Hi! Oh boy, I had been going a bit insane about swtorween back then and now I feel terribly predictable for choosing this but oh well. gotta keep on brand. A lil crumb on the swtorween notes?
@squirrelno2
A double entendre!
I talked about a good portion of the note's plot here already because I just couldn't not yap by myself, but I will gladly continue!
Besides lore regarding the planet and its strange rituals and other esoteric goodies/worldbuilding, I really wanted this to be a tragic tale of love. Many gothic stories cover these themes, and I thought it would be fun; one of my additional ideas beyond the search action and puzzle elements was having a scene where once you collected certain key elements the player's chosen Love Interest would appear in the Shrine of the Boundary--a sacred ground where weddings were normally officiated and where the planet's heart lies.
The player would need to finish the wedding ritual and dance with their LI to appease the curse the planet has laid over the population. The LI would disappear after, given that they can't follow you on your adventure and only briefly appeared in a metaphysical sense, but at the end of it, they would remember their time with your PC as a very nice and strange dream that they didn't want to wake from.
Obviously this was a very ambitious idea given how *many* romances are in SWTOR, with risk of getting many OOC, but I really wanted to try :P
Hello I have Much Curiosity about Fenley and must ask: what made him defect? is it the Dark Side alone, is it the Empire that draws him (and if so I'm very curious about that given his distaste for authority)? there are so many possibilities and I may have been thinking about this for like. two days.
i love to talk about my partyboy sith son, thank you for this!
fenleys whole deal is very much wrapped up in AIFENN (my knights) WHOLE DEAL. the basic backstory is this: they were padawan brothers under Satele Shan together. aifenn was originally training with ven zallow, but the sacking, so he's there first -- fenley is something of a prodigy that aifenn gets on with very well, and because hes a prodigy, he really needs someone skilled to train him. hence, two padawans for satele.
aifenn and fenley get along very well as padawan brothers. there is a bit of a rift -- aifenn is never really able to get fenley to settle down and listen to him, and likewise fenley get annoyed with how easily aifenn has the jedi mindset while he struggles with very strong emotions. aifenn is something of an older brother, and tries to be there for fenley. there's a little resentment from aifenn not really understanding the entirety of fenleys huge emotions, and not being able to bridge that gap, at least on fenleys side. also, satele is MUCH harsher with fenley Because she worries about him getting too wrapped up in his emotions when he's, you know, a prodigy. he has extremely great potential to do harm (and good, but she worries about the harm) so he feels that she doesnt like him. and he doesnt take that lying down, so their relationship is contentious.
shes on a training trip with aifenn when some young jedi haul a much younger vowrawn in for questioning. they aren't on tython, like, he'd be recognized immediately, but for the sake of MY STORY, these jedi dont know what kind of prize they've dragged in. he has really good shields, he's an older sith, etc. Fenley knows. and fenley feels like an outsider among his own order.
so yeah, he sneaks in to see vowrawn. to talk to him, because, "the jedi don't like me much, either." and vowrawn can see the way he forces his emotions down rather than releasing them, sees the way they crystalize under pressure, like a jewel. and he's never seen anything like it. there are little flashes of power when fenleys mood shifts, the swell of a gathering wave before he chokes those feelings back down. and honestly? he can work with that.
this is 100% vowrawns favorite kind of games. he LIVES for moments like this. lets convince a stubborn teenage padawan to wager everything he has for a chance at everything hes ever wanted, and do it on a time limit.
and you have to remember, vowrawn is CHARMING. hes funny and easy to get along with, and frankly even if you put all of that to the side, Fenley agrees with what hes saying anyways. the jedi are holding him back, chaining him down. he's only ever wanted to be himself, and vowrawn promises him that he's free to be what he wants, who he wants. his chains are broken. welcomes him with open arms.
and fenley WANTS that freedom.
being a jedi works for you if you fit in well enough, but for someone like fenley? he's been serving a religion that was chosen for him as a toddler. living with people whose standards he can never measure up to just because he FEELS, and he lets those feelings drive his actions. what is the point of jedi if they dont care about the people they protect, he's asked more than once. what is the point where you care too much? and why can't he ever seem to know what it is? to know what every other jedi seems to grasp instinctively? he's very good at dueling, gifted with saberwork, quick and smart and able to best padawans older than him -- but he feels too much, and he questions the code, and thats huge.
so yeah, he busts vowrawn out and goes with him.
