#the dregs

[amkyatt]

My new and only soc oc will be the dregs barber. This is the only way I can justify in my head why Kaz has that fuckass haircut.

Goodnight tumblr.

[avelourcynic]

Hi it’s me again. I’m in your walls. Bonus questions (more homework) for Character Ask Game 💫

The Dregs: 13 and 14

FYI you sent these in March. They are officially three seasons old but we have not reached the promised 100 business days.

CHARACTER ASK GAME!!! 💫

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

Sana uses a medium amount of emojis. Standouts include ✌️ (used when she is boiling over with rage but pretending things are normal), 💥 (used when she is trying to communicate she is exploding you with her mind, mostly directed at Malk), and 🔥 (this is a gimme, he uses it as her default "I like this" tap back).

Oskar uses emojis sporadically, he is still learning and often misinterprets or misses implicit meaning behind emojis. He uses 🤠 as his default smiling emoji (better than standard because it has a hat), will send 🫀 as a heart, responds to messages he doesn't like with ☢️ (as in it's radioactive waste), and 😹 is his laugh react (better than standard because it is a cat).

Zai is late to the game on emojis. 🫂 becomes a staple of trying to express a genuine solidarity when words aren't working--while 🍻 is more of a "fucking cheers, bitch". They pick up 🥺 from Weary and mostly deploy it back at only her but more than once the individual Dregs have been hit with it and absolutely bewildered by the impact. She's baby, your honor.

Malk is the certified emoji champion of the group. Definitely uses the most, often times in place of any cogent meaning. 👯‍♂️ becomes agreement ("lets do it"), 🕴 when he bombs in the group chat and no one responds, ✨s all over the place for EmPhAsIs. He'll respond to takes with 🌶 if he thinks it's good and 🧂 if he thinks you're being whiny. 😔 is used often when he is apologizing for shenanigans.

Beck does not use emojis. 👎 gets the most mileage but 🏅 is a lethal insult. It stands for "here's your special pretty princess award" and she uses it to call others a wuss. Given her infrequent responses and comedic timing, it gets dropped about six times a year and each time it's devastating.

Weary uses emojis normally. 🥰 is definitely her most used because she's delightful. 🍅 pops up when Sana tried to emulate Malk's spicy chili and clicked the wrong button (grink coded). And yes, she originated the bottom eyes in the Dregs groupchat. She flashes 🥺 and can get anyone to do anything. She is a mastermind.

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

I evaluated this as kinda, modern AU where all of the characters go through their arcs as much as possible in a world where they could also have all the clothing in the world necessary to develop aesthetique™.

Sana - starts very grungy, working to cultivate her aesthetic at local Goodwills. Connecting with her father yeets her into somewhere between mod and "tennis core" as the kids say. She has a way she's expected to look and while she can't manage full yuppie. In this AU, she then gets shipped out to boarding school at which point she pivots to what I can only describe as "bunhead" (think Natalie Portman in Black Swan) which she finds comfortable and mixes with a leather jacket and other rich-kid attempts at a biker aesthetic. Sana is always picking an aesthetic that lets her be a little slutty without needing to make it look like she's putting in a lot of effort (which is why she didn't really ever do full prep). She's prideful enough that she dreams of hitting a perfect Cher Horowitz 90s-2000s prep but I think lands in a moderately feminine and scholarly twee.

Oskar - has less metaphor wrapped up in his wardrobe. I think he starts in very crunchy cargo shorts and is very granola. With chacos. I think as the gang are cultivating their personal aesthics I think he gets excited about it and winds up with a colorful mix of New Romanticism and Buffalo Style. He doesn't plan outfits, so the transition happens on a weird gradient where he's wearing a neon windbreaker, bolo tie, and keens at the same time. King shit.

Zai - goes from hard prep (the only clothes made available to them) to taking a lot of Sana's hand-me-downs and starting grungy but developing towards almost a hair metal vibe trying to establish self expression (and borrowing clothes from Sana) that kinda helps crack her egg. I think eventually she settles back into a pastel grunge.

Malk - He's had the most cultivated aesthetic out of all of them and has known what he's wanted since day one. There's some kind of baseline peacock revolution (think Beatles-Monkees-Hendrix psychodelia) for all of the patterns and maximalism. He has several vintage and commisioned pieces that he has spent so much of his and his parents' money on. Someone calls him soft-boy and he throws up.

