#release-the-sheep

[modestflamboyance]

1, and 40, for no particular reason at all 😉😘

No reason at all, you say? Well, okay! 😄

1. Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?

One-shots. For the love of god, please stop me from writing more multi-chaptered fics. I beg. They always start off so promising and then I slowly (aka quickly) lose my mind because it takes. so. long.

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

👀 Jane as pirate Clem Rizzoli would be amazing! With the little moustache? The boots? The hat?? I want him manspreading. Maybe the scene where he first starts being nice to Maura? Or the scene where [remembers it hasn't been written yet] never mind.

[blujayonthewing]

free rein to tell me about Indigo till you run out of steam, go!

WAH OKAY YAY

dsfkhjgsdgh I had a lot of steam so this is long as hell, I'm putting it under a cut lmao

Indigo is my pirate! They're the ship's navigator aboard an all-gnome pirate crew, with a ship of many names (some given freely, some taken from conquered vessels). They're a circle of stars druid; their star map is a golden sphere with a magically illuminating core that projects the night sky outward like the map in treasure planet, or a planetarium projector. It is ALSO their left eyeball, although if you ask what happened to the real eye they'll always give a different answer. They've got an easygoing relaxed nature and mischievous but playful sense of humor, and like bullshitting about everything literally just for funsies (they always tell tales about their eye, for example, because a lot of people ask and it'd just simply be boring to give the same answer over and over). Most of their motivations in life boil down to 'just here for a laugh'-- they're a pirate because they wanted to travel a lot and do weird and exciting things, they lowkey hoard treasure but it's almost entirely whatever's Pretty or Weird or Souvenirs Of An Adventure, because anything whose only value is literal cash value is gonna get spent on pleasure seeking whenever they're in port. Life's shockingly brief! Everything you do is equally profound and meaningless in the Grand Scheme Of All Of Time! You gotta have fun and get silly with it!! Ah also, I usually default to they/themming them for simplicity/ clarity, but they're completely indifferent to gender, they think it's all a bit silly, they're fine with any pronouns ('I don't generally refer to myself in the third person so it's not really any of my business at all, is it?')

They're obsessed with the stars. They became a ship's navigator because they wanted to travel, and already had a mastery of reading the night sky (both literally and metaphysically, both of great value to sailors)-- but they studied magic and astronomy to begin with because, even as a small child, they used to climb trees as high as possible, and gaze upwards, and wonder. It has a strange way of making them feel both small and meaningful; they're only an infinitesimal part of something impossibly vast... but they are a part of it, as is everything else, and every part has a part in the cosmos, no matter how great or small; it's all important, even if in ways that are hard or impossible to see. And, no matter what else is happening, they always know exactly where they are in time and space on a grand scale. There's also something comforting and reassuring about studying history as well as Portents and Fate in the stars, and recognizing that it's all just complex patterns of interconnectedness and probability-- fate isn't a predetermined cage you can't escape, it's just a map you can begin to learn to read, and navigate. They've got a lot of Big Romantic Thoughts And Feelings about free will and destiny and their interplay in people's lives and will wax poetic about them if given the chance (or trying to get laid. lots of very pretty and sexy things to say about What Brought Us Together In This Moment they like to say under the stars and then get kissed for, but they really do mean it; they're more utterly sincere about Stars and/or Fate than anything else in life).

Also :) They died :) They were originally built for a really casual 'let's make an all-gnomes pirate ship and we can do oneshots with them' concept, but I'm playing them now in a campaign whose premise is that each of the characters have died, but can challenge a mysterious tower for a chance to go back. They got caught on their blindside in a skirmish, stabbed in the arm, and hurled overboard, where between the surprise, the injury, and the power of the sea, they weren't able to make it back to the surface... They're pretty badly rattled about it, which sounds obvious, but the thing that's fucking them up is that they'd thought they were pretty chill about mortality and impermanence, and not at all afraid to die (although, of course, not eager)-- so the terror and grief they found themselves grappling with in that moment is something they're having a really hard time coming to terms with now that they're... kind of... okay and more or less 'safe' for the time being. Like, their whole thing is being A Chill Guy about everything and just telling lies for fun, but now they're also having to fight to hold onto that and kind of putting it forward as almost a front, preparing to lie specifically to avoid admitting to things they genuinely don't wanna talk about, all this complicated emotional stuff they lowkey thought they were too cool for I think aaahh

