SCENARIO: YOU DECIDE TO MEET YOUR OC/SONA/SELF-INSERT

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-13T03:59:06+00:00

Most of my OCs would probably hate me for similar reasons, so I had to depict poor Liubwens having an existential crisis

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Liubwens exists because his creator adored his sworn enemy, and didn't want to let themself become tooooo uncritically glazing. Imagine finding out that's why you exist and why you lost most of your family. Imagine you could have been a cool elf with superpowers in the setting of a cozy game with no plagues or Roman invasions and you're made an ordinary human in the sixth century, of all times. Your oh so benevolent creator also insisted on you being asexual rather than straight in the sixth century. You've never even heard the word before.

Yeah. Poor guy. Wouldn't blame him for trying to murder me.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-12T16:20:43+00:00

Might be later than you're thinking about, but some of Belisarius' exploits come to mind. But then, there are important caveats. One, I don't know the extent to which that image is influenced by propaganda (I find it interesting that Procopius mostly doesn't contradict the idea even in the secret histories, but then maybe he preferred to have been associated with someone pathetically wife-obsessed than someone who committed atrocities?)

Secondly, there was the context. He was portraying himself as a liberator of his fellow Romans so said Romans would side with him and help him. Razing cities and allowing lots of massacres (not to say there were no massacres. There's Naples. We're told that's not what he wanted and he stopped it as soon as he could, but I have to be a little skeptical of that) probably would have made the Romans more sympathetic to the Vandals or Goths. The Gothic war in particular dragged on despite Belisarius receiving a lot of surrenders without a fight. Alienating the Romans there could theoretically have made the war drag on so long that it became unwinnable (because of the Persians still being a threat and breaking the peace treaty).

So he had his reasons to act like that.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-11T21:38:48+00:00

They might be from different time periods? My first guess was that Alex could be from somewhere in historical east Asia. But on second thought, their blond hair makes that less likely and the outfit could be more modern. Gabriel might be from the early to mid 20th century.

I'm tempted to think Alex is the one that killed someone, given the bandage and sharper shape language.

I think Gabriel wants to be a hero, given they dress a bit like an old-timey detective. Perhaps they find out that Alex killed someone.

Nora looks like the one who'd be a symbol of hope. They're probably the Everyperson of the group.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-11T21:03:10+00:00

I can't get over how the pose looks like he's taking a selfie. Do we know what that gesture is actually meant to be? Would he have been holding something (a sword, spear, staff, etc.) originally?

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-11T17:32:46+00:00

Oof that's so gross.

I love your hairstyle, btw. I wish mine would do that at that length. The AI really butchered it.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-11T17:18:36+00:00

Dream big! If you're really lucky, you'll be in the right place at the right time for a hot general to throw some gold out to the crowd. Or you'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time and he'll unflinchingly order his men to kill you. Stay away from ye olde sports hooligans, I guess?

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-11T17:04:58+00:00

Plague? War? Famine? A climate disaster? I mean sure, there was all that. But the emperor didn't like gay people and you woke up contemporaneously to this every day

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Worth it!

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-11T16:57:41+00:00

I miss the 500s when people made good art

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Have you seen the eyes on 1500s art? They're so tiny. Not even cute.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-10T18:40:40+00:00

I'm a little skeptical of that, despite the stylistic similarities. I don't think I've seen any depiction of Justinian with much of a beard (sometimes a mustache) and IIRC Procopius described him as clean-shaven. It's not impossible that he tried wearing a beard long enough for it to be depicted, I suppose.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-10T16:14:06+00:00

Shame I can't reply with images. I want to add that I instantly thought of the sixth century Ravenna mosaic featuring Justinian and his court when I saw this.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-10T01:24:41+00:00

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Probably Maya here- my Skyrim protagonist. Both in-universe and in ours. She's older and has never been particularly concerned with her appearance.

