The similarity I noticed between Lister and Rimmer is that they both have potential for great things if they get their heads out of their asses. Heck, look at Ace and Spanners. XD
Oh absolutely, though how they are stuck differs, with Lister not really having the drive to persue what he naturally excels in, while Rimmer keeps trying to aim for a goal he has no actual interest in. I could go on about how this links into their own traumas but we would be here all week.
Have you posted any Adam Francis headcanons yet? I'd love to know about your take on the Dbd Wondernerd. :)
I’m sure I have, but the tag system on mobile is a bitch. ✊😔
I never quite know how to answer these, because I include so much of my thoughts when I write already. Hard to think of things not already covered. Uhhh. I think he goes on to be a successful author, and truly enjoys it. Enjoys speaking at conferences, and giving advice to young writers too.
I think he’s very socially adept and gets along easily, and keeps a cool head more easily than most of the other survivors. Good at rolling with the punches.
I think he’s much funnier than people expect or give him credit for.
Has good fashion sense, but sometimes completely ignores it and looks ridiculous on purpose, especially if going somewhere with Ace (solidarity).
Jake (and quickly, Dwight) are first to pick up on a specific part of his sense of humor being that he acts straight laced but would do all kinds of goofy things with the squad ‘for the bit’ and can be prompted to with a quiet (‘…for the bit’.) Jake and he do this to each other in secret because if Meg found out it’s a thing it would never end.
Not great in a fist fight, but amazing aim (obviously) and one of the more proficient with blunt melee weapons.
Thinks it’s funny Ace calls him ‘Professor’ not because he actually was one, but bc when they met the way he was dressed looked to Ace like the Professor from Gilligan’s Island, and likes to tell that story (and is the kind of person who really enjoys that kind of story).
Knocked a man out with his laptop once and the laptop made it.
Some kind of demi-grey but potentially likes all kinds if they register high enough on the amazing scale. Definitely has had an interest at least 3 survivors at some point. It’s just usually not the focus amidst. Well. Everything but also him as a person.
The kind of person who has a huge collection of teas and can actually tell them apart by taste without looking and gets really excited and enthusiastic about different ways of brewing and new teapots. Collects mugs so everyone gets to go wild picking out some of the coolest ones you ever saw for him.
Gets people to start a book club with him post-realm, but instead of reading the same book, everyone reads a different one and then meets up to one at a time go bonkers (positive or negative) about the book they’re reading to everyone else. No firm rules. Meg Thomas showed up week 1 with a Silver Age Spider-Man compendium. Jane brought her own book as a joke and got trapped having to actually comment on it because everyone Yes, And’d her joke so hard. They all really enjoy it, but the meetings last longer than a d&d meet.
Also have this gif I made as a joke about him misusing his rock ability to throw rocks at killers like a god years ago for free as a bonus:
I've read some of your tags that you wanted to redo the Vampire The Masquerade lore so that it's not so grimdark bleak all the time. What sort of ideas are floating in your head?
OOF, you be diggingggggg. I post a lot of nonsense. 😂🥰
I’m going to be That ™️ Brujah ™️ Bitch ™️ here and say my main goal would be to make Vampire: the Masquerade not just disapproving of players being racist, homophobic, ableist etc, but have the lore be actively hostile to it. Grimedark stories are not for me, but some people like them. I’d want to erase elements that make tabletop campaigns needlessly harmful to the players and Storyteller. As a white woman, I think my biggest goal with re-tooling the lore would be to hire black, indigenous, and other people of color to re-tool it.
For example, the Gehenna Crusade in the Middle East. My God, those v5 lore bits were painful to read and I’m not even Asian or Muslim. I’d hire a group of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan--heck, Iranian, Israeli, and Palestinian writers would be amazing--to formulate the undead view on the atrocity that is the War on Terror. I thought Night Road touched on a interesting point with the concentration camp and Catholic hospital chapter: the horrors humanity creates are far, far worse than any Elder could do. Humans are set to destroy the world, more so than any magical creature. The question is not “will bad things happen?” so much as “how will I react to the bad things around me?”
Other ideas:
Moving the v5 section on content warnings and respectful playing to the front of the book. Read about how every fascist character MUST die or be reformed. That’s literally a rule.
A more careful analysis/explanation of NPC motivation. Let there be specific reasons Kindred do to not band together. It’s not arbitrary Backstabby Disease. There’s a reason why such-and-such hates so-and-so. “Power” is too nebulous a motivation and used too often to pit Kindred against each other. What type of power do they want and why? If they got it, what would they do with it? What is preventing 90% of Kindred getting along and hosting Neftlix parties, is what I’m saying.
handing over the Ravnos lore to writers and game devs who are Roma and/or Travelers, and putting in huge ass, lime green letters that “If you have the Ravnos be Roma or Travelers, you are playing the game incorrectly!” Because, my goodest dudes, I am le tired. Even though the Ravnos have been soft-revamped a couple times now, fans are still using their super harmful origin.