Beck - She also has had less modulation between aesthetics. She likes looser silhouettes, her daily is somewhere between skater and athleisure but she rocks a lot of flannel, denim, and dirty workboots when she's home on the commune. She seeks comfort in her clothing more than anything else and dresses for herself and only herself. She sees the fact that it makes her wardrobe more androgynous as an absolute win. Weirdly, I think it could potentially evolve into a kinda baseline hipster but I think it's more likely that she would take a hard deke through lolita: hyperfeminity for herself and only herself.

Weary - When the Dregs start thrifting, she goes full maximalist boho. In an AU, I'm not sure how her toxic negativity and positivity arcs start... but she winds up walking it back to a very monochromatic minimalism and then accelerating into gothic romanticism and leveling out at rockabilly. She gets a tattoo or two (some stick and poke and some very deliberate pieces) and gets sick of all the effort it takes and lands at VSCO girl.

[thedevilofchelle]

Day 57. you got it boss

Anika!

(Based off of a photo I found on Pinterest)

See below..

Idk why I pictured her with a Chelsea, but it seemed logical.

[panmikola]

[avelourcynic]

Hands up! I’m here for your blorbos!!!

For Characters asks could you please give me answers to 1, 5, and 6 for the Dregs?

If you don’t I’ll cry.

let the record show that she cornered me on a discord call and cried until I was forced to type this post (this is entirely accurate).

Character asks!

One: What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character? The Dregs actually developed out of a writing exercise I did where I came up with D&D characters for a different pool of OCs. My one stipulation is that they had to be different classes and races (5e because :/ I'm basic) and should be believable extensions of the OCs that were "playing" D&D.

Five: How did you choose their name and why? Was it simply based on vibes or is there any specific meaning behind the name? Are the reasons behind their name different in- and out of universe? I knew I wanted names that were different in how they sounded (avoiding repeating similar ending sounds, etc.) and were consistent with the lore of the world. I actually wound up creating an alphabet for their world and the decided a few of their names based on how they looked in that script. That's actually why Malk uses Malk over Malark, even though it makes his and Beck's name a lil more similar. Likewise, it's part of why Sana uses a diminutive over her full name, Solana. Absolutely, there are distinct Doylist and Watsonian explanations:

Solana "Sana" Blightpyre - wants to distinguish herself from the jackass dad that named her. Blightpyre is a chosen surname and maternal, as her mother was disowned by their family after razing the fields of their village in flame. Yes, there are implications of this sounding like an elvish surname.

Oskar Oakshield - came mostly from loving how OSK OAK looked in the script. "Oakshield" just sounded right (the Hobbit is pervasive in my psyche??? apparently???) but I also love the notion of him having -shield as a last name suffix when his family are weaponsmakers. I also thought "Oakman" as a fake last name when the others can't remember his name or don't want to obviously identify him sounded silly.

Zaigon "Zai Gone" Masozi - may have come from a name generator? I knew that the name they used while traveling was going to be their first name split into two pieces as a transparent way of distancing her from her criminal family.

Malark Ambercrown - is a half-elf, and thus has an elvish style "two nature words" name like all translated elven names on Cytherea (I have thought about the impact of this on elvish and half-elvish player character too and done backflips to justify how the names their players chose may fit into this tradition). For Malk, I chose it over Mal or Lark as more normal nicknames because it sounded ugly <3 and thought that was indicative of the character too.

Beck Ta - Because so many names were SO fucking long I specifically wanted her name to be so fucking short. That was it, that was the whole combination. When she signs her name she runs it together like all six letters are only one name.

Weary Singlevale - Tiefling!! Virtue!! Names!! I love them, I think about it constantly and what a blessing or curse they would be for characters in the world to be named for or choose names that are concepts. Weary's name specifically comes from "so shines a good deed in a weary world" as her parents wanted her to be the good and as they were both pact-making tieflings, had wrestled with their own relationships with the infernal that had now been passed on to a child but also didn't think through the entire levels of sadness it would bestow on a kid. Yes, there are implications of this sounding like an elvish surname (specifically, it here harkens back to the isolated tiefling community Weary grew up in too). She sometimes uses the name Nelle (: when she is tired of being Weary. (: It's about the implications.