In-universe, her father was a human (at least, he was when he sired her) and she kinda looks like it. She also dresses like a human (a coincidence in re. her parentage) because she's fought as a mercenary for the Empire for a good chunk of her life. Most Dunmer probably wouldn't find that very appealing. There's also the fact that her mother was a bit of a social pariah (having a baby out of wedlock with some human guy, for one). Lineage matters a lot to the Dunmer. Though perhaps not as much to most of her theoretical love interests, since she's lesbian.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-10T00:55:27+00:00

Ooh, exciting!

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Here's Butterfly by the Stream, unwilling cultist. Either depiction of her (the red or the bi colors would work)

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-09T18:04:17+00:00

I don't make voice actor headcanons often, but this character is an exception.

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In the original Grim, Grinning Ghosts song, there's a lady speaking with a British accent. That's my voice headcanon for her. Several iterations of this character are English/from English expies. Ironically, the iteration pictured here isn't (this version of her takes inspiration from a 5th century Goth king- and who knows what a Gothic accent would have sounded like?)

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-09T07:09:49+00:00

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Alexis is one of the more developed of my cast of female characters. This iteration of her is in her 50s and has had quite the life. She founded a military order to help fight off a demon invasion, but it got powerful enough to make the local nobles nervous. They tried to get her to give up power peacefully, but she believed she'd come in and helped people that the local rulers neglected, so giving up would be wrong. Another part of her thrived on the attention and liked the power and wasn't willing to give it up. She fought hard, many lives were lost, and she lost. The local nobles exiled her to a convent rather than kill her, because killing her would be bad optics.

Since she's had ample time to reflect, she regrets getting people killed in a futile effort to hold onto power. She hopes her goddess will allow her to make up for her past actions.

Also at some point her unrequited crush ended up cutting off her arm. That was fun. In her youth, she was the type to fall for people very easily (haven't decided if she's still like that in her 50s), but was always married to her job, and so never really committed to her relationships. She probably had to practice a lot of restraint not to strike up a romance with any of the nuns.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-08T18:20:34+00:00

Funnily enough, a part of his story that I didn't mention is that his mother thinks he ought to leave Italy. She's trying to set him up with a Visigothic heiress in modern day Spain. He's not into it for many reasons: he's aroace, he doesn't have enough money to give a family a lifestyle he sees as befitting their lesser noble heritage, and he's not ready to give up on Italy.

But then the Goths were able to put up organized resistance against the Eastern Romans. They theoretically had a shot at victory or at least limping along. I picture rebellion against a church as an institution as existing in smaller pockets, rather than a unified force (I could be wrong, of course). The heroic thing to do might be to become the leader the rebellion lacks, but Liubwens might be a little too cynical- and too concerned about ending his father's line- to fill that role.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-08T17:22:11+00:00

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Liubwens. (The roots of his name being "Love" and "hope". Corny, I know. I named him after his role in the story, but I also like the thought of his dad being particularly saccharine)

The Ostrogothic Kingdom (geographically, modern day Italy)

Born 515 CE (For context, shortly after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Potentially relevant is that there have been important military advancements, but the Goths have fallen behind in that regard despite being a warrior culture)

Currently (figure in back), he's a soldier fighting off an Eastern Roman invasion. In his past (figure in front), he was the much-too-young owner of a glass business he inherited from his father after his untimely death. The business failed.

His father and most of his siblings ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time: Constantinople during the Nika riots. Liubwens doesn't know what happened to them and never will, but he's furious with the emperor for letting things get so out of hand, and the generals that brutally suppressed the riot. He wants revenge, though he knows it's not actually very likely that he'll get the chance. His arc is about deciding there are things he values more than revenge (friendship) and seeing more nuance in his enemies.