ALSO-- hhh god I can't give you the full emotional impact of this without summarizing the entire campaign so far and every other player character (my GUYS... whom I LOVE...), and this is already so untenably long kgjfhfd but in the last session our challenge on one of the floors of the tower was presented as: here's a deck of many things :) anyone can pull as many cards as they want, but at least one person has to take one card to advance. And for various reasons, it felt like Indigo would have Some idea of what kind of stakes are involved with a DOMT (although, no knowledge of any specifics-- just legends and hearsay), but it was pretty clear that they were the only one in the party with any context at all, and... hell, chancing fate is a bit their whole thing anyway, and the entity presenting the challenge was getting into some mind games shit, so Indigo volunteered both to get everyone else away from that guy and also to be the one to take a fall if it did end up being a bad card. Besides, we're already dead :) What could we possibly have to lose that would matter in the long run :) And the card they drew took. Their 'sense of whimsy and wanderlust'. So not just, perhaps, the worst thing you could do to any gnome, but also so much of just the central pillar of Indigo's entire personhood specifically-- all of their motivation, all of their playful little sense of humor, all of their source of joy, everything that ever made them look up at the stars to begin with. [face in my hands] and then the party was like give that back right now, spells were cast, deals were offered and struck, the fallout hit everybodyyy and now Indigo is repaired but spiritually damaged, and has to contend, again, with 'you just hubrisd yourself into terrifying existential catastrophe' and 'your connections with the people around you, that you like to wax on so philosophically, are closer and more real than you think'. And now every check he ever makes from a place of pure wonder or curiosity is going to have a -2 penalty, because his heart's been broken, and it hurts.

[not-quitenormal]

8 and 41!

8. Have you ever been in an ambulance?

A few times lol. When I was 4, I got a concussion after a car accident and needed to be rushed over. In November 2021, I dislocated my left knee a second time and needed to be carried out of someone's backyard. Finally, at the end of February this year, I was transported from a medical hospital to a psych hospital by ambulance so I could start in-patient treatment. 🚑✌️

41. Do you have tattoos?

No, I don't. 😭😭😭😭 I really want one, though! One of my friends came up with a really cool Wicked tattoo that I want to copy. Otherwise, I'd get the Oz symbol. Either one would go on my left wrist.

[domini-porter]

pandapple and lloromannic :)

PANDAPPLE 🎶: I listen to WHAT. EVER. My Spotify history is a mess. But! I usually actively listen to music while traveling or cleaning, and 99% of the time it’s either classic dancefloor bangers (your FISHER, your Alice Deejay, your Kylies Minogue) or lyrical rap/hip-hop (your Petes and Bas, your Kendrick Lamar, your Tribe and Wu, your Prof and Missy and Chika and Tierra Whack). I love a thumping bassline, what can I say?

If it’s vinyl it’s usually piano jazz (your Ryo Fukui, your Georges Shearing, your Bill Evanses) or folk (Karen Dalton! Joan Armatrading! Connie Converse!)

But usually it’s whatever song jda or I have stuck in one of our heads, and whatever happens after that (today was “Turn Down For What” and Parliament’s “Flash Light” which led to a very funky morning).

LLOROMANNIC 🍕: I have long been an advocate of Making Pizza In The Home, mostly because I have a very particular and weird favorite, and nobody will make it for me: olive oil base, Bosc pear, gorgonzola cheese, red onion, prosciutto (optional), arugula, and balsamic vinegar. If it sounds like a lot, it is, and it is SO GOOD.

Runner-up is a Maison Derrière perennial favorite; it is also weird but there’s a pizza place that makes it: white sauce, artichoke hearts, and black olives. We call it Blood Pizza for reasons that are lost to the sands of time (“it tastes like blood,” jda interjects, and you know, it does, but in a good kind of way)

[mctreeleth]

Hi! Once you get this you have to say five things you like about yourself, publicly, then send this to ten of your favorite followers (nonnegotiable) SPREAD POSITIVITY! 💌🥰

I have been thinking about this since I got it yesterday. There was a post a while back where someone was talking about when they were asked something along these lines but their therapist called them out for the fact that all their positive qualities were things they could do for other people, and while I glossed past it at the time, now it is making me think:

What do the five things I like about myself actually say about me?

Because, on the one hand, there is the "things I do for other people" track. I like that I am instinctively supportive and try to help. The fact that I struggle to have a good time while someone around me is miserable is a good thing because it motivates me to do what I can to alleviate their bad time. My almost debilitating sympathetic embarrassment drives me to do everything in my power to make the people around me comfortable. Those are all things I like myself for doing, but are they things I like about myself, and, more importantly, are they good things to like about myself? If I only like the things about myself that serve others, then do I really like myself?

