#ursae

[elliejaybird]

Syrsin Sketches

These guys aren’t contemporaries, I’m just doodling them on the same canvas. Ananke is Eris’ father and Ursae is a buck in Mars’ asterism.

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how do you come up with stories for your ocs?

It depends on how I get the original concept. Sometimes it’s literally just a character I make in the game’s creator mechanics- most of my pirate101 ocs. Sometimes it’s because a friend has a COOL idea and I wanna hop in on it, like Vitale Florus, my oc who grew up in the Armada, because my friend @pyromancyy has an awesome oc who works with the Armada.

Usually I use one concept as a jumping off point. Sometimes it goes somewhere, sometimes it doesn’t. My oc Ursae is a star magic wizard, and a mermaid in Celestia, but she barely gets any time in my writing because she ended up irrelevant to a different character’s plot.

Talking it through in a discord or in DMs with a friend is always helpful, people ask questions you don’t expect or you can bounce ideas off each other easily.

Also being definitive about who they are. Don’t just say ‘oh they’re asian’. (thats unhelpful and also keeping an oc vaguely ethnic looks like you just want progressive brownie points, do your research) Say ‘oh they’re from Mooshu, in this specific area’ or ‘They’re from Earth, and actually grew up in Bangladesh or the Philippines or they’re Japanese-American and lived in L.A.’

Seeing how characters interact with their surroundings is also good. How would they interact with a silly/kinda annoying character? How do they interact with Ravenwood as an education system?

Story wise, I have seperate timelines in my head and they’re based around what characters are doing at certain times. Most follow the in-game story, though the time frames for everything is different. My main timeline with a majority of my wizard101 ocs needed me to swap around the world order so Krokotopia and Mooshu are done before others start their main storyline for arc 1.

In Fledge’s timeline they go through arc 1 on their own in two years, some worlds only taking weeks or a month and some taking much longer, but that’s also because Fledge as a character is a prodigy pyromancer, but also starts their story at age 8.

Sometimes you need a character for a plot idea, sometimes you make a character and the plot flows around them instead. It’s really difficult, because character making becomes an important facet of creative writing that many professional authors neglect, and instead use a milquetoast white person as their main character, because readers project onto that character and it becomes ‘relatable’. relatable if you’re privileged enough, that is.

[iheartmoosiq]

New York’s Ursae arrives not only to showcase his roots in jazz and a strong command of the studio but to dazzle us with some saccharine cooing on So Green Her Eyes, an avant-pop cut off the artist and producer’s forthcoming self titled debut EP, slated for release this February. When Ursae crafted So Green Her Eyes, he imagined Death as a girl he had a crush on in high school. Though the thought may seem a little bit morbid on the surface, the concept certainly goes with the depression, heartache, and loneliness oft associated with a broken heart. So Green Her Eyes shimmers and glides, a dreamy drifting alt pop heart render. Some of Ursae’s influences, which include The Postal Service, Grizzly Bear, and Modest Mouse, are more than apparent on the finespun song. To continue melting to Ursae, stream beautifully poignant I Swear below.

[elliejaybird]

Some Syrsin Characters

I know putting in long descriptions makes people less likely to reblog but I’m going to do it anyway.

descriptions below the cut

Mars is the leader of a large herd. Having grown up in a small nomadic family that spent most of their time fleeing predation, his goal as an adult is to maintain a territory free from all carnivores. He will kill any creature that eats meat, even those that pose no threat to the herd itself.

Mars is very tall and lean. He is considered by most to have perfectly proportioned horns, evoking the shape of the crescent moon.

His mate is Eris.

Ursae is a young adult, the strongest syrsin in Mars’ herd and a member of the loyal subgroup that travels with Mars to hunt down the largest predators. Ursae’s father was a backwards-horned adoptee to the herd and instilled a strong sense of loyalty in Ursae. Despite the herd’s creed, Ursae sometimes allows the carnivores he hunts to escape execution, chasing them out of the herd’s territory instead.

Ursae is very tall and about as muscular as any syrsin can get.