Six: What was the thought process behind their appearance? Did you go mostly for the aesthetic or are there other reasons they look the way they do? Because we're coming at this from the nuanced and play-within-a-play approach of these OCs being other OCs D&D PCs (say that five times fast) there was a layer of when the Dregs' appearance aligned or diverged with the corresponding characters' appearance. CW for D&D-typical biological essentialism below (half-joking):

Sana: the most important thing here was her having coal like hair that bursts into flame when she got angry. Her skin being a dark ashy grey followed from her being a rogue and balancing the metaphor of it helping her be undetectable when sneaking, but also her status as a rogue communicating how she is ignored and invisible to her parents and volatile with it disrupted by emotions when blush causes her cheeks to crackle like embers. She and Beck were narrative foils, so them being fire and water genasi also felt... uh trite but also like a fun red oni-blue oni trope to lean into.

Oskar: his player and Beck's player are siblings and were newer to the concept as first time players. This meant that Oskar copies his player's long dark hair and propensity towards being a lil GNC.

Zai: her initial appearance (pre-Aasimar bleaching) of dark hair and blue eyes matched with her player but I really wanted to explore the notion of "corrupting purity" and explore white and gold as color language that designated empire, loss of autonomy, and austerity as much as it could communicate 'holiness' or wealth. Zai growing out their hair was also a measure of their own control over her appearance and her slightly bent nose a byproduct of how many times it's been god damn broken and reset.

Malk: the freckles came first and everything else came later. I think I saw the twitter meme about "you're at your lowest and then you fall in love with a blonde man" and the rest was history. He's got scruff and pointed ears because half-elf. He's got good eyebrows because he spends too much time looking at himself in the mirror.

Beck: I wanted her hair to flow like water even when she was on dry land and love the idea of a rough and tumble woman who looked absolutely at home when she was dripping wet as a way to serve water genasi. She also has a longer face to contrast Sana's rounder face, because apparently I design characters like they are cartoon sidekicks. Beck's player is high femme and it was also silly to me that her PC was happiest covered in mud. Roleplay!

Weary: I think I settled on purple for her skin because... uh.. as you can tell by how I color code these posts, these characters are indeed color coded in all of my sketches and reference material about them. Her tieflingness became more cat coded over goat or other signifiers because I was trying to take it in a different direction. Much like Zai transed her gender over the course of the campaign, Weary put on weight as I kept drawing her. Not that every character trait is a metaphor but I loved that she herself seemed to be taking up more space as the details of her appearance developed. Plus, she was always "the catch" and the most beautiful of the Dregs, and it is important to me that she is textually fat and beautiful.

[thedevilofchelle]

I need to either learn how to use Sims4Studio or I need to commission someone to make the gang tattoos in Six of Crows. My makeshift one bugs meeeee.

That and some of the sun summoner-related tattoos I guess. I also need to find the kefta I saw someone made for the sims…

I am working on create most-if not all of the characters from the Grishaverse in the Sims.

So far I have: Nikolai, Zoya, Genya, David, Alina, the Darkling, Kaz, Nina, Matthias, Inej, Wylan, Jesper, Roeder, Pim, Anika, Rotty, Pekka, and Tante Heleen.

(The secret plan is to download a special mode *extreme violence* so I can enact JUSTICE against a few CERTAIN characters. >.> )

[akarie23]

Started rereading Soc this is page 19 and they’ve already started bickering *sigh* (I’m kidding of course this is exactly why I love them)

[krispyweiss]

Former Santana Singer Alex Ligertwood Dies at 79

- “He didn't just sing songs; he lived them”

Singer Alex Ligertwood, who was lead singer of Santana throughout the 1980s and beyond, has died at 79.

Ligertwood’s wife, Shawn Brogan, announced his May 1 death without giving the cause.

“He was all heart and soul,” Brogan said of her husband. “His favorite thing in life was to make music, sing and to share his gift with us.”

Ligertwood joined Santana in 1979 and was in and out of the band until 1994, when he left for good. He sings and plays rhythm guitar and percussion on such LPs as Marathon, Zebop!, Beyond Appearances and Spirits Dancing in the Flesh.

Former Santana percussionist Walfredo Reyes Jr., who now plays with Chicago, eulogized Ligertwood as “one of the greatest voices in rock, … a true friend, a brother and a beautiful soul,” in an online remembrance.

“To describe the body of work of Alex Ligertwood would take hours,” Reyes said.

That body of work included stints touring and/or recording with the Jeff Beck Group, the Average White Band, the (Dixie) Dregs, the Grateful Dead spinoff Go Ahead, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express and other bands.

“To me, Alex … was simply the best singer to ever do it,” Auger wrote on social media. “In all my years of music, I never heard anyone who possessed that kind of range or that effortless, carefree ability to soar through a melody. He didn't just sing songs; he lived them.”

5/4/26