[["i dont return what i take, you realize?"
young fenley "if anything, im the one taking you." he is breaking him out after all. vowrawn thinks this is hilarious. its fun when his apprentices choose themselves.]]
so vowrawn gets a successor because his issue is his apprentices all like him so force-damned much none of them ever try to kill him and he'll never get to retire. hes going to die of old age with no successor and its going to be a force-damned nightmare. but now he has FENLEY who has VOLUNTEERED. he offers fenley access to all that he has INCLUDING HIS SEAT READ THE FINE PRINT. and fenley gets a master who WANTS him to let loose, who APPRECIATES his feelings and whom he actually connects with. they get on like a house on fire, really. unlock the partyboy potential by living with the ultimate partyboy (vowrawn).
so fenleys really not in it for the empire or out of any duty to the republic or empire at all, he's here to have a good time and hang out with vowrawn. at least, that WAS the plan...
Hello yes I am intensely curious about what the WIP titled "Clogged Shower Thoughts" is
It's an unfinished Lethal Company drabble that serves as a character exploration of one of my OCs, Mat the Inventory Appraiser.
Mostly it focuses on his life post-life changing TBI and the loss of his twin brother.
It's a pretty miserable experience due to the position he was forced into, especially since Mat isn't... In the best state of mind or the easiest guy to get along with. Also his brother's ghost is very much haunting him, so overall his sanity is not great due to paranormal influences nor can he really move on from this tragedy.
Here's a snippet:
Eventually Mat unclogs the drain. The water swirls back down in a soothing manner that calms him more than actually getting under the hot spray. He's grown numb to the flitting comfort of a hot shower. It's just a flimsy little luxury The Company offers to appease the naive. He's not that gullible anymore.
He dutifully ignores the unreachable figure beyond the misted glass. Scrubs himself down and doesn't stare at the hand-prints that form outside of the barrier between himself and the rest of the ship interior. Tries not to falter when a frowny face is carefully doodled above said hand-prints.
MY turn to send very thorough lists of ask game questions for the cosmic horror asks... (you do not have to do all of these, choose what sparks most joy, but. revenge!)
1, 17 and 21 for Cyresk and 10, 11, 12 for Aifenn annnnnd perhaps 3 for Morsraut?
YESSS!! YESS!!!! thank you for the food my friend...
cosmic horror questions
I'll just go in the order you've laid them out... Starting with CYRESK!
Are they afraid of losing their memory with age? Are there any memories they'd like to forget?
cyresk is at his core, the bones of the original cyresk. he has lost all of his memories once, and he thinks he's better off for it. he wouldn't like to lose them again -- he enjoys being the person he's cobbled together, thank you very much -- but i don't think the idea terrifies him. he found his way once, he'll do it again if he must. and frankly, i doubt he worries about old age.
i think he hoards his memories. good and bad, they're HIS and he is choosing to keep them, UNLIKE SOMEONE. (read: his previous self who chose to essentially die so that he could throw his memory-less husk to the wolves of the empire for Csilla.)
(the rest under the cut!)
17. How do they cope with the knowledge of their own mortality, or the morality of their loved ones?
cipher agents aren't known for living long lives. he'll do what he can to stave off death, but he knows the reality of the situation he's in. AND he's actually a double-agent for csilla, so... that would absolutely shorten his lifespan if it got out.
as for the mortality of his loved ones. uhhh... [looking at ev'entri and agent!naylan. cover your ears you two] if he dies first he doesn't have to worry about it. he has no idea how grief would affect him because he doesn't remember experiencing it as his life before the memory wipe was erased, and people who die around him are generally people he is killing intentionally. personally? i do not think he would take it well. he hates being honest so he'd probably try to bottle it up and fail miserably. for a spy, he sure is himself rather than using a mask... can't help that...
21. How would they react if they learned that some of their memories were not as they remembered them?
badly :)
he has been controlled by hunter and the SIS before with the IX Serum. which is actually a little ironic as he does use the SLV-16 serum to force obedience and truth out of a runaway republic soldier before... but at least that didn't mess with their memories. it freaks him out badly to be controlled in this way, and even moreso to know that his memories of this having been done to him were taken from him. he's got specific issues with that, given his everything... he literally chooses to inject himself with a serum that will either melt his brain out of his ears or make it so he can never be controlled in this way again at his breaking point.
so if it was a case of tempering, see above. if it was a case of him misremembering, he'd probably want to examine why. he likes to collect information, so was it a situation where he was influenced by his own feelings? was there a distraction? he would want to find the truth of it for himself
and now onto aifenn. my beautiful house massiff of a jedi. his friendly dog energy is unrivaled...