Eris is the lone survivor of an attack by an adolescent fire choro on her herd. In an act of fury and desperation she killed the bird, and is still the only known Syrsin to ever do so singlehandedly. She would do anything to prevent the same fate from befalling her new family.

Eris is stocky and muscular, with large horns for a doe. She has many bare patches in her coat as well as a burn on her leg from the fight with the choro.

Her mate is Mars.

Sol is an adolescent buck who holds no important rank or responsibility in the herd. He struggles with what syrsin might call unhealthy emotional outbursts. That is to say, he laughs and speaks louder and more often than most syrsin find pleasant to be around. He is avoided by many of his peers because of his open and expressive nature. When they are adolescents Sol meets and forms a friendship with Rook.

Sol is very lanky and thin, with unusually small horns for a buck.

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How would your ocs react to self-quarantine? Any ocs and any amount of ocs, I don't know them that well.

first off, all my ocs ARE quarantined. because they’re not idiots and understand responsibility for the public’s good!!! I have some vague plans for other ocs as well, they’re not mentioned. This is all the ocs I can remember right now. Hope I’m not forgetting any, I probably am though.

Content Warning for alcohol mentions and implied nsfw (just the pirate ocs). Read more because it’s long and also if you don’t wanna read about quarantine.

Emrys, Mari, and Irisi: 

They live together in a small house, one of those floating castles, with one of those teleport swirls like in Triton Avenue, only it takes them outside of the general dorms at Ravenwood. They turned off their teleport station, though! 

Irisi, the only one who cooks, tries in vain to get Mari to learn how to make anything other than her favorite veggie wraps/sandwiches. Emrys ends up learning though, and is very good with the preciseness of baking!! He gets the finer details on decorating better than Irisi, who’s not the best with artistic touches, preferring practicality. 

Also Mari breaks out the cards and tries to hustle them at poker. She fails and ends up watching Emrys and Irisi pick up the game too quickly and become too good at it. 

Haley and Noah:

They have a small shared home, which I’ve kinda just Assumed is a castle plot like the in game wizards can get, on the outskirts of Wizard City. Neither of them are accomplished cooks, and they kinda end up just living on soup, stir fry, and the breakfast foods they actually can cook. 

Haley gets BORED. She probably ends up cleaning the house top to bottom and going through her projects (mostly attempts at making clockwork creatures) and probably finding about 15 tools she borrowed from the storm school and lost.

Noah is the type to seclude himself in his room, but he’d probably go to check on Haley and also work on his own runes projects or read in the same room she’s in.

Morelle, Morae, Ianthe, and Leo: 

Morelle is used to it, because she has a tendency to hide out anyway, cannot be seen in public in Wizard City. Now she just gets to relax a bit more at home and spend time with her wife Morae.

Morae has decided to continue making the more basic breads and such in her bakery, and has set up a system so their daughter Ianthe and her partner Leo can deliver them around Wizard City, so people can have food. They do have to shut down their bakery. Morae tries and fails to teach her wife how to make macarons (again). 

Leo turns out to be very good with macarons. Bonus points for future child-in-law, I suppose. 

Serpentine King/Quyen Jade:

In the canon main timeline, he’s probably revamping his garden’s design, and worrying over his children, because he’s in Mooshu far away.

In his origin timeline, where I had a completely wack kingdom au, by the end he and that timeline’s Mari would be probably live off by themselves in the middle of nowhere or in a completely different kingdom in hiding, along with that timeline’s Noah, Haley, and Emrys. They’d probably rehash old stories, a lot of SK’s stories about his late husband and his four other children that Mari grew up with.

Elissa Silvertusk:

She’s not developed enough, I don’t have much planned for her aside from relationships with NPCs. Probably in Khrysalis or Zafaria.

Fledge (in their own timeline):

Probably with their adoptive family, Iridian and Corry! Now without school to deal with, they’re a lot more stress free, because they’re used to being on their own now after their awful trauma. They probably spend time having to confront that though, because they’re not used to being so restless and ‘useless’. 

Ursae (Fledge’s timeline again):

As a mermaid she would have her own tank and probably just not surface. She has her own stock of crystals that contain information (like in Dragonspyre) and could go through those, but also, she has lil’ fish friends to interact with as well, and can sign with Fledge through glass.

