GOLDEN DEMON

WRITING? ? ? ? | ACCEPTING

I mean, considering my shrine to all things Thomas Harris...

In all seriousness, GD and his adventures in the art of mass murder coming off as a thriller is-- well-- absolutely intentional. He exists more as my test subject for practicing thriller more than anything else, the enjoyment I get out of being Satan Himself aside. 

I venture to say that’s why GD is distinct, himself, despite being heavily based off of a canon character and sharing more similarities than they do differences. Really-- the most I outright change, between him and canon timeline-wise, is that his decade stay in Tuula gets shortened to a month. The rest is careful adding to a nonexistent backstory and often conflicted personality. (And, well, using scimitars instead of that vague whatever “100 daggers technique” mentioned in his QA...) 

It’s all context and consistency. Any character can kill dudes, and any character can even kill dudes and believe it art. The compelling part is everything else that surrounds that action. Why is it art? How does he kill? What are his victims like? What’s the process of premeditation? All those questions are something that could be answered with exposition...

WRITING? ? ? ? | ACCEPTING

There is an adage in writing-- “write what you would like to read.” As a fellow self centered asshole who rarely brings it upon herself to read posts of others that don’t concern me either directly or indirectly, I take that adage to heart in how I write, and I like to think it shows in the “approachability” factor in my style.

I don’t like frontloaded posts. You know the ones-- they begin with a this and a that but never anything pertinent to the here and now. Exposition has its uses, but more often than not it’s something I consciously avoid unless it’s to elaborate or to facilitate atmosphere and tone.

So, I begin almost always with not exposition but something that happens right then and there. It’s dialogue. It’s an action. It could be just a witticism, a corruption of what the other person above me wrote (I’m a fan of corruptions especially). Regardless, it means something in what’s going on in that instant. I don’t wait around for action.

Something else I like when I read is interesting characters and dialogue that is, above all else, natural. I can usually tell when dialogue is there for exposition’s sake compared to conversation’s sake rather than the two playing partial to each other. Dialogue should convey a degree of exposition and necessity, but if you make either obvious it becomes flatter than a thin pancake. A character who you can define by their dialogue instead of what’s just told to you about them in the narrative is a character I come to adore.

I love dialogue. Everyone knows this. But I don’t often go into why, like this. 

Evidently, the kind of book that I like to read and the one I’d like to write is above all else, approachable. A tunnel with the lights on just far enough that it seems safe to go in.

WRITING? ? ? ? | ACCEPTING

I’m blessed.

The tone was all wrong.

As Hiro spoke Lee didn’t move. The only motion across his body was the curling and uncurling of his fingers. From a fist to hanging loosely. He was passionate on this topic, passionate about his homeland and of the events that occurred there. But with passion often came a quickened heartbeat, a raise in pitch, or an itch in their demeanor.

The way Hiro spoke was like that of a rehearsed performer, one who had these lines ready beforehand incase this situation would arise.

“It means that his punishment will come in time, and with stronger force. Balance may seem docile, but it is necessary.”

Lee listened as Hiro packed his equipment, and a small sense of relief washed over him. Lee couldn’t figure out what bothered him so thoroughly of this man and the way he spoke, but at least he would leave soon enough.

“Master Kusho was a great man. Greater than you or I will ever become. You would do yourself a favor by speaking with a more guarded tongue in regards to him amongst the Shojin. It seems best that you take your leave, Yagami.”

Hiro’s voice neither clipped nor did it drag. It was simply there: clear, and with conviction.

“I suppose a man of his arts and a man of his discipline are fundamentally different.”

He held his rucksack and stood up from the rock, swinging it to his shoulder. It was an embroidered thing, of some style and elegance that seemed to imply he had more to him than the visage of starving artist. Indeed, Hiro had far more to him than the clothes he wore or the way he dressed his hair.

Nothing the monk, he was sure, would see.

“It is best that I leave,” he said behind him, his shoes crinkling against the pebbles beside the spring. Steam wafted up to his cheeks and stretched to his forehead-- but he did not entertain the thought of a dip.

No, Hiro made an emancipated noise in his mouth and continued along.

“I had an interesting conversation, even for the quarrel.” He swept his head and looked one last time at Lee, himself just at the rocky crevasse he had come from originally. “I am glad that you allowed me to paint, be it you or your order.”

He stopped to reach inside his obi with one free hand--

--and out came a red, glistening spider lily.

Khada Jhin’s mouth split into a wide smile as he left the flower where he stood.

“You are from Zhyun.”

Hiro’s words stirred something akin to unrest within Lee. He’d spent years honing his emotions, he had mastered keeping what he felt beneath his skin from being shown on his face. But, something was strange here. Lee held his own reservations about balance. When he was younger, before his demonstration, he let anger paint his view on balance as an excuse not to act. But as he aged, he came to peace with it.

“You welcome this change… You welcome this change of conflict and denounce balance…”

Lee Sin took a step to the right and clasped his hands behind his back. The wind blew over his barechest and arms, and in that stance, he contemplated this strange man still.

“One would think, coming from Zhyun, you would search for balance with the murders and conflicts which ran rampant through your countrymen’s land. With that of the Golden Demon.”

The monk remained still. His back straight, and head turned towards the wind. Idly, his ponytail swung with the breeze almost all the way down his back. His voice was steady, he kept the edge from seeping into his tone.