More environmentalism and combating climate change, with crossover to Werewolf: the Apocalypse. This ties in with the “humans are causing an apocalypse better than vampires ever do/did” theme.
In general, more of the different magic species interacting. They all inhabit one world, one globe! They all have a vested interest in protecting the earth!
It’s been beaten to death on here, but divorcing the concept of liking sex and/or having sex etc with the Humanity mechanic
In general, just let the vampires be sexy
Hire indigenous writers to write their own vampires (if that’s the term they’d want to use) for their tribe. The whole narrative that the Americas were empty of supernatural beings is like. No.
Shift to a more international focus with the “By Night” books. The USA, unfortunately, exists, and I think we’ve heard enough about it. What about By Night books set in South America? Written by indigenous folks there? And other folks of color? I’d love Cassandra Khaw and a team of Chinese writers to be hired to re-do the Kuei-jin, and for the many, many talented African fantasy writers to re-do the Laibon. Lagos by Night anyone?
Give the Anarch cause more specificity. You’re telling me that the Anarchs don’t have a constitution? In the year of our Lord 2021??? No Bill of Rights? No judicial system? No social programs or schools?? No democracy?? Like!!!! Have them keep up with the progressiveness of the time we’re living in. It’s been proven over and over and over that true anarchy is not sustainable.
This turned into more of a “what would I do with v5″ sort of thing, but here we are. If you wanted to ask about a specific tag or post, let me know. Thanks for the ask!
So @rayshell22livejournalcom on tumblr had asked me if I had anymore Theo Bell x Jan Pieterzoon fanart ideas to draw and I had mentioned that I was thinking of drawing Theo and Jan riding on a motorcycle (since I believe in the clan novels Theo gave Jan a lift on his motorcycle) and after rayshell22livejournalcom gave me some encouragement, I went for it. And boy, motorcycles are hard to draw even with reference but I think I did an decent job and its nice to make an art piece that kind of resembles what I imagined! XD
I was actually writing a post on this and was about to make it its proper post, lol.
So, I’ll give you the involvement of my former Sabbat vamps (+ Millicent Rue)!
You said in the notes of the original post --
I understand your skepticism, but considering that Theo worked with Lucita, a Lasombra, in Gehenna The Final Night, stranger things have happened. ;)
On one hand, I’m pretty sure there isn’t any penis throwing in that novel.
On the other... they live in the same city, and an outrageous distraction is probably the best distraction you can get. Like, it’s a penis. Everyone is going to want to look to see what the fuck is going on.
Theo Bell’s probably heard of the descendant of Sascha Vykos whose life dream is to throw a penis in Hardestadt’s face, just like her great-grandsire. It’s not common knowledge, but since the Sabbat used to have the city most people who live there have heard of her ambition, even if they don’t know the name of the Tzimisce who had it. She used to live there, maybe she never left. Tzimisce have Vicissitude, after all.
Nastasya poses as Laika Petrova, the Gangrel, these days. She’s seen Theo Bell around at Elysium from time to time, so she’s not surprised to see him there again one night. She’s surprised he’s walking towards her, but not alarmed.
Then he says, “I’ve heard you can get me in contact with Anastasia Sokolova.”
And Laika just side eyes him all, “The Tzimisce? Why would I have any connections to her?”
And he just looks at her.
And she sighs and is like, “FINE. Meet me at the Bow Bridge in Central Park at 3AM.”
So they meet. She does so in her regular Tzimisce form. She doesn’t bother taking precautions to protect herself; Bell isn’t the type to lure an enemy into an ambush when he could’ve just exposed her in plain sight. He doesn’t want her destroyed, she’s pretty sure.
Theo Bell is like, “I’ve heard you want to throw a penis at Hardestadt.”
Nastasya tries not to laugh her ass off, because “are you seriously telling me the Camarilla actually dispatched an Archon over penis throwing?”
“No,” says Theo. “Actually, I want a distraction. You want to pull a Vykos. There’s a conclave in Prague in three months. I can help you get in and make it happen. Let’s talk.”
Nastasya. Is. Delighted.
She doesn’t even ask questions. Just like Theo hoped she would.
And then this post happens:
Nastasya wakes up in the middle of the day. Proteans into the form of a rat. Makes a ghoul carry her in a light-proof box to her sire’s haven.
Shakes him awake. Holding him by the shoulders, eyes bloodshot, she gets right up in his face.
“We need to go to Prague.”
Her sire is, like, so done with Nastasya and her Vykos obsession, but he works hard to be a Good Sire even though she’s been released for a decade, so you know he’s letting himself get dragged there anyway.
Nastasya texts Sullivan’s ghoul. “We’re going to Prague to throw a penis in the face of Hardestadt, you in?”
And Sullivan just takes one look at it and is like “tell her I’ll have to track down Millicent and bring her, because she will never forgive me if she misses out on this.”
So Sullivan gets to work. He and Nastasya, as a favour to him, pull every string they have with the Nosferatu antitribu to track down Millicent. Sullivan finally finds her in a dive bar in Los Angeles, managing the blood trade there under the noses of Anarchs and Camarilla alike.