Okay, so what about what I can achieve? That's a pretty common one. I like how I can intuitively work out the maths behind any quilt pattern. I like how good I am at rendering a 2D material into a 3D object, like clothes or a bag or a toy. I like how good I am at making big charcuterie platters that both look good and have everything get eaten. That is harder than you would think - a lot of the good looking stuff no-one actually likes. But these are all instances where I am liking my ability to produce. Is that the kind of thing that I should be liking about myself? By making the things I like about myself be things that demonstrate achievement, I am unconsciously reiterating the idea that if you cannot produce, you are not worthy. So the things I like about myself should probably be more intrinsic.

Okay, so lets try basic cliched stuff. I like my eyes, I think they are pretty. But - multiple classes of feminist theory on the way in which we are embodied selves aside - thanks to some chronic health issues, to me my body is mainly the thing that carries me around. It would be like saying that a thing that I like about myself is that my car has good headlights. I like that my shoe size is average so it is easy to find boots at the thrift store, and also that the size of tyres my car uses are fairly cheap. And, you know, probably shouldn't be prioritising physical attributes either.

Saying things like "I like how I dress" or "I like how I have decorated my apartment" are instances where I am liking my participation in consumer culture. That seems generally like a bad thing, and a lot of people don't have the time to thrift as extensively as I do, or the money to access such things new. It's like saying "I like my privilege."

Which I suppose leaves the inside stuff. A lot of it is double-edged-sword-y, and so tinged with the accompanying annoyance, but you get that on the deep introspections.

I like how quickly I can flit from fun idea to fun idea, even though it does make it hard to retain thoughts, or concentrate.

I love how much fun I have yes-and-ing everything and anything, even as it means I struggle when things are not sparkly and exciting. I love it when I hit a groove with someone, and we simultaneously elevate each other’s dumb ideas. I love how good I am at spiraling upwards, even if it means I am also predisposed to spiral downwards.

I am possibly one of the best in the world at finding joy in tiny things - at least on par with your average 4 year old - and have annoyed my friends by waxing lyrical for extended periods of time about automatic swinging doors, how good it feels to have exactly the right amount of something, or how good this one particular piece of foam feels. Seriously, touch it, it is so good, I carry around a 5cm square of it in my handbag these days. It was in the bottom of a wooden box of fancy wines at work and they were going to just throw it out. If you press on it gently it feels like it is a crumbling piece of florists foam, but it is just regular foam, so you don't end up with green gritty stuff, AND it pops back up so you can do it again. It's so fucking good.

I like how my heart feels like it is going to explode when I think about my dogs and my bird and my mum and my car and my piece of foam and the idea of bridges and my stuffed toys and my fluffy rug and being in the river and sitting in front of a fire and being engrossed in a story, because I can love things so so much that I could combust.

And I like that I take things maybe a little too seriously sometimes. I like that my brain tries to think about a thing from every vantage point it can find, even though it will never find them all. Maybe part of it is being done because I am worried about the other people who are being exposed to what I am putting out there. But I think it is more like my thoughts are like that magnetic slime, just fully engulfing an iron cube of an idea, so excited to have something to connect with that it is incapable of not taking it a little too far.

Also, a bonus one, just because: I love how wild my metaphors are.

[blujaydoodles]

