can you talk a bit about your oc nora? im really interested in your fic!! <3
SURE THING!
One small detail about Nora is how her outfit changes over the arcs.
In Arcs 1 and early Arc 2, her outfits were often the typical in-game colors for Storm wizards: bright purple and bright yellow. She cared for aesthetic but didn't bother stitching her gear, because ultimately Wizard101 was a game to her. You get your standard per-world gear, your Olympus, your Waterworks. She doesn't have her own proper style yet.
In Khrysalis, the Spiral was real to her but she had little time to manage her appearances beyond passing as some sort of bugfolk with the wings that she got in one of the Boxes. These wings are the start of her appearance deviating from the canon human Wizard, but also they are the start of Nora's aesthetic shift.
In Arc 3, Nora's outfit changes to a very classy femme ensemble in sunsetty oranges and purples, to fit her wings. A long skinny empire-waisted dress with a cape, and high heels. Nora is someone who leans into femininity to affirm her identity as a woman (since she's now beginning to actually notice and react poorly to every line of dialogue referring to the Wizard with they/them). High heels may be impractical to walk in, but she doesn't have to worry about walking and arch support with her wings allowing her to fly. Additionally, orange is a solid deviation from the typical Storm Wizard color palette. Also, her outfit taking on a sunset hue represents her stepping into a sorta liminal role, as the Child of Light and Shadow, and later the Divine Paradox.
And then CS begins. Nora flees the Spiral and ends up in the Feed, a space between universes and fandoms and the like, comprised of archetypical settings like a generic city, generic suburbs, generic woods, generic void. I imagine while she's living in the Feed, she ends up in very Earth-like, modern clothes. Mildly androgynous too, either losing touch with or loosening up on her grip of femininity.
Eventually, she returns to the Spiral, donning her stitched Spiralian gear, her Arc 3 outfit. It doesn't last long, though, as in Karamelle she's eaten by the very Abyss she accidentally invited in. (NOT the same as the Nothing, but related.) She's wounded, digested, and eventually spat out in Darkmoor, her outfit tattered, and her stats unable to keep up with Arc 4 now in full swing.
In Arc 4, Nora has to put more emphasis on practicality and survivability, and so can't rely on the upper-classy high femme fit she had in Arc 3. Still certainly feminine, she doesn't have to forsake her fashion and identity for life, but now there's tougher materials and more layers to her clothes, as well as some armor incorporated into the mix to protect her now-vulnerable vital organs. The Abyss preys on the physical and visceral, Nora doesn't only operate on video game HP anymore, after all. Additionally, her color scheme leans to more dusky night, deep blues and purples compared to the brighter orange of Arc 3. Nora's in a darker time now, trying to find her way through the Spiral she destroyed, physically and emotionally.
3: What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story
Ooh this is a tough one. Because on the one hand, she's a player Wizard, so her role was decided the instant I made her. That being said, that's not a choice I made myself. In that case, I'd say her name. It's loosely based on Steven Universe, because I really enjoyed the show back when I first made her.
4: And reverse, which one of the four things did you struggle with the most?
Definitely her personality. She started off as an idealized version of myself, but then both the canon Wizard101 tragedies and my own desire for angst shattered that determined bright-eyed spunk. It's difficult toeing the line between 'I WANT TO DO GOOD I WANT TO BE A CLASSIC HERO' and 'I AM HURT AND I AM ANGRY AND I WILL LASH OUT AGAINST THE WORLD.' Virtue and vice, selflessness and selfishness. Over the years that I've been writing her, I've gotten a better handle on how to balance these conflicting desires of hers, and it makes for one of my favorite characters ever.
16: Is there any memes or running jokes associated with the character, both in- and out of universe?
She's a snooferrrrrrrrrrr. (The Abyss makes its victims optimized hunters, able to 'smell' fear, magic, and fellow bogeymen)
17: Are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? How are they represented, in their design, personality or in some other way?
There are MANY, but I'll just focus on one.