10. Do they feel like their life is one they chose, or one forced upon them?
great question! he was taken to the jedi along with another miralukan (haha, yes, it WAS fenley) when he was three or four. he doesn't remember much of his life before that... a woman's laugh, the feeling of dirt and plants under his fingers... he suspects they were farmers, but he's never looked for sure.
his life with the jedi is more a matter of practicality than fate. he was force sensitive and they know how to raise force sensitive children and keep them safe. he was especially happy when he was younger and with his first master. he was a mischevious padawan, playing pranks and getting into and out of trouble with his bright smile. he had no trouble making friends, and the younger children quite liked him. he felt like he was where he was meant to be.
and then his home and his master were ripped from him and he never really got over it. he got on well enough with master satele and really enjoyed having fenley as his padawan brother... it brought back some of his goofy and mischevious habits from his own early days at the temple to attempt to make fenley smile. fenley... brought him a lot of joy and companionship in what he considers to be the darkest time of his life. they are brothers in everything but name.
fenley leaving of course, shattered him and satele. he pushed himself to become a perfect padawan. gentle and kind as usual, but no mischief. no playing. only extra time in the salles and the archives. passing all of his classes with flying colors. he can tell satele blames herself, again (i love satele being kind of a fail mom to theron, so i gave her more sons to do that to). he wants to prove to her that she's not a bad jedi, that it wasn't her fault (probably because he thinks it was HIS fault for not noticing the signs.)
so if his current fate as a weapon of the jedi order has been forced upon him, the one forcing it is himself. he could say no. he could ask to be a temple guardian. he just doesn't feel he deserves it.
wow i'm learning a lot about aifenns issues today, thanks for coming with me on this journey
11. Do they have any recurring nightmares?
he has plenty of memories to have terrible nightmares about, unfortunately. the sacking of the coruscant temple is a big one because he was actually there when it happened, and he saw malgus kill his first master, ven zallow, while escaping with a few of the younger padawans that had also been sent away. he sees that moment in his dreams, and finds himself unable to help, to call out, to do anything for his master other than watch his fall... just frozen in place, eternally standing witness and feeling his training bond snap over and over. it weighs on him.
he also has nightmares about fenley leaving the jedi! he wasn't actually there when it happens, and he doesn't know what he would've done if he was, but he imagines different aftermaths. being ordered to hunt fenley down, or worse, seeing master Satele cut fenley down.
there are also nightmares of moments he had with fenley. memories of fenley reaching out and aifenn not being enough. not being able to see what was happening at the time, how fenley felt so isolated amongst the others, the growing rift between their master... just memories with the benefit of hindsight.
he has some from the class story too. the emperor, especially, because fenley was so close to the man and he never even knew it... what if something happened?
so basically, his nightmares all involve him believing he's failed other people and lambasting himself for it through his dreams. he doesn't have nightmares terribly frequently, but when he does, they tend to be bad.
12. Do they possess a secret that would destroy them if found out?
yes haha he surely does... if you want to know... he has a training bond with his old padawan-brother Fenley that neither of them have broken. even though they are now on opposite sides of a war. and Fenley is the Wrath of the Empire. The jedi council would NOT be happy with him if they found out that he's attached enough to have kept it (and kept it up) all these years... There's a reason he's not a master, and he will say attachment is the least of his sins if you ask him (being a weapon as the jedi knight instead of growing up to be a temple guard and protecting people like he felt he was meant to be...) but yeah. He tried very hard to play the perfect padawan for Satele after Fenley left and THEN went on to be whatever the order needed him to be, which was, well, a sword (rather than a shield...) so i think it would be doubly shocking to find out he has it.
Fenley knows, of course, but he's not sharing either. they're usually distant enough to get a sense that the other is alive and not much more than that, so it's not a regular issue.
AND MORSRAUT... THE NEWEST ONE. WE SUPPORT WOMEN'S WRONG AND YOU PICKED SUCH A QUESTION FOR HER TOO...
3. Do they believe in fate or free will?
funny question to ask the girl that killed the king and stole his crown because she felt it was the only way to avoid dooming her people to either slavery themselves or an endless war with the hutts.
was it always meant to be this way and there was nothing mors could do to stop it, like a destined tragedy? or is this a problem of circumstance, an issue of mandalore's own making that got out of control?
i would say that she believes that artus was destined to be mand'alor. the whole situation, a child (sidenote: i want to say artus was 15? same as king arthur... i was originally going with younger, but i think putting an unstable teenager in charge of an empire is funny. yeah deal with this and puberty.) killing their slavers with the mask of the mand'alor, accidentally avenging the old one -- it's something out of a storybook. and artus has an air about him, something that makes people want to believe in him. whether that's natural or the ka'ra at work through him, it's hard to say, but mors believes that mandalorian's were led to him for a reason. that the old mand'alor died exactly how he was meant to.
its hard not to believe, if you see artus with his people. a boy king whose heart bled for his new people. who made time in his court for anyone to address him regardless of status. who once got on his knees to hug a woman who had lost her son, a complete stranger to him, just because she was one of his and she needed someone.
so yes, mors believes in fate. if she hadn't killed artus, she knows someone else would have. he had enemies both in and outside of mandalore for his crusade against the hutts, and chances are one of them would have gotten him sooner or later. it didn't have to be mors. free will came into play by making sure he died as swiftly as she could manage, with honor. there are far worse fates for a former slave to have to endure, and she did love him. it wasn't a mercy or a kindness, but it was what she had.
i thought so hard about sending The Perfect Questions about eight/arcann yesterday i... forgot to send anything at all. but 5 and 44?
