#{{ put under a readmore because i feel like this answer is so long.

[acoldsovereign]

Hi, Guillotina! I know you're still in the midst of setting up your blog and all, including new rules for followers (as you've said already), but I hope it's okay for us anons to still send you random IC & OOC asks! If not, you can delete-- I'll understand. ;w; I won't comment on recent dash stuff but I just wanted to check in and see if you/the people involved were okay???? I know you care about Saiyans a lot. Like, a lot, a LOT-- maybe more than anyone I know or seen so far. (In case I sound like a creep, I swear I'm not!) I was here when you first had Google Docs and had a really cute section about relationships/shipping stuff with Bardock. (Was also here when you first set up your Sites page and had an even *cooler* section about the diversity of the Saiyans' gene pool, explaining why Maiz looked so different! Not to mention your cultural & biological headcanons as well but that's neither here or there). So, I just wanted to check in on you. 🥺 I also say this because of your recent Toriyama post (didn't know he said that about female Saiyans omg! Everything makes so much sense now, haha. I was confused for years man 😭 ). Point is, I see how much Saiyans mean to you overall and I think it's rad to see as a fellow female fan of the series! Can you explain more of your muse choice to me? Like, what went into making her? I know you said she came from a fanfiction but I remember on your old blog, you also said she predates it?? Sorry If I'm misremembering! I just think you and your blog are cool! Keep on trucking!

{{ Heyo! Yes, that rule is still in place, anon! I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS enjoy receiving random asks (IC or OOC) from mutuals and anons. Though I'm private nowadays, I will extend this courtesy to non-mutuals as well! (How else am I supposed to know we're a potential match as writing partners if I don't extend that olive branch, y'know?). With that said-- awwww, you were here for all for that?! 🥺 My pre-Sites days too and during them?! That means you've kept an eye on me ever since I stepped onto the RP scene here.... You're an OG, you know that right?! I didn't expect this sweet and heartfelt message, so thank you so much for taking the time to write this out. I'm smiling so much like a goofy goober. This means the world to me. But yes, I'm okay. I got two new good friends out of said dash stuff (though we were mutuals already, anyway/had already been interacting). Anyway, yeah, I'm good! They're good, too! Thanks for checking in with us!! I'll tell them you sent good wishes, granted if they don't see this beforehand. :3

About Saiyans meaning a lot to me-- yeah. I wish I could remember the interview it was revealed in, but he was asked about it at some point to where he said something to the effect of "I didn't know how to design them/couldn't figure out their appearance", something like that. It stuck with me because like I've mentioned in my Toriyama post, many toxic (as in sexist/misogynistic fanboys and overall creepy ass people) tried to make DB a thing I wasn't allowed to participate in, all because I was born a girl which was and is-- bullshit. Women aren't a different fuckin' species, man. We like the same shit as men sometimes and that's alright. Trying to put me into a girly girl box is what made me into a rebellious ass tomboy (much like Videl who I somewhat related to, growing up). Only in my late teens/early adult years did I embrace my femininity (yes, I was vain and shallow like Bulma at times. I was also a bit too loose with money when I had some, so I understand her casual attitude regarding her wealth, but that's neither here or there). Point is there was and always have been room for female fans of the series, so when I heard that from the horse's mouth himself? Yeah, it was a wrap. That was it. Nobody could tell me SHIT. That's one thing about me: If I learn something is true and it makes my life easier, I will not listen to anything else. I'll do my own thing. I'm a bit stubborn like that but trust me, it's a good stubborn. Otherwise, I'm very open-minded about many things and I'm a good listener.

As I stated on more than one occasion, I started RPing in a chatroom of an anime-pirating website, while I watched DBZ Kai. After I finished the anime (and lost my original RP group of friends), I coped by scouring the Internet for more RP forums and platforms, of which eventually led me to Facebook. I ran into some mishaps here and there in the DBZ RP space but that aside, the highs were worth it and I stayed for a long while. I mostly specialized in Android/Cyborg OCs and Saiyan OCs. So yes, you are right by saying Maiz (as in RPC!Maiz's template) comes from my 2018 fanfiction but also predates it by SEVERAL YEARS because every female Saiyan I had from the age of 12 and up was essentially a prototype of who Maiz would become. Long story short, Maiz grew with me, even when her names before were: Rayearth (my og username on the chatroom/anime website), Beats, Serori, Celeri, and later Jinjā. Rayearth was able to go Super Saiyan and she was the angry-punchy type. She was closer to Vegeta in temperament and haughty as all hell. Beats was a bit more humble with a hint of cockiness. This was around the time I started playing around with morality and all that, so she was less of a Vegeta type but still rough around the edges. I think I implied she could go Super Saiyan but can't remember if it happened in any threads. Serori was much more humble and quiet-- introspective. However, she could be hostile if approached too quickly or suddenly. She was the first low-class Saiyan I ever made. Celeri was a jump off of that because someone had the same name as my OC so I changed her around*. She was extroverted, but not too much. I guess you could call her a quasi-Goku type, if Goku was Mid-Class and a woman. I changed the rank because I wanted to explore the classism aspect of the Saiyans and my OC's relationship between her and her inherent power. She was morally gray, if I remember correctly.

