#hyperewok1

[thessalian]

A, D, and V for Alisaie :D

AFFECTION.   how does your muse show affection? 

Generally, not hugely verbally. It’s kind of that meme: “Instead of saying ‘I love you’, the People say ‘my heart is yours’ and I think that’s beautiful”? She’s said the actual words once or twice, but only in situations where she wanted to make a very clear point. She shows affection the way the People do; physical proximity as the situation demands (there are a lot of variables; like, balancing how much affection the object of her affection wants vs how much they need, whether the object of her affection is uncomfortable with public displays of affection and whether the situation’s too serious for her to give a shit, that kind of thing) and doing nice things for them. Of course, Alisaie also has done her time in the Tipsy Pixie, so she adds lavish compliments and similar flirtations where the People don’t.

DATE.   what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

Well, the “who” should be pretty obvious; if it’s a date-date? It’s with Remi or it’s not happening. And honestly, she doesn’t care. Like, just really does not care. As long as she’s with the one she loves, and her beloved is enjoying themselves (herself, in this case), it’s perfect. I mean, she does enjoy the wandering around a city, shopping and having a meal and all that, but the thing she enjoys most about dates is learning more about what Remi enjoys, and showing what she enjoys. Not a lot of scope for that while travelling around saving the world in the way they are at the moment.

VALENTINE.   how does your muse feel about valentine’s day? 

Well ... she doesn’t actually know that the Ellon equivalent of Valentine’s day (the Feast of Sune) exists. She missed it as a child in Belarys, the People don’t really go in for that sort of thing, and the Tipsy Pixie kind of honour that one every day. (She might have noticed Kezia making a big deal out of that particular day, given that Kezia is a proper devotee of Sune, but she tends not to ask overmuch about other people’s faith.) When she learns of its existence, she’ll probably love the idea of a whole day devoted to celebrating the beauty of the world and the love in her life. She’d hate Valentine’s Day as celebrated in our world, though. Not the essence of it exactly, but more the cheap tat and consumerist nightmare.

[gffa]

--Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves

[thessalian]

I was looking up “Bagpipe Star Wars Theme” because of reasons and I found this and everyone must groove to it.

[thessalian]

The Haunted Darksaber

Getting on the “Haunted Din” train for a moment - and please keep in mind that this is coming from someone who does scary so often and so well that someone’s designing a eldritch horror / fey-ish nightmare Magic deck in their honour and has been barred on pain of dire torture from ever running Call of Cthulu - I have a question:

I know it’s the angst and probably the hurt/comfort and “Grogu can save him” and the aesthetic and everything, but given what I know about Mandalorian history and culture ... why does the Darksaber haunting Din have to be bad?

Bit of history on the Darksaber: It was created by the first Mandalorian ever to be inducted into the Jedi Order. Its use as a weapon by anyone truly evil is relatively recent - Maul had it for awhile. But while it’s a relic from when the Mandalorians were a more warlike culture ... a warrior culture in and of itself is not evil.

I’m just kind of tired of Mandalorians = Bad Guys because “warrior culture; likes to fight”. I tend to think that pre-pacifism Manalore gets a bad rep in general. Warrior cultures don’t just mean “We’re strong, you’re weak, we conquer”. From the things I’ve seen and read, it’s never just been about conquering. It’s about the fight, not the power winning grants on a political or sociological level. It’s about challenging yourself, pushing past personal limits to be stronger - not just in body, but in mind and heart and soul as well.

Isn’t that kind of what Din needs right now?

Din’s an orphan, and one who only knows a small part of his fragmented adoptive culture. What if the Darksaber, because of the nature of its creator and its place at the side of every Mandalore from Tarre Vizsla on down, carried the memory of every Mandalore who ever was? (At least after, like, 1032 BBY, anyway, around the time the Sith were presumed extinct - that’s over a thousand years of Mandalorian culture right there.) Sure, it’d have echoes of Maul, and that could be a trigger for darker things, but ... imagine Din meditating with the blade and learning about his culture, his history. The truth of it, and not just what the people who rescued him or Bo-Katan have told him over the course of his lifetime? What if, because of the things he learned from just watching Grogu, he opened himself to embodying Mandalore, in a truer, more direct way than any Mandalore before him ever has, simply because he is a foundling and he hungers for truth about his chosen culture more than someone like Bo-Katan, who was born to it and maybe takes her viewpoint a bit for granted?

The Darksaber has some dark elements to it, yes. But it was made by a Mandalorian Jedi - one who combines the Jedi Code with the Resol’nare - and will carry that as much as anything Maul did with it when he lead Death Watch. Give me that. The aesthetic is cool and all, but cooler to me is the salvation and proper understanding of a culture that’s been fractured and maligned and misunderstood.

[thessalian]

Wintersmith

Steeleye Span · Album · 2013 · 16 songs.

So as if Terry Pratchett (GNU Terry Pratchett) wasn’t awesome enough, thing I did not know: he did a collaboration album with the folk band Steeleye Span, based on the book by the same name.

...And I found this out from watching the pole-dancing archery guy on TikTok pole dancing to this with silver hair and a kilt that I hope he wasn’t wearing ‘properly’, if you know what I mean... But if you’re going to pole dance in a kilt to any song, it should be one glorifying the Wee Free Men.

[thessalian]

3, 13, 14, 16, and 17 for Alisaie

3. What outfit or style of clothing is your character most often seen wearing?

Alisaie prefers clothes that are easy to move in but still fairly flashy and brightly-coloured - though since she tries to match style to area, that’s going to change when they get up north. At the moment, with much of her wardrobe having come from that oasis camp in the desert, it’s mostly off-the-shoulder peasant midriff tops that showcase her back tattoo (paired with an underbust corset if she’s not expecting combat), tight-ish trousers soft enough to let her move in, and boots, with a sash around the waist. Colour scheme is usually reds, golds and white.