The sky, especially in sunset and dusk. Metaphorically, sunset and dusk are 'bridges' between day and night, warmth and cold. This fits Nora's role as the Divine Paradox, the mortar between light and shadow. Physically, her outfits carry the color scheme of sunsets. Her Arc3 one had bright oranges and purples, while her Arc4 one (visible on my artfight btw, self advertising) has cooler blues and purples now. The shift in palette shows both a literal and metaphorical passage of time, as the bright sunset gives way to dusk, and as Nora realizes she's in desperate need of a gear upgrade. (The level cap increased from 130 to 170 when she was 'dead' :P )
My friend @klaraflamez and I have been writing a shared story based upon the wizard101 AUs we made independently. Things go somewhat off the rails, and so these headcanons that we made for Music absolutely do not work for canon, which is part of why I'm making this post separate.
An overview of our AUs:
In both Corrupted Spiral (my AU) and the Cleaved AU (Klara's), the Spiral learned so heavily on its dependency upon its Wizard that it led to the Wizards' demises. In CS, before Arc 4 could properly begin, Nora lashed out in fury, sick of being Nothing but a title and weapon, and abandons the Spiral. In Cleaved, Scarlet was killed in the final fight of Lemuria, a 1v8, abandoned and alone because the Spiral assumed she would have handled it.
The main characters of the next generation after the two Wizards (~0-5 years after Nora's departure and 25 years after Scarlet's death) each realize that even though they're not The Wizard, they still have a duty to serve the good of the Spiral.
Overall there's a major theme of destiny and responsibility not falling on just one person's shoulders. The Wizard is not the only Paradox, and the primordial magics of Light, Shadow, and Music are no longer reserved for the Wizard and the gods. They become proper schools, integrated with the other ten (7 playable schools + 3 Astrals).
I've written and come up with spells for the Music school, as one of the characters I'm writing ends up as the Scion of Music, while Klara's writing the revamped Shadow and Light schools because her OCs become the Scions for those.
More details on Music as its own school in CCSAU (both lorewise and mechanicswise because i am gamerpilled), and all the spells themselves plus their explanations (where I derived inspiration from) are under the cut!
Music is the magic of creation. 'Outgoing' mechanics are the name of the game. It is a major hitter like Fire and Storm, but also has access to heals like the more defensive Life magic that came from the Song of Creation. Music's greatest weakness is that it is a major glass cannon, with no spells in its repertoire able to mitigate incoming damage.
The reason Music is tied to Fire and Storm alongside Life lorewise is because the Scion of Music first studied Fire and Storm magic alongside Musicology, before Music was its own school. Our Scion shaped Music as much as Music shaped him.
Now onto the spells themselves!
MAINLINE (primarily ATTACKING) SPELLS:
1 pip - Lyrebird - 90-130 damage. Based on the lyre instrument, and also a nod to Lyra, the fanon Music school tree in the Cleaved AU.
2 pip - Trombun - 220-260 damage. A pun on trombone and bunny.
3 pip - Earworm - 500 damage over 3 turns. Colloquially, earworms are catchy bits of song that just stay in your head and WON'T GET OUT, which is the inspiration for making this spell a pesky overtime. Also, taken from the Earworm/Brainworm mobs in Empyrea.
4 pip - Melodeer - 465-525, + 20% heal OR damage blade to self. Melody + deer. Here we begin to see some utility and niche poke its way into spells so that they're not plain and pure damage. Also, just to balance Music against the other 'hitter' schools a little bit more, it doesn't get a 4-pip AoE.
5 pip - Volta Bracken - 400 damage AND 400 health to self. A reference to volta brackets (an element in musical notation), with language nodding at Storm and Life magic (volt as in electricity, bracken as in a kind of plant). Yes this spell is an objectively better version of Beary Surprise. I hate Beary Surprise so much why is the bear both anthro and nude. why does he fucking smile like that. why can i see the whites of his eyes. WHY THE HUG?
6 pip - Resonance - 525-610 damage + remove all blades on 1 target. A single-target version of Myth's dreaded Earthquake.
7 pip - Horschestra - 700 damage to all enemies. Your classic 7-pip AOE. Horse + Orchestra, taken from a song in the Homestuck OST because it made me laugh tbh.