Sullivan just cuts straight to the chase all, “I’ve been looking for you for weeks! I got an offer I don’t think you’ll want to refuse.”
“You have an offer. Grammar.”
She ditches him as a fledgling when the Sabbat starts fracturing, they don’t see each other for years, that’s how they greet each other. Yeah, the two of them are just Like That.
“You know Nastasya?” Sullivan tells her. “She’s a Tzimisce friend of mine in New York. She’s the great-grandchilde of Sascha Vykos.”
“What about her?”
“There’s a convention in Prague. Hardestadt will be there. Stasya wants to continue a family tradition. Wanna come?”
Millicent hears “great-grandchilde of Sascha Vykos”, “convention” and “family tradition” and just stops cleaning the glass (she’s at a bar, they’re always cleaning glasses with rags, saves on the water bill).
She stares at him.
She says, “It’s taken quite some time for me to carve out my own part of the blood trade here.”
“Yup,” says Sullivan.
Millicent doesn’t tell him to say yes, not yup. “It takes a lot of maintenance to prevent the competition from muscling in.”
“I’d expect so.”
“And you want me to drop everything and go to Europe to watch a Tzimisce with the maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy throw a lewd body part in the face of a founder of the Camarilla?”
“Yep!”
She stares at him.
Then she says, “Our elders are trying to get the clan into the Ivory Tower. If we’re going to do this, it’s now or never.”
“I knew you’d like it.”
-o-
Nastasya’s grandsire comes too. Having been subject to Sascha’s abuse personally, he often feels like Nastasya doesn’t take Vykos seriously enough, but he has to admit this would be pretty fucking funny so he tags along.
Theo Bell smuggles the ex-Sabbat in. The sires are all deeply amused that he’s helping, and when Millicent is the first person to have the brain cells to ask why, Nastasya tells her, “don’t look a gift Cammy in the mouth!”
Nastasya’s been practicing throwing penises ever since the plan was hatched. It is a bad-dragon esque penis, a foot long and thicker than a man’s forearm, and it’s prehensile and squirming.
She can’t just copy Vykos, she has to outdo them, you know. Put her own spin on the penis. If she ever meets them, she’ll say, “Mine was bigger!”
She waits for the time Theo Bell told her to. A time when the Ventrue are coming back from recess, but nobody’s suspicious the Brujah haven’t quite made it back yet. A time when the conclave hall isn’t too loud and everyone’s just murmuring to each other.
There’s a piercing whistle and a, “Hey, Hardestadt!” Everyone’s heads snap up.
And the penis is thrown. Thrown, but more like hurled. There’s Potence behind it. She wants that penis to hurt.
When everyone turns their heads to see where it comes from, Nastasya makes sure to yell, “Tradition, bitches! The Vykos bloodline sends its regards!"
(She’s spent weeks coming up with the words.)
It’s the best distraction Theo Bell could have hoped for. Even the most bored Kindred with glazed-over eyes is immediately snapping to attention to see the thing squirm its way up Hardestadt’s trouser leg from where it bounced off him and fell on the floor. Jan, who may or may not be in on the whole thing, is trying not to laugh.
There’s dead silence, then the Ventrue start yelling.
And then the ambush happens. The Brujah start cutting down Ventrue.
Hardestadt doesn’t realise what’s happened at first, because he’s trying to get the thing out of his shirt. So it’s pretty easy for Theo to blow his fucking head off.
-o-
Sullivan tells Millicent, “You know, when you said it was now or never, you weren’t fucking kidding.”
-A very refined and dignified robot, despite the fact he looks like a cheesy Halloween decoration. Course he takes pride in his look, but he can also have a little sense of humor about it- a little, gets old quick.
-Has a coffin shaped bed, it’s gaudy and ornate. Skull Man finds it gross, keep the coffin beds simplistic.
-He cares for organic and robot bats, they’re wonderful creatures, very cute
-Loud noises bother him a lot, those big ears are sensitive to sounds normal humans can’t hear
-He likes taking long flights on clear nights, it helps him clear his head. He’ll go on flights with some of the other robot masters capable of flight, he enjoys the company.
-Shade puts value on robots under him, those who aren’t robot masters with varying degrees of self awareness. He considers them individuals who he enjoys the company of. Shade just doesn’t like being lonely.
-Definitely uses his wings as a blanket like bats, or to use to hug others.
-The tail is for decoration it doesn’t do anything unfortunately.
Lisa having a crush on Barry wouldn't surprise me, since I headcanon a little that the Rogues all have crushes on the Flash. But I think it would be more interesting if Len is the Snart harboring feelings for Barry.
Spoilers for current Flash comics in this post!
It’d definitely be different, and I’m sure you’re not alone in those feelings! I guess we’ll see where it goes, though as I said earlier, I really hope Lisa isn’t romantically interested in him because that’s an overdone cliché. Or if she does have a crush on him, that isn’t the reason she’s helping him escape. I’d hope she’s helping because it’s the logistically smart thing to do, or maybe because it’s the best ethical decision in light of her disapproval of her brother.