Hi! these were indeed perfect :] (I always feel bad about my answers though because I feel like I do a much better job explaining through my writing rather than an interview format..)
ship asks
5- what visions or hopes do they have for their relationship
Arcann hopes to gain all of Eight's love and devotion, his heart and his loyalty, as well as all his secrets--as for what he envisions, he's not much of a dreamer when they have yet to make leaps and bounds in their current relationship with its slow dance of theirs, but he does picture Eight becoming his eternal companion and perhaps even being coronated as such in a more official capacity. Eight hopes to gain more of a say in their budding relationship and more freedom, as well as a foothold in Arcann's guarded heart. If he's optimistic about the outlook, he hopes to wind him around his finger and be seen as someone he can confide in for both personal and political matters. He's also too grounded to envision anything grand for themselves at the moment, but he might be surprised....
44- do they handle separation well? can they withstand being apart or is it difficult? and is it harder on one more than the other
It is starting to become very difficult for Arcann to go even a day without visiting Eight. He doesn't know it, but he has been starved for touch and companionship ever since Thexan, and keeps finding his way back to him. Arcann may have lead a solitary life for a while and even grown used to it, but the resurgence of his emotions after Eight has thrust him into a spiral where he cannot keep his mind off him. That being said, Arcann can withstand separation perfectly well--he is a hardened man--but he will be increasingly snappy and short-fused the longer it rolls on. Any long term separation would drive him quite mad and spell certain doom for any accompanying personnel around him.
In short, it's obvious who it's harder on to be apart. 😅
Eight can handle separation just fine as well, but he will come to miss Arcann's company and spend that alone time wondering if he did something wrong or if he miscalculated his feelings, which is a torture in of itself. (What are you talking about, agents don't get lonely and he too has been isolated for decades...)
Tulpa's Schoolwork Connundrum (Lo Ruyot (Into the Past))
Scowling down at the flimsy sheets he'd been given by Mrs Bramblehill, the young boy couldn't help but curse his teacher's name as he found himself at an impasse. The assignment itself wasn't the problem. Everyone and their brother could map out their family tree.
The problem was, while most of his aunts, uncle and ba'voduse of the Guard could tell him all about their extended family (batchmates, squads and battalions they belonged to), two very important figures in his life refused to do the same.
Those being Tulpa's ba'vodu Sponge, and his father...
And wasn't that a kick in the teeth? How could he earn himself some praise or even a cool new toy from his dad, if his dad was the obstacle? And if that wasn't bad enough, ba'vodu Sponge was not much help either.
Whenever Tulpa brought up the topic, they'd always push him off to play with one of his cousins instead. And the worst part was that Tulpa would then get swept up in some new cool adventure, because his cousins were pretty awesome. So he couldn't even be all that mad about it!
i think it's going to surprise you greatly that my favourites of your ocs are cyresk and lachlann. truly who could have guessed... i love cyresk for being a smiley asshole. cannot leave well enough alone and that's beautiful. and lachlann! i have stated my preference for buff alien women before and i cannot lie about it now. she is... cute. i would be so intimidated if i met lachlann. but ohhh my god cat person who is so enthusiastic about life.
and im sure it will not surprise you to know that my undefeated favorites are Ev'entri and Naylan. a real shocker for sure... ev is so darling to me in every iteration. guy who grew up so sheltered and wants to be loved SO BADLY and has one million issues thinking he's not a good sith or a good son even though he's actually. so SMART and no one notices how cunning he can be!!! even when they know better!!! he's great at being a sith and he's always himself... emotional and teary and glittery... writing epic romances in his head...
AND NAYLAN. i love all versions of naylan too. guy who is too tired to live but too stubborn to die. he will make everything one million times harder than it has to be on purpose. try to push everyone away even though he can't help but care for people... guy who would heal the galaxy if he could but refuses to show himself a fraction of that love. oughh... and so its baller that he's ugly and has incredible game. i love that dichotomy. hes a ten to me just because he would hate it.
and a secret third thing becuase im thinking about him right now: fail dad evesrin. he sucks so bad. literal villain in all cases terrible at raising ev this man has never been to and will never attend a single therapy session but guess what HES EXACTLY. LIKE. EV. only worse. this man is a faildad of epic proportions he should not have been trusted to raise a child (i mean true of basically the entire empire) but i mean like, listen. trust me. i can fix him. I CAN FIX HIM. he is so stupid and im obsessed. guy who will fall in love at first sight and fully believe and lean into it. moron who loves his son enough to keep him out of korriban but then NEVER FUCKING TELLS HIM. HE ONLY JUST GOT A NAME IM SO USED TO CALLING HIM EV'S DAD. hes so. im doing this to him.