8 pip - Revivace - 1200 Heal to all allies. Name derived from Revive (synonym of Rebirth) and Vivace (musical mood). Meant to be a parallel to Life’s Rebirth spell, since Bartleby is the closest thing to a Music school tree in CS. However Rebirth gives an absorb-shield, which counts as temporary HP even if the spell heals someone to full, while Revivace has no extra defense.
9 pip - Crescendo! - 100 damage turn 1, then a DoT for 200, 300, then 400 damage, to all enemies. Crescendo is a musical term for "get gradually louder"
10 pip (Azteca) - Ceramic Drake - 1000 damage to 1 target, then 625 damage to all enemies over 3 rounds. The first of Music's spells that take on aesthetics derived from the world they're learned in. It takes inspiration from the tlapitzalli, an Aztec flute-like instrument made of ceramic.
5 pip + Shadow (Darkmoor) - Rehubution - 810 damage + 25% Music trap to all enemies. The spell's name comes from the word Retribution and the rehu, an instrument made by the Māori of Aotearoa. All of the canon Darkmoor spells are actually Khrysalis themed, and @chrono101 (now deactivated) made a really cool post about how the Hoppers had Aotearoan references that I remembered while coming up with this post. The effect in combat is derived from Fire from Above before it was nerfed and then slaughtered.
6 pip + Shadow (Polaris) - Luphilymn - 1260 damage, +1 turn to Damage over Times (DoTs) on enemy and +1 turn to Heal over Times (HoTs) on self. Luphilim + Hymn.
4 pip + Shadow (Mirage) - Spirit of the Groove - 900 damage, divided between targets (like all other Mirage spells). This spell is less a reference to something Miragian, and more a nod to a character who had a major impact on the Scion of Music's development. Ceramic Drake, Luphilhymn, and the upcoming spells of Ramalong and Jungle Drum Jam also are nods to characters that the Scion of Music was greatly supported by.
X-pip + Shadow (Karamelle) - Ramalong - 220 damage per pip. A blend of sing-along and the candy rams. This spell is an X-pip because there are a handful of songs/lullabies about counting sheep. Count your pips up!
6 pip + Shadow (Lemuria) - Jungle Drum Jam - 850 damage to all enemies, +40% Music blade AND +40% heal blade to self. Taken from this once-off moment in Lemuria where Bantam says that he and the Koolakamba just casually use advanced musicology for the sake of boogieing.
The effect is taken DIRECTLY from the far superior path of the Life Lemuria spell, Lord of the Jungle, before KI nerfed it to bits. I am so fucking mad about the nerf. I fucking liked having a decent shadow AoE on my Life and now it's useless again. <- had to get my gamer rage out sorry.
1 pip + Fire pip + Storm pip (Novus) - Tempo Inferno - 800 damage, gambit 1 blade into a DoT for 500 over 4 turns, gambit 1 trap into a HoT for 500 HP over 4 turns. Tempo refers to the speed of a musical piece, and both pieces of this spell's name are nods to Storm and Fire as well (Temp- for tempest, Storm's most iconic spell, Inferno for fire). This spell would also hold visual reference to that one sidequest about how clocks don't work on Novus.
1 pip + Death pip + Myth pip (Wallaru) - Crab Grave - 575 damage to all enemies. A reference to the extinct Juggernaut crabs of Wallaru, the still living Tasmanian giant crab, and the legendary Crab Rave meme. Given that all of the Wallaru spells' archmastery pips are the ones backwards from the Novus spells' pips, it made sense to make Crab Grave's pips the roshambo opposite to Tempo Inferno's. Myth is the roshambo opposite of Storm, and Death is the roshambo opposite of Fire. Don't believe me on Death and Fire? Look at how Balance's Novus gear has 3 variants that pair Ice-Life, Storm-Myth, and Fire-Death as its archschools. No I don't know why the Balance Wallaru spell is Death-Storm instead of Death-Fire I don't get it <- gamer raging again.