“Do you welcome that change as well, Hiro?”

A beat passed, and then Hiro chuffed.

“I think,” he said, “it is unfair to presume what the Demon means for us of Zhyun without living there.”

He followed Lee’s movements close and with scrutiny. He wrapped up his paintbrush and set aside his mason jar. The watercolors would wait, now. The unfinished canvas bothered him--missing if not unfinished--but he let that stand. His fingers were pale and nimble as they searched along the easel, packing everything together for his rucksack.

“For many, such as myself, the Demon is something that has turned us away from balance. What has balance done,” Hiro said, dragging his rucksack into a knot, “when he continues to terrorize us? The legends you might have heard are inaccurate, I assure you. He’s not something kept at bay by bells and salt.”

Finished, he looked back up at Lee. He tilted his head and shone a bemused glint in his eye. 

“Master Kusho caught that man.” He spindled his fingers around the creases of his rucksack, now on top of his lap. 

“Then a month later, he escaped.”

He blinked.

OH MY. | accepting

9 already answered here!

➐ Are there any people you’ve been to afraid of approaching?

Not recently, no. If I want to roleplay with someone, I roleplay with them. There have been times in the past where I’ll be like “wow, this person is really good!” like with, say, Abby, but I translate that admiration into a further desire to roleplay them and then, through practice and learning from them, become as good as them and so the cycle continues. I learn from people rather than simply watching them from afar.

OH MY. | accepting

➍ Would you say you’re a decent roleplayer or do you have any self doubts?

Well.

I mean.

For my specific blog and what I do with it, I’m the only game in town. That’s not overselling myself either-- for how long I’ve been an active member of this fandom (2015 beyond), there just isn’t anyone else that quite hits the notes that I do. For that I can feel rather chipper about myself to say the least of things. My writing style has only diverged from “the pack” further as time has gone on, so that’s something additional to consider.

That said, if there’s any one thing I praise myself for is how flexible and versatile my style really is. If it needs to be atmospheric, it’s atmospheric. If it needs to be matter-of-fact hyperviolence, then it’s going to be matter-of-fact hyperviolence. In spite of how flexible it is, it also stays true to itself-- you can tell that I wrote something regardless of the subject matter, because there are tons of specific “Kayla-isms” that stay true from one piece to the next, even if those pieces are wildly different in what stories they’re telling or with the characters they’re presenting. I’m nothing if not obsessive about being internally consistent.

Naturally, be as it may that this is Tumblr, I haven’t been very far from doubts about myself. It used to be so much worse the turn of this year and back in December to November, but I like to think I’ve mostly moved on from that. I’m not perfect, but I’m damn good at what I set out to do.

➏ What’s the one thing you especially love about roleplaying your muse?

I love Jhin. I really love GD. 

“But Kayla, how is that possible? You’re going to celebrate the day he dies for good!”

A) I’m tsundere as hell, and B) that doesn’t make me like him any less (unfortunately?)

I think what keeps me drawn to GD and lets me continue to write him for months and months on end without getting bored in the slightest is that there is nothing I can’t do with him as a villain and as a character. The sky is the limit with this asshole. He’s just plain fun. You wouldn’t understand the sheer level of joy I get out of writing him. I have fun killing people with him. I have fun tormenting him with the consequences of his own actions. I have fun doing anything with him.

OH MY. | accepting

➒ Got any memorable threads on here? Care to mention a few?

The one in which Khada Jhin Finally Fucking Died. You know the one. Sure, it might be realistically far-off in my timeline (if that particular scenario ever happens in blog canon, anyhow), sure, he doesn’t really die for good even in that scenario, and sure, I could’ve phrased my replies better, but there is no feeling yet as euphoric as reading this fuckface get beheaded. All I need now is to write a drabble in which Naomi banishes her satanic father’s spirit back to the Seven Burning Hells that he crawled out of and I can be finally at peace with the world.

➓ What were some of the most frustrating moments you had with your muse’s interaction with another muse?

OH MY. | accepting

Honestly? I’ve done everything you can think of with Jhin already -- fluff, gore, kidnapping, torture, you name it I’ve written it somewhere -- so answering “yes” would have me instantly a hypocrite. I like to think myself as one of the few blogs (if not the only, if I’m being realistic) where I can joke about things like “hehe he’s gonna disembowel out your eyes :^)” and then, a handful of posts later, have him genuinely disembowel out your eyes. In other words, I’ve made everything work in one way or another.

What’s funny to me about it is that I’ve never received anon hate or anons in general snubbing this. I presume that taking one good look at my in-character posts would imply that I don’t fuck around so those weak of heart simply don’t follow me to necessitate those kinds of anons, compounded that I write it well enough that it’s jarring only in the good sense of the word and not the bad sense.

OH MY. | accepting

➊ How many ships do you have on this blog?

In terms of active ships? Not very many. I’d say that there’s Vivian and GD and Zed and GD, after that it’s a pile of “almosts” and “maybes”. You don’t have to search very far back between this blog and my archived blog to find my inactive ships, one of which we know was rather near and dear to me. Still, I didn’t have and still don’t have a lot of ships, which is a given considering GD is... GD. He speaks for himself in why he isn’t a cosmopolitan character for that sort of thing, and save for that ship I’m not particularly bummed out over it.

➋ Have you ever roleplayed with someone that just left an unforgettable impression on you?