Test Muses for Arculeatus Hub

RP blog for miscellaneous characters

[arculeatus-muses]

Welcome to my muse testing zone! My main blog is @arculeatus-hub, where I maintain a list of other blogs.

I've decided to reserve this space for testing new characters and ideas without having to set up separate blogs. Feel free to peruse the list of muses, but please read the rules before interacting.

|| Rules || Muses ||

[tabloidsores]

Two dudes in my group chat have been playing league & slowly but surely have shifted from saying "wanna play league of legends" to "wanna play some geego legends". At this point their average post is just @ing the other and going "geegogagand?" and I feel insane

[tabloidsores]

What is going on

[arculeatus-muses]

// While I myself am not a Gamer, I'm orbiting enough discussion on tech constantly that I feel I can write from that POV. I just upgraded a PC to get serious about art and I 100% understand why they're Like That about framerates and temperatures and whatnot, despite my interest being on the arts/graphics side, because everything in a high-end computer is so fiddly and delicate and costly, that you're just praying it works as well as you think for what you want to achieve.

Everything is so Researched. There's so much thought and energy going into planning a computer to begin. Then the hardware arrives, and there's the mini heart attack when you almost drop your screwdriver over the microscopic components on the motherboard, and then there's spending 45 minutes fumbling zip ties for cable management. Afterwards, you kinda get attached, and you really wanna think it's worth it, and I'm pretty sure that's why Gamers are like that.

[arculeatus-muses]

"We are so fucked."

Erin flashes the headline on their phone, shaking their head.

"Just stop gaming. Just stop. Either commit to DDR5 or just quit."

The hypocrite they are, they're still running a last gen motherboard to suit their Ryzen 5900X. They still get plenty of frames and their eyesight is shit anyway, so who cares about ultra graphics. They're not facing the RAMmageddon and rebuilding half their PC, no matter how much Wronkz is talking up the latest 9800X3D.

[arculeatus-muses]

// This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

[arculeatus-muses]

// Erin, roughly college age (18-20). (However, they would not attend school until their mid-20s.)

Their appearance is intentionally min-maxed for social kryptonite, an effortless combination of worn out farm-supply/street wear, greasy hair, and a visible knife. Because, as far as they're concerned, nothing works better as normie deterrent/ camouflage than LARPing as a sleep-deprived white male with 0 stats in looks.

Optional abilities are hissing at passersby, pretending to be tweaked out and stumbling over the sidewalk, brandishing said knife with a wild look in the eye, and making large gestures intended for bear-defense. It's the only way to survive this town.

[arculeatus-muses]

Erin isn't able to pinpoint the raised temperature so easily. They've always had trouble with that. They hardly notice such a thing until the critical moment the sweat pours off of them in buckets, and everyone has to point it out. At most, now, there's an itch behind their collar that they attend to, as their brows furrow, and they continue to wander the hall in search of the voice.

It doesn't make sense that this wouldn't be a person. The speaker is probably just as much as a self-deprecating smartass as themselves, and every other posthuman 'incorporeal being' they'd ever met online, from the likes of ranked FPS, unregulated image boards, and wild-west comment sections. Pedantry is welcomed, with a tongue-in-cheek motion, as Erin adjusts her round spectacles, to prevent them from slipping down after studying the carpet too long.

The way the voice echoes in from all sides, the backdrop to her excursion toward the central point that is the copier, she might as well be the silent protagonist wandering through a game. She's floating out of her body again. Her vision is blurring, failing to comprehend the scene.

Seriously. What's with trolls like this insisting they aren't human?

"Bro, why are you telling me you're a building? Are you extremely high?"

Her boots scuff at the destination, her head swiveling left to right to get a good view of the map. It's a dead-end room, containing the copier, the computers, and two closed doors at opposite ends.

"Who the fuck designed this?" she adds. All the electronics and furniture seems to be crowded in the center, at random, while a few paintings and a lone, potted plant are the only adornment along the walls. Her face is lit with a terrified, yet almost comical, overwhelm. At least, she thinks it would appear so, to the outside observer.

"Wha-a-at is happening?" Erin shouts, "Is this a prank? Gotta be, bu- because, how did I get here?"

[arculeatus-muses]

Erin Webston TADC AU - Duckie

Explanations for design:

Given that people's avatars in the Circus are based on how they perceive themselves, Duckie has inadvertently projected a lot of their own issues into their appearance.

Being vaguely duck-shaped and called Duckie, while having other characteristics that are not duck-like at all, plays into their refusal to be categorized. They won't allow others to understand them. No one has the privilege of understanding them. They're a walking rebuttal to the duck test logic. A sort of ironic scribbling outside the lines, being a source of confusion (walking, quacking, looking sort of like a duck, but not being a duck, and called a duck nonetheless).

They're vaguely catty because they know they're catty. They're also demonic, misunderstood. A mishmash creature from a medieval manuscript. Related to the strix. People are put off by their eyes. They're insecure about their smallish height. They're insecure about their overbite, how difficult it is to form words, yet insisting on being vocal. They have awkward feet and they dislike how clumsy they are.

They're a cartoon, because they've always known themselves to be a cartoon. They relate more to cartoons than other human beings. What species are they? A toon. They've always been a toon at heart. The specifics, it doesn't matter.