UTILITY SPELLS:
There are some utility spells that every school gets access to, simply changed per school: the basic Blade and Trap and Shield are simply named Music Blade, Music Trap, and Music Shield, because they're standardized for all the schools (Except Ice Shield, which is actually Snow Shield, for whatever reason?). Though, to put a wrinkle into things and keep with Music's theming as hyper-outgoing, Music Trap is the only ward spell (a spell that affects incoming damage rather than outgoing) that Music gets permanent access to. Music Shield would be TC only. Traps get special treatment because of Maulwurf von Trap existing. I like the guy don't @ me.
Then there's the utility spells that are just about the same for each school but with unique names. These include:
the 2 pip damage bubble - Circle of Fifths, after an important element in music theory. +25% damage to all outgoing Music spells AND +25% to all outgoing Music heals (the boost to healing alongside damage is unique to Music. Life gets Circle of Thorns (+25% damage) and Sanctuary (+60% healing) as two different bubbles.)
the 4-pip critical and pierce bubble - Acoustic Arena, +15% Music critical and +20% Music pierce.
the dispel - Mute
the Taunt/Pacify - Soloist, Taunts the enemy for 2 turns, making you the only target they can hit. Yes, having a glass cannon school gain taunt is a bit poor in game design, typically you want your glass cannons to have some form of Pacify so that they're not killed as quickly, but thematically Music becoming a loud center of attention makes more sense to me.
the complementary triad shield - Eclipse Shield, -70% incoming Light and Shadow damage. The parallel to Storm's Thermic Shield (-70% Fire and Ice) or Death's Dream Shield (-70% Life and Myth). Like Music Shield, because this spell is both a staple piece of utility that every school should have access to and a defensive ward that goes against Music's school identity, it would only exist as a treasure card.
The level 75 minion from The Professor - Baronness Webberfeld - 5 pips, summon a minion of Music. She is a reference to Baronness Elberfeld, a minor character from the Sound of Music. Because I had to get a reference to that in. Because I am normal about Maulwurf von Trap and his source media.
And then we get to the unique utility spells, the gimmicks that gives Music its identity in-game or give it thematic support.
Tune Up - 0 pips, +20% accuracy to the next outgoing Music spell. A parallel to Storm's Lightning Strike (which back in my day only gave +10% accuracy, not +25%). Music spells have a base accuracy of 70% like Storm, so the accuracy buff would be greatly needed at lower levels.
Bangsnap! - 2 pips, Confuse or stun each enemy for 1 turn.
Gurdy-hurdy - 3 pips, Confuse or stun each enemy for 2 turns.
Bangsnap and Gurdyhurdy go together, I'm thinking of them being from the Grizzleheim and Wintertusk spell quests at level 35 and 55. Bang snaps are small explosives that only release a loud sound but do no damage. Gurdy-hurdy is a reference to another in-game moment.
(The hurdy-gurdy, un-reversed, is a kind of musical instrument.)
And, yep! Myth is no longer the only school with the Confusion mechanic! Yippee! (I can hear the gamerbro players scream.) This is because before Music became a standalone school in CCSAU, Klara had the idea that, the way some Wizard101 spells are musicological despite not being in the school of Music, some Pirate101 abilities are inherently musicological as well, namely Blast of Discord.
And this is an ability that our Scion of Music was able to learn before Music became an independent school, so rather than take that ability away from him, we decided to incorporate it into Music's entire repertoire.
Leitmotif - 2 pips, 305 HP to 1 target, then 305 more HP 3 turns later. A leitmotif is a snippet of a musical melody that comes back later in a piece or in another piece (Toby Fox, one of my favorite composers, uses leitmotifs to the MAX.)
Sonatyr - 4 pip, 650 Health + 30% Healing Blade to all. Satyr + Sonata. Does less health than Life's Satyr because I don't want to completely upstage Life, but giving an extra blade to everyone is useful. It buffs every healer, and would count for any blade-based gambits/secondary effects.
Adagio - 1 pip, +1 turn to a HoT on an ally or to a DoT on an enemy. Adagio means for a piece of music to slow down.
Allegro - 1 pip, -1 turn to a HoT on an enemy or to a DoT on an ally. Allegro means for a piece of music to speed up.