13. What’s your character’s preferred method of self-care?

Depending on situation, flying and perching on a high place to have a good think, or curling up with Remi someplace with a warm drink and comfortable silence.

14. When does your character truly feel at peace?

See above. Particularly given the party, Alisaie’s life is raucous enough that a moment’s quiet, particularly with her intended, is peace enough, and she’ll tend to seek peace out when life is a bit too agitating for her, one way or another.

16. What’s one memory your character will always be fond of?

The time she and Remi had a day to themselves, shopping for Aurilmas gifts. While being given the tracking / promise ring stands out, the best part of it for Alisaie was just wandering with Remi, doing fairly normal things and having nice conversation and Being A Couple in a setting that didn’t involve potential imminent death. It can be hard, after all, to know whether a relationship is going to be long-term solid or if it’s something that only survives in times of strife; that outing proved that her relationship with Remi was the former, since they could just have fun together (even if the conversation did have to turn to the serious from time to time). It was around that point - shopping for dresses and chatting about quasi-random stuff - that made Alisaie decide, “I’m going to marry this woman”.

17. How does alcohol affect your character?

Remarkably little. Not that Alisaie goes overboard on alcohol most of the time (one of the primary rules of the trade she plied in Al-Zorhai was “never get more drunk than the client”), but most of what you get down south, alcohol-wise, looks pretty weak-sauce compared to what the People manage to brew. Alisaie sticks to ‘a bit tipsy’, and it mostly manifests to a little added colour in the cheeks and being a bit more free with physical affection - thus she doesn’t do it all that much because she has serious doubts that Remi would appreciate having her ass grabbed in public unless she was three sheets to the wind herself, and even then would probably be embarrassed all to hell afterwards.

[thessalian]

31, 46, 49, 63, and 67 for Alisaie :D

31 - They’re given a blank piece of paper. What do they do with it?

Stick it in the haversack because someone’s going to need it. Then start internally betting on whether it’ll be Clarity or Darvin who wants it first.

46 - What do they deprive themselves of?

In general, in the little things, remarkably little. In practice, anything that would get in the way of what those she now considers her new hunting band need or want. For instance, she very much wants to go back to Eun-Bac and travel with the People to Damyl sooner rather than later, but she refused to argue for keeping the immediate trip to the Silver Vault on their itinerary too hard, just because she wasn’t sure that her motivations weren’t selfish to some degree.

49 - What makes them smile?

Lots of things - Alisaie’s one of those people who doesn’t hold back on her smiles, exactly. But the deep-down ones, the genuine ones, come for Remi in general but specifically when Remi’s enjoying herself, indulging herself and / or showing her softer side. Also Hazel enjoying cooking lessons, Froseth and Ava opening up a bit, and any time she manages to procure just the right gift that makes anyone she cares about truly happy.

63 - What fight has scared them the most?

That’s a tricky one. Alisaie’s pretty confident most of the time, at least about battles, and the People and her own life experiences have taught her that going into battle afraid is as bad as, if not worse than, going into battle crippled; it just hands the enemy a weapon with which to break you. No, the only time she was afraid about a fight in any way was the fight with her parents in the basement of her old house, and that was more ... fight-adjacent. She was afraid that her biological family would hurt her real one, and that even if they didn’t, they’d look at her differently because of what her biological parents had become. Sayings about apples and trees, y’know. Intellectually she knows that this particular tree yeeted the apple that was their daughter as far away as possible (literally, really) but sometimes that doesn’t help until reassurance comes from outside. Which it did, so that’s fine.

67 - What makes them laugh?

Remi blushing about things like being caught trying on somewhat more feminine clothing or otherwise normal stuff that Remi somehow finds embarrassing. Hazel’s “Surprise Me” tendencies, and her reactions when she does just try the most random shit (provided that it’s not in a time that it’s not sensible to be trying random shit). Lots of stuff, really, but that’s the predominant stuff.

[thessalian]

Star Waaaars: 3, 21, 30

3) Favourite character from the Prequels?

Okay, this is going to be a little problematic because I watched about half of The Phantom Menace and kind of missed the other two, but I’ve probably seen the entire prequel trilogy in gifsets anyway so here goes: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah, I know, it’s the pretty traditional standard answer. Thing is, for all it’s technically about Anakin becoming Vader, it needed to have Obi-Wan becoming a Jedi Master as counterpoint to work as well as it did. While I can’t say much about the rest of the ... stuff ... going on in those movies? What I’ve seen of that was a beautifully crafted arc of a man who’s trying to do what’s right while the life where ‘what’s right’ was pretty simple to determine was getting unravelled beneath him at a structural level.

21) Which heroine is your favourite?

Part of me wants to say Jyn Erso, buuuuuuuuuut I can’t. Leia Organa Skywalker has been my damn heroine literally since I can remember. She was a princess of a type I’d never seen, she was brave and competent and took zero bullshit and I cannot help but have as my favourite the one I looked to as the person I wanted to be - not a princess, necessarily, but a hero.

30) Do you have any headcanons?

A few, but the only one that really sticks out has been done quite a lot, as it happens: “Han was Force-sensitive”. That’s another hill I will happily die on, and was only reinforced by that scene in TFA where he looked in one direction, pointed his blaster in the other without looking around, and got a trooper right in the chest and downed him.