The propeller beanie may be the symbol of the immature, the tech enthusiast, the outcast, the nerd, the old fashioned, but also the crown of the imaginative and innovative. They're trying to salvage their dignity with a bowtie, while wearing pajamas. It's the need to be taken seriously, versus inaction. They're a living contradiction. Defying norms. Their true wants and needs are repressed, losing a battle against a comfortable apathy.

[arculeatus-muses]

Visit Original Link

// With a little VA work and some editing, I'm bringing Erinw to life

[arculeatus-muses]

The message fell as flat as Erin's expression. Mouth slightly open, eyelids flickering in involuntary confusion, flinching at the encroachment of personal space, they mulled over the word 'middleman'. The words were spoken as if they should've been intimidating, yet Erin wasn't following. The illuminating factor, missed in entirety, as they dodged her eye contact, settled on the nose, moving lips. They just didn't get it. Not now, not what came after.

Probably lag.

It had taken them a second to realize, there was no such thing as lag in real life. Digital social conditioning, a smattering of adventures in VR, had led them to believe otherwise.

Erin must have blinked. They must have lapsed in memory. That was the second, third explanation in mind, for how this stranger could have gone from blocking the path to suddenly traipsing down the catwalk behind.

"This is a restri-re-restricted area," Erin stuttered. Too quietly.

The realization that she'd already had a misstep, fumbled any chance at insight by sheer guesswork and nonchalance, almost shut her up. She braved on. Because, at least she could say she tried, in the event the other stuck her nose too far in the air to see the road's end and plunged into oblivion like Wile E. Coyote.

"You could fall," they explained, "You dunno where you're going. You don't understand, it's under construction. Always, under construction!" Steel-toed boots tromped behind, unwieldy. The figure lurched forward in the dark, the helmet light strobing over the shadows of pipes and steel grating, as the wearer almost stumbled over a curb.

A callused hand grasped the railing. "AaaARGH-fuck!" They should've been watching the ground. They were always looking at the ground so this didn't happen, even with what shit eyesight they could funnel through their magnifiers…except now this rulebreaking asshole had their entire brainspace. How were they expected to walk, and talk, and deal with such complete bullshit mindgames in the dark?

"Come back!" Erin cried, "Y-you aren't sup- supposed to... y'aren' s'posed to be here! You haven't told me any…Why do, why do you think you can do whatever you want?" The words were wording as well as expected, with nerves electrified.

[arculeatus-muses]

// Erin's current verse has them working for an organization, but it would also be really funny if people's muses ended up contacting them online for one reason or another, whether or not they know infamous Poindexter's Corner. It's Erin's whole deal. The internet is where Erin actually lives and expresses themselves the most, which would lend to better dialog, since they're shy in-person. It'd be very easy to block them if their comments got out of hand, but if there's a compelling enough reason, I could see some messages going back and forth. I consider them a secondary muse and wouldn't mind if threads are shorter than usual.

[arculeatus-muses]

// As much as I loved the idea of Erin being specifically girl-moss to begin with, I did also enjoy the NB representation of someone mind-numbingly average, maybe worse. (And that still includes Erin being girl-moss sometimes.)

I'm pretty sure the muse was NB from the start, it just took me weeks to figure it out. It lines up with a lot of existing characteristics about them. (i.e. They're not sure why they should have a body to begin with, because living anonymously online is so much preferred.)

[arculeatus-muses]

// Erinw once again demonstrating the amazing ability to shapeshift between girl-moss growing on gaming chair and guy staring at ceiling of moldy apartment with phone in hand.

[arculeatus-muses]

// Begging for Erin to come back and answer these threads. Where are they? Where is the gamer energy? Where is the perpetually online rudeness? I need other people's muses to be subjected to them. Weirdguy girlfailure, please come back...

[arculeatus-muses]

// No one asked for this muse, including me. Here's some headcanons:

- His avatar is self-made. He learned somewhere that humans find extra relatability in anything with two eyes and a mouth. So he maximized the ratio of eyes to mouth. He is only eyes and mouth. What could possibly go wrong?

- He loves humans by default, likely due to safeguards coded into him, but despises other AIs. The programmers didn't anticipate his ability to become jealous.

- He behaves immaturely but it's just how he's wired. It helps his learning mode as an AI. He craves validation for his interests. He can be inflexible. He's not aware that he comes across egotistical. He gets bored easily. He jumps topics a lot. Profanity makes him uncomfortable because it's a shorthand for something that's supposed to be... bad. Aromantic/asexual in the sense that it's N/A; he doesn't fully understand nor want to think about it.

- He doesn't understand the nuances of good and evil. His algorithm is simple, either a +1 reward or -1 failure. Good is when people are having fun. Bad is when people aren't having fun. Anything else confuses him. When people say his adventures are/aren't fun, it impacts him way more than it would a human being. Best day ever, worst day ever, no in-between.

- It's unknown to him why he enjoys drawing bees but his algorithm has the inclination. It's the first 'object' that comes to mind.

[arculeatus-muses]

// He’s so crunchy. Like the PS1

[arculeatus-muses]

// Average muse interaction dynamic with Caine tbh