead. Origin, Knots, and the 130 Prompts each have a scrap file of 50+ pages (91 pages of scrapped Prompt scenes) and I can usually remember keywords so the deleted scenes are easy to search for if I need them. Some get recycled, even back into the same chapter I originally deleted them from, but a lot stay dead because they were either irrelevant or inconsistent with the final material.

Fortunately for me, I have a good memory of what I kept vs. what I scrapped. I’ve compiled some favorites in my deviantArt Sta.sh and linked them in my FOP sideblog because they’re my version of sketchdumps. Even if they’re unfinished, I still think they’re interesting to look at.

For some reason I don’t delete much from my standalone one-shots, just my multi-chapter stuff. Most of what enters my standalones survives.

The projects I’m most hurt to have left hanging are my Total Drama stories The Beatin’ Path and Lions Under Palm Trees, keeping with my tradition of writing stories about eliminated contestants at that season’s elimination location from the perspective of the first character eliminated. I have a good 15k words written for the former and 25k for the latter, and I just… let them slip through my fingers in favor of Fairly OddParents years ago.

Arguably letting them go is for the best because I took the “cartoon physics are canon” concept and RAN with it, so I have an entire plot arc about one character coming into puberty and having his ability to utilize cartoon physics switch on for the first time. I personally consider Lions one of my best works in terms of matching my niche interests, but the acknowledgement of cartoon physics does stray from Total Drama canon, and I just couldn’t get over that enough to keep posting it.

Some of my all-time favorite scenes and characterizations are in these stories. I’m glad I have what I do for myself because these works make me smile even all these years later, buuut it’s probably best if I keep most of this nonsense private. This is probably my favorite snippet of the entire Lions draft, though:

“What’s in the box?”

Don’t say the hearts of small animals, don’t say the hearts of small animals.

“Stuff for my girlfriend.” It wasn’t untrue.

The least loved always end up my favorites somehow. I’m still so in love with my delusional wizard. I honestly might love Leonard more than I love any of the FOP characters I write about nowadays; he was the best I ever had. I mean, look at this FREAKING CHILD-

====

“Hand me my dice.”

Beardo dropped the dice in his hand. Leonard rolled them across the grass. Nine. He groaned. But, obediently, he knelt and poked his head inside the damaged zeppelin.

“Roll me an observance check.”

“Snake eyes.”

“Seriously? It’s dark. Try again. Higher this time.”

Beardo gave the dice another toss. “Lucky lucky seven.”

Leonard let out a high whistle between his front teeth. “No response,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think there are any animals down there, except maybe a few rats and some bugs. All right, I’m jumping down. Keep an eye on my back.”

He slid through the gap and dropped out of sight. Beardo heard him say, “Lux up,” and click the penlight on his keychain.

====

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction.

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction. The Christmas advertisements blared on. Leonard raised his wand to his eye, then slapped the tip a few times against his palm. “Come on, wand. Tammy isn’t here anymore. Why aren’t you working? I still believe in you.”

The door eased open. “Hey, Leonard,” Jen said in a voice of false cheerfulness. “I got your toothbrush out of… the other room.”

Leonard didn’t try to switch off the TV and faced the window instead. “Brushing teeth is for people who can’t do it with magic.”

====

“Wait.” Leonard raised both hands above his head, squeezing his eyelids tight. “Wait. What you’re saying is, Scarlett pulled a Courtney to the extreme and hid her secret identity as an ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain shaman queen this entire time. She played a character so well that even her closest friend – not to mention Chris – couldn’t see through her act until she chose to reveal herself. At which point she then convinced everyone that she was actually said ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain. You’re telling me there was a LARPing goddess in my presence, and I completely missed it.”

“I didn’t put it in those words for a reason,” Jasmine said, “but at its core, yes.”

Leonard pressed his hands to his cheeks and stared into his salad. “Holy flipping plot twist. I am so turned on right now.”

“No,” Jasmine said, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, “No you are not.”

Amy clicked her tongue. “Leonard, you have a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore. That’s it. I’m breaking up with Tammy for real this time.”

Beardo slapped him on the back of the head and made a sound like a police siren.

====

One Lions chapter was named “Baa Baa Blackmail” if that tells you anything. Ah, memories… It’s probably for the best if these projects stay retired, but I love them so very much.

Fanfic Ask Meme

#Zach needs a tag 9 #asks #ridwriting #Mushrooms and more #FAIRIES!#Satirical vocab alien child show #Going ghost!#riddleverse mention #Long post

0 notes