Rust/Rusty (Pirate): 

Would be with her group, an all female/NB vigilante gang in Cool Ranch. They’d all stay at HQ, probably getting everyone’s Sad Backstories after a bunch of family bonding and card games and shit. Rusty would probably get a little tipsy in order to bear it. Also maybe having to go out just a few times to make sure people aren’t being jackasses and making necessities cost more. That’s more fun, because they’re threatening people lol. 

Darling Alexander Dove (Pirate):

Bonnie Anne Is In Hell! She Just Is!!! A bored Alexander is a very very dangerous one, and as his right hand man/first mate she’s got a LOT on her plate. He probably almost gets his crew to mutiny against him, or he ends up sleeping with a few who will have to be cut loose after this because they have unrequited love/lusts for their captain now lol. He DOES get shitfaced. Several times. He cannot wait to go to a pub again just to see new faces and not just his crew.

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Moving quickly, she gathered her weaved baskets made of sea grass and began to fill them with her belongings. Pretty shells and sea glass, some crystals containing knowledge, and other various shards of her past. She tied the two baskets to rest at her sides, where the beginning of her tail was. In her panic, she scraped some loose scales away, and they floated, flipping slowly and shining in the low light she gave off naturally.

Ursae

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Day Twelve- Whale

Inktober day twelve!!! Whale was a weird prompt. So I just uhhh kinda wrote another Ursae fic, because underwater stuff. Warning for experimentation, kinda? and kidnapping.

(link to prompt list) (link to inktober tag)

The flooded world of Celestia was vast, many of its previous caves and ravines now turned into mysterious and feared trenches and hidden depths, forever changed and dangerous. 

But those caves were Ursae’s home. And she was homesick.

Ursae sighed heavily, leaning against the glass. Small bubbles trailed from the corners of her mouth, her lungs still burning from where she had inhaled the air, something she can do if acclimated, but not as suddenly as she did. She tucked her head on her shoulder, trying as best as she could to settle comfortably with her braids pressing against her skull.

Staring straight ahead, she watched the hub of activity that the strange furred creatures made. They were odd, but entertaining to watch until Ursae realized they worked on a routine, mapped out that routine, and got bored of it. They were weird too, always making sharp, angry sounds and looking at her curiously, writing everything down. 

They even wrapped a strange cloth around her chest while she was asleep, though she couldn’t determine any sane reason why. They still studied her, and in retaliation for being trapped in a far too small glass room, she did nothing.

Even when they offered things for food, dead fish (gross), live fish (friends), and kelp (actually edible), she just stared blankly and didn’t move unless to get more comfortable so she could actually sleep. 

Now she stared past the big dome, through the layers of glass, and out into the Celestian ocean, a light blue that her eyes usually were, unless of course Ursae was casting magic. 

Her eyes glazed over, and she stared off into the distance listlessly, only temporarily snapping out of it every once in a while when one of her long braids floated past her field of view. 

That is, until a giant, unidentifiable shape began to shadow over the dome. It was still light out, but the darkness made it seem like night was falling rapidly. Some of the creatures in the dome began to shriek, all of them pointing upwards or running or just staring. 

Ursae gave in, and finally looked up. 

A gigantic whale swam peacefully above the dome, singing in a way that seemed to shake the dome, some parts coming loose and leaking water, causing more panic and hysteria among the people inside. 

Ursae moved, swimming to the top of her box and putting her hands against the glass, staring up. Summoning what she had of her magic in her weak state, she cast an aura on the whale for just a flash, trying to get her attention. 

Please, free me. She sent through the magical link.

The borders of the glass began glowing, making a high pitched sound that hurt Ursae, and she flinched, floating slowly back down to the bottom with her hands over her ears. 

Some of the dogs began yelling and pointing at her now, running over and examining the glass. 

It was then that Ursae realized they had made some ward that would make her automatically fizzle any spell. She realized she was truly trapped.

Moving just a bit, she settled back to lean against the glass. And she stared up at the whale. And she started to cry, her tears glowing bright blue as they dissolved into the water.

[ursaemusic]

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