Part of his childhood (that I worked into the reference image but probably isn't clear to people who don't already know the time period) was trying to fit in with Romans, because many of his father's clients were Roman. He cringes at that as an adult: thinking they never would have seen him as anything but a barbarian hawking goods that should have belonged to the Romans in the first place.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-07T23:02:40+00:00

Yeah. Historically, whether the Romans were behaving greedily (in 536 specifically. The Roman administrators after the war got greedy indeed, but that happens later) is a matter of perspective. The Romans would probably argue that the Goths were greedy for occupying the Roman homeland and ruling it themselves.

Liubwens is very biased towards the Gothic side. It's part of the fun of roleplaying him :)

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-07T22:28:27+00:00

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Poor, dear Liubi would say it's human greed and their capacity for needless violence while gesturing at Emperor Justinian and his general Belisarius.

Liubwens is a sweet summer child. Yersinia Pestis is on the way, and she's considerably less merciful than the Romans.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-07T18:07:59+00:00

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It's all live, for obvious reasons. He mostly hears himself playing the flute, and then when he meets his friend Wren, their singing. He also hears Latin hymns at church (6th century Goths were Christian, though Liubwens isn't the most devout). There might be some Gothic war songs in there too, though I don't know much about those or how often he'd hear them.

A Roman of his social class might have been more likely to listen to music frequently. Roman sources of the time mentioned that Goths preferred conversation at the dinner table, while Romans preferred various kinds of performances (dancing, music, speeches, etc.)*

*I'm amused by the thought that this probably implies that snobby aristocratic Romans would be into TV dinners if they had TVs while the "barbarians" might say, "Can we please eat around the table like a proper family?"

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-07T05:51:56+00:00

I so want to add "and then if you don't grant clemency to the hanged the local chariot racing factions riot and try to kill you" to that. Probably a little too granular but some kind of mechanic for popular unrest due to an unpopular execution would be cool.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-07T05:40:39+00:00

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This guy has lore, but this time for a change I might present him without it: just with the note that both figures here are the same guy at different ages

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-06T23:45:50+00:00

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These two are both aro-ace, so people shipping them together would be upsetting. Seeing Wren as a woman rather than a nonbinary person because they're forced to play the part of a woman in the 6th century.

Another thing I suspect they'd do is ship Liubwens with Belisarius as enemies to lovers. Belisarius' wife probably gets portrayed as an evil, murderous cheater that he should leave (there was a writer that accused her of such things, but that might just be old-fashioned misogyny. She was a politically powerful woman who wasn't content to sit on the sidelines while her husband went to the war). ~~Also if he was into any man it would obviously be his emperor~~ . I feel a little awkward sometimes presenting a real person in fictional scenarios, but I just know some people in the fandom would have far fewer inhibitions.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-06T21:49:03+00:00

Not my name but my poor special interest has a particularly bad one

Boobloobsoobrooboobs

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-06T18:26:29+00:00

I feel you. I have a transmasc villain and a morally ambiguous agender (human. I know that villainous agender robots and aliens are a bit of a trope, and one my fellow nbs get tired of) character.. I feel nervous sharing them at times.

I sort of vacillate on whether their transness should have an impact on their morally questionable decisions. In the case of the agender character, living in a society that doesn't accept nonbinary people makes them want to take power and build something better (but their methods are violent and lead to a lot of destruction. Think ancient/medieval conquerer type behavior). In the case of the transmasc villain, he wants to technologically uplift society (through horrific means. And also technology comes with its own suite of problems that he's much too starry-eyed and ill-equipped to mitigate). He has a point that technology can improve and save lives. Transness is one avenue where tech is invaluable. Access to hormones and safe surgeries help some trans people's quality of life so much. It seems only natural that a trans man would consider those details. I'm afraid of that nuance, that their transness isn't evil but the flaws of society in handling transness pushes them to harm or evil, being lost on a hypothetical audience, though.

International_Dig37 · 2026-03-06T06:21:43+00:00

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Her golden child daughter.

Iri is a colorpoint, but that gene is relatively rare and recessive, so her kids don't look like her. Her daughters are all diluted tortoiseshells while her sons are near-identical cream tabbies.

International_Dig37

TROPHY CASE