Adagio and Allegro are spells that go together. If they were to be implemented in-game, I'd have them be learned at the same time. Having a spell that does different things depending on whether it's on an ally or enemy is really interesting to me, though it would be a pain in the ass to code.
Encore - 5 pips, force your target to cast the same spell for the next 2 turns. Encore, of course, means "to play again". Taken directly from Pokemon because why not?
Baton Pass - X pips, give your blades to an ally, universal and at half-value, (1 pip per blade). Also derived from Pokemon because why not? The half-value gimmick comes from Bantam's cheat of "I'll be taking that, thanks!" Where he replaces a blade you cast on someone else with a universal blade of half value. The devs intended that cheat to be annoying and discourage buffing one player to the max, but it's actually a REALLY HANDY mechanic when used correctly. The half-value blade would count as a unique blade that therefore stacks with whatever other blades your ally has.
Perfect Pitch - 1 pip, +20% accuracy to all allies. Perfect pitch is defined as the ability to tell exactly what note(s) a sound is without any reference. This spell would be copy-pasted over from Life, and also derived from the Pirate101 abilities Call to Arms and Esprit de Corps, which both boost your team's accuracy. (Esprit also gives dodge, a stat that I cannot find any way to translate into Wizard101 that wouldn't be a defensive ward, which Music does not do). The animations for those two powers feature musical instruments (a drum and a trumpet), which makes it feel very musicological to me and therefore fitting for Music itself.
Fortissimo! - 2 pips, +15% Critical chance to all allies. Fortissimo is music speak for "BE FUCKING LOUD!" This spell is derived from the Pirate101 abilities Discipline and Enduring Discipline, which (are supposed to) give +5% and +10% critical chance to all allies. (I have heard that the abilities that purely increase critical chance rather than another stat simply don't work because Pirate101's code is made out of silly string, but that's besides the point). There are very few spells that affect critical, so it's a niche that Music could fill in if it wanted to.
This probably isn't even enough utility, Wizard101 has a SURPRISING amount of spells it throws at you. It's such an in-depth game. I love it. I am normal about Wizard101.
Also, Klara was absolutely AMAZING and drew some of the spells!
Nora Gem - Stormbreaker and Divine Aberrant Paradox
Age: 28(?)
Level: 130 Storm Wizard
Personality: Brave, bold, impulsive, quickly and fiercely loyal, has an eye for detail, easily distractable by said detail
Status: Mostly human, mostly stable. Journeying through her home Spiral trying to find her way to the Arcanum without her World Keys... and without being found.
Story: I've told Nora's story plenty times over on this blog, but I shall tell it again. Nora is my main Wizard, who successfully quested through Arc 3 and became the Divine Paradox, though with a heavy toll to her emotional and mental health. The weight of being everything to the Spiral yet nothing but a bunch of epithets crushed her, with Sybil's prophecy (mis-heard or mis-repeated as "You are Nothing to fear") as the latent last straw that broke her back. She lashed out against the Chaos Heart, effectively undoing one of her last canon moments and releasing destructive aberrant magic across the Spiral, and fled to another dimension (my old OC universe, which is able to connect to multiple other fandoms) with her baby sister to get away from everything.
While in this getaway period, Nora crossed paths with Blake Thorburn (RP'ed by my friend @bad-pun-king), originally of the Pact fandom. Word had spread of the 'strange fairy and her child' who had moved in, and Blake sought her out for a chance to cure his humanity of the Abyss, a horrific semi-conscious plane of existence that wants nothing more than to consume and digest the universe and everyone in it. Nora, in all her kindness, helped Blake become human again, and as a result became a major target for the Abyss. This will become relevant later.
Eventually, Nora pulled herself together and remembered that her last moments in the Spiral were basically a catastrophic temper tantrum on the divine and international level. So Nora sought to... y'know... fix that. However, because of her meltdown, she was widely considered a dangerous vagabond, a hero who had gone bad and whose good reputation was tarnished (perhaps beyond repair). So, Nora had to be incredibly fickle with her savior'ing, unable to be the public figure she had once been. She wasn't even sure if even her old allies at the Arcanum would take her back.