I would like to know about melliwyk 👀

Full Name: Melliwyk Truthseeker Pinsky Louise Arlinetta Darinia Berenokt Gender and Sexuality: female and... I can’t tell if she’s sex-positive asexual or pansexual but just super indifferent about dating lol, but either way it boils down to ‘it’s not that I’m opposed to relationships, I’m just busy right now’ but, you know, all the time Pronouns: she/her Ethnicity/Species: rock gnome Birthplace and Birthdate: her hometown is called Castafao; she was born in the warrens, which is essentially the gnomish equivalent of a chinatown. Her birthday is fantasy!May 29th Guilty Pleasures: her house has a reputation for being haunted, so local kids will sometimes dare each other to go touch the house or knock on the door or whatever, and usually she just lets em, but sometimes she’ll use magic to scare the bajeezus out of them (which, to be fair, rewards their efforts with a really exciting story!) Phobias: I don’t think she has any? She’s very afraid of her research being lost or destroyed, but it’s not A Phobia What They Would Be Famous For: Currently, being A Vale Walker, one of the first adventurers in our floating islands’ history to explore the lands below and return; ideally also for returning the lost knowledge of the process of item enchantment and/ or for functionally inventing the artificer class, or some other breakthrough in her research, IF we don’t all get murdered and our stories ruthlessly suppressed and rewritten by what turns out to have been an evil government the whole time :’D What They Would Get Arrested For: well, we’re currently wanted for kidnapping an archmage’s daughter and insurrection 😒 but in terms of things we’ve ACTUALLY done: breaking into a top secret high-security system of vaults in the palace and looting it (... uh... actually we’ve done this in two separate palaces now??), killing a (different) archmage and her bodyguard, and-- if we’re lucky! insurrection 😎 As for Mel personally, she hasn’t had an opportunity or need yet but she’s not opposed to shoplifting spellbook-inscribing supplies and spell components ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ OC You Ship Them With: none of my own OCs, although she’d get along pretty well with several of them I think OC Most Likely To Murder Them: idk dude none of my OCs are that inclined to murder lol Favorite Movie/Book Genre: True history, historical fiction, comedy Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Any arbitrary plot device, but especially ‘all of the problems come down to characters just not communicating for no real reason’-- unless it’s part of an intentional comedy of errors Talents and/or Powers: Aside from Being A Wizard, part of this adventure has involved finding out she has a divine heritage from Corellon, the patron of arcane magic and magic items; she can attune to magic items in one minute, and she has advantages when attempting to use or craft magic items. She’s also recently been studying the nature of The Weave itself and different ways of manipulating it, through which she’s [mechanics-wise] taken a feat that gives her metamagic and a level in artificing, the latter of which involves a spellcasting method she invented herself. On the more mundane side of things, she’s trained herself to be ambidextrous after an experiment backfired and burned the shit out of her dominant hand Why Someone Might Love Them: she’s enthusiastic; she’s in her line of work because it interests her, so her excitement over her research is rooted in real joy, and it shows. she’s generally very encouraging and supportive of other people’s pursuits and accomplishments, even if they’re outside her area of interest. mostly she’s quite friendly and good-natured. she’s not intentionally condescending about her high intelligence and arcane expertise, and is always very happy to explain things to people if they’re interested Why Someone Might Hate Them: she’s not averse to risk-taking, and she tries to confine those risks to only herself, but she’s also not as good at risk-assessment as she thinks she is, so she can be a danger to not only herself but also those around her. she’s genuinely very nice, but she’s also chaotic neutral and sort of a big picture person, so she’s made some Ethically Questionable choices in terms of things she’s willing to do or overlook or be complicit in. She can be really cold and biting when she’s angry and isn’t inclined to being tactful about her grudges (for example, in the way she talks about our fighter’s Really Horrible mother in front of the fighter, whose own feelings are naturally very complicated) How They Change: she’s a little more cautious now, and less impulsive. She’s certainly much more suspicious and jaded after finding evil conspiracies almost everywhere we go. It still frustrates her to sometimes Have to rely on anyone else, but she’s growing more and more sure of the value of teamwork and supporting one another. Something I’ve actually been thinking about a lot lately is her alignment; I think Nice, but Not Good is really interesting, but the circumstances of the campaign feel like they keep pressing towards, you know... Genuine Evil is afoot. Do you want to do something about that, or not? I feel like avoiding evil is one thing, but actively choosing to align yourself against it is another. I feel like she’s seen enough suffering firsthand that it’s not as easy for her anymore to say ‘well that’s pretty fucked up but it’s none of my business’, which she had done a few times early in the campaign. Unlike Elyss, who mostly just doesn’t care about people she doesn’t know and whose neutrality is a conscious life philosophy, Mel’s feels like it was more based in being out of touch, which is less and less a justifiable excuse for her. Character growth....? Why You Love Them: OH man well for one thing I love playing her because I in real life want to collect ALL THE LORE and ALL THE MYSTERIES and she’s the perfect avatar for that in a campaign full of lore and mysteries. She’s really excitable and good-humored, and she has sort of a wry sense of humor. There’s a lot about her both as a person and as a character that’s really funny to me? Also I can’t think of a way to describe this but she just has Appealing Vibes. Her vibes, I like them, I like her

Ask about an OC :3

[rabdoidal]

19 and 27 for the music asks!

19: A song that makes you think about life

Don’t Let the Kids Win by Julia Jacklin

27: A song that breaks your heart

I Exist I ExistI Exist by Flatsound

[marzipanandminutiae]

7, 8, 13, 45?

7. do you keep organized?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Well, I usually know where things are...

8. ever take naps?

Not often, but on occasion.

13. what’s your favorite food?

Pasta with pesto sauce, parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. Tied with pasta and marinara sauce. Mostly just pasta, to be honest.

45. do you have tattoos or want any?

Don’t have one. Might get one someday. Either a spray of deadly nightshade in a Victorian botanical illustration style or a tiny blue butterfly (as an homage to an alleged trend among Boston women in the 1890s, which may be exaggerated but does at least appear as a legend in a period newspaper). The problem is, it has to be somewhere that can be hidden by every possible neckline, hemline, and sleeve length at least from 1770 to 1929. I have no idea where that leaves that won’t hurt like hell.