// Gosh ;u; thank you very much for this, Puffin. You've been lovely to talk to from the start, and it's been such fun to develop ideas together and plot future interactions. I assure you I couldn't display half this energy and attention if you didn't bring it out of me with your engagement and attentive consideration of each concept I talk to you about, it makes showing that same attention easy! Plus you have fantastic ideas yourself and I love to hear them.

I'm still so flattered that you've been so willing to fully dive into this AU and consider with me what role Ciaran can play in it, and how these unusual, intense circumstances would affect the two of them and their dynamic. Your enthusiasm is contagious. I'm so glad this has so far helped you explore your Ciaran, and this has also been a chance for me to rediscover my portrayal of Ornstein, to figure things out again years after I first began to develop him more in depth. While we've been focusing on said AU, I feel it still allows us to delve into their psyche from a different perspective.

Cayin and Latenna's interactions have been fascinating, they make such an odd but fun duo! They may not have the past history that Ciaran and Ornstein do, but I think they're off to a great start and I'm so curious to see how they and their dynamic changes throughout the timeline. I very much look forward to everything we'll do next >8]

//So, like I’ve said on my other blog: I’m done with exams, and that means I can spend time and energy on my hobbies a lot more freely. And this blog here has been on my mind a lot so I’m hoping to work on it and deal with some issues that have been holding me back from writing Ornstein more in the past years.

This is mostly about Ornstein’s main verses. As you probably already know, for a long time I’ve felt a lot more inspired for his Bloodborne verse (which, if I’m being honest, I think I’ve developed much more and I feel more confident about) and to a lesser degree other AUs. But I’ve found that for quite some time I’ve been finding it quite hard to stay inspired and motivated to write Dark Souls interactions.

This is, partially, because I still have a very vague idea of Dark Souls’ timeline, and thus, Ornstein’s. He’s lived such a long life and so much of it I’ve left undefined, I have a general idea of each “phase” in his life, how he probably handled each incident, but I’m not quite satisfied with that and I feel it holds me back when plotting and writing threads. It doesn’t help that Ornstein’s role within the games is a bit of a mess (in an already very ambiguous setting), and trying to connect it all as this single character is very tricky.

And of course, that also impacts his characterization. This blog is 8 years old now, and I was still relatively inexperienced in RP when I made it. While I feel good about where I am today as a writer, and definitely believe there’s a big difference between how I used to write him and how I write him today, this contributes to my struggle surrounding his portrayal. At times I feel like it’s inconsistent, or like I don’t do him “justice”. I can’t speak to how truthful these thoughts are, if I’m right or unfair with myself, but the fact remains I’m not satisfied with it, not the way I'm satisfied with my OC Cayin or even AU versions of Ornstein that I might as well call my OCs.

These reasons, alongside other personal experiences, have made it difficult to write him.

That being said, I think I said a year ago that I wasn’t giving up on Ornstein, and I stand by that. At least for now, I want to try. I still have ideas, and the fandom still has fantastic writers to put them into practice with. This Summer I want to tackle these things and keep trying.

Chances are I will still write replies to Bloodborne interactions first, and that verse will remain a priority at first simply because I find it easier and more enjoyable. But I’ll be taking a look back at everything, try to figure out who I want his character to be and how he fits into the story. And with that, hopefully find it much easier to be more active around here again.