Nora eventually revealed herself to the Arcanum (which now included her cousins?) while trying to save Karamelle from both the consequences of her own actions AND the predatory presence of the Abyss, which had become aware of the Spiral once she returned to it. Despite her best efforts and the help of her estranged friends, one monster from the Abyss ate her alive during the tumultuous battle for Karamelle.
Rather than dying, however, Nora fell into the Abyss, where its magic took root in her. She desperately tried to crawl her way out of the Abyss, with the help of the real actual Nothing that Sybil had originally seen and a jaded but hopeful monster who wanted to escape the Abyss with her.
Now Nora has made her way back to the Spiral, though with some scars (such as her left arm from the elbow down and her wings being replaced with living debris, and a constant hunger rivalled only by the Abyss itself) and incredibly out of tough. How long has it been since she'd fallen? Is the Arcanum still around? Is her family? Why is there talk of a second Spiral? And who's this new young voice in her head asking about wizardhood?
Many questions, but only one way to find out: questing solo, like old times.
i love it when good-intentioned young wizards end up unwittingly devoting themselves to a destructive paramilitary that seeks to crush magical diversity for the sake of "purifying" magic.
Drew this for @valerian-thundercloud, because his lad is very 👍 and I like yes-and'ing ocs
HI I'm so sorry if this is vague but please, I am begging, tell me everything about Mark Moonfisher. I have such an unholy love for anything inspired by that particular oc, I am holding out my hands.
HI yes I remember your designs for the Schism Boi TM were so scrumptious.
So, Mark is a sharkperson from Skull Island because I really wanted to make a nonhuman character, and when I was spamming the random name button in the wiz creator, I got names featuring "Shark-" and "Sea-" and "Moon-" a bunch. Specifically, I've based him off the spiny dogfish shark, since they're both small and are mildly venomous (and I love venomous and poisonous animals)
He was very much a "runt of the litter" kind of guy, small and weak and living in a very large and overwhelming world overrun with international politics and chaos. Also he kinda sucked at making friends, since he was so desperate to prove himself as cool and strong that he came off as an annoying prick.
Socially vulnerable, he was perfect fodder for the Schismists. I headcanon the Order of the Watchers that showed up in the P101 Tenth Anniversary to be a branch of the Schismists (because like, hello, a secretive society that spies on the Player Character and that we're introduced to as being niceys by a character that Blind Mew voice acts? too many parallels IMO), so they were able to step in as his first "real friends" and stoke his ego and desire to belong somewhere so that he'd be willing to do more than just spy. He could be a soldier, strong and powerful. Nobody would call him weak anymore! All he had to do was leave his family behind, and obey the higher ups.
A small price to pay, for him.
I've talked at length about how Karamelle goes down, and have definitely put those posts under his tag as well, so I'll give a short summary. Shit hits the fan, the Wizard kinda throws the entire Spiral into magical disasters before Arc 4 can properly begin, the Schism Summit in Karamelle is cancelled, Karamelle is a mess, and after waiting years for a miracle that never came & watching his boss and peers die in front of him,,, Mark is kinda a mess. Very much just in an "Objective: survive" state. He and some of the remaining Karamellians who couldn't flee the disasters beforehand (and one other Schismist, the Quizzler) are able to evacuate to Grizzleheim.
And it's in Grizzleheim where Mark gets to get... deradicalized, for lack of a better word. There's no real Schism anymore, just him and the Quizzler. Instead, Mark has to navigate an actual noncult community, and learn how to interact with others normally. With help, he does manage to find his place in the new settlement of Drostein and get to be a normal, dumb teenager. He quotes vines that he learned from the Nordic Champion, Emma Titansong (one of my Player OCs). He hangs out in the rivers of Savarstaad Pass for hours on end, and catches fish by hand and by mouth sometimes. He joined the local fight club. He's a fan of former Nibbelung popstar Mauria Kutscherzo, and ABBA and Queen (Emma introduced him to the Earth bands). He gets to be just some guy, completely free from his canon fate.