*A bit petty of me, I'm sure-- but I was immature and a moody teenager who only had her creativity to express herself with. Anything too similar to me back then felt like an attack on my personhood and individuality. Thankfully, I'm a mature adult who's grown past that trauma response from childhood.

Jinjā came in 2015. I was 16 going on 17, about to enter college. Stopped RPing some time before this, because well, I had to focus on school and life stuff. This is what she originally looked like:

She has no story, because she wasn't made with one in mind. I just missed having a female Saiyan to think/write about. She was truly random, a burst of inspiration that heavily looms over Maiz's current design. Jinjā has red, short, choppy hair because Seripa/Fasha was her base design. I wanted something different to make her stand out, or else she'd just look like a clone or twin. That's all. Fasha being the base is also where the earrings comes from, since she had them. (This was just before I started embracing cosmetics and accessories). While she didn't really have anything to her, the basic idea was to go back to my roots: a rough-and-tumble Saiyaness who can pack a mean punch and rock your shit even if it kills her-- even if she fails. Hence my attempt at blood and making her look badass/intimidating. Muscles and female anatomy was hard for me, still is slightly-- but I'm getting the hang of it. Anyhoo, I believe my intentions-- if I fleshed her out more-- would've been for her to be a Bardock-type. Fun fact: Battle of Gods came out a month before this redesign did, so I got some confused looks when asked if this was SSG (Red) and I said no. I wasn't a huge fan of the movie so I didn't really see it until later. Only clips and such on YouTube. I warmed up to it eventually.

While going back to college for the second time (2018-2019), I got into Super properly with the introduction of Broly in DB Super: Broly. I enjoyed the Future Trunks/Goku Black Saga but the narrative nightmare within the anime's climax (and the manga's middle part) was a tough pill for me to swallow. The movie though-- despite the minor grievances I have with it-- hit all the right spots: Saiyan lore! Saiyan culture! POLITICS!!! Space-Opera! Sci-fi!!!!!! Around this time, I was finally inspired to do something else for this fandom I've had a tumultuous relationship with-- write a fan fiction. Jinjā's redesign was imminent:

She got renamed in reference to her mom, who was now Seripa/Fasha's older sister as a nod to the latter being a design base. Karne comes the Japanese spelling of karnels (kaneru, if I have that correct) because she's frustratingly slow to anger like popcorn-- the pun she's based off of. (Fasha in other media, such as the games has always been described as the opposite: short tempered, fierce and feisty. She's staunchly loyal to her crew too, as implied in the movie and in those same games if you pay attention to her dialogue). With this, it only made sense to have the updated version of Jinjā follow the pun as:

To summarize: Maiz became Maiz in 2019, in the wake of DB Super: Broly. (It came out that year in the U.S). In the fanfic she originates from, she is the last female Saiyan, and that weighs on her all the time. Incidentally, Story!Maiz is much more sympathetic while remaining a frosty a--hole. Her trauma is much more apparent and while she's not exactly the nicest person in the Galaxy, it's much more clear to see why: she has attachment issues, which makes getting to know her difficult, she has trust issues, anger issues from surviving a bloody and rather violent/sudden genocide of her people at a young and tender age, she can't remember the last time she slept well, has frequent nightmares of being abandoned by her mother (she was the one who shoved her into an escape pod). She thinks there's no value to her life because she's been traveling through outer space with Turles for six years consecutively and there were several planets/galactic sectors who didn't even know what a Saiyan was. They were lucky to find remains. (Cut tails, boots, bones, dust/ashes, name tags, etc etc. The sights were very, very grisly. And she kept seeing the same things for six. Years. Straight). All of this turned her into a very bitter, negative person who became a straw nihilist. She kind of just wanted to pass away quietly in some corner somewhere, not because she felt remorse for being a Saiyan/the effects of her kin but because she had her entire life upended on a sadistic whim. There was nothing to live for in her eyes. She thought Turles was stupid for having hope after a while and became jaded. While she was stronger than Turles in terms of raw power, she had a issue with not wanting to preserve her ki for important situations. He constantly had to watch over her like a big brother and she absolutely resented him for it (misguided anger, anyone?). It didn't help that he remembered more of Saiyan life than she could. All in all, she was tragic and a bit too edgy probably, but she would grow out of her frosty shell with the introduction of Broly. She reluctantly bonded with him over time on their ship as Saiyan Squad (what I called them out of text) made their way to Earth to settle the score with Vegeta. Paragus didn't do anything for her but make her angry at first-- all this time she's convinced herself there were no more Saiyans and then she sees this old man still kicking somehow? Of course she'd be livid. (Paragus, over his short presence in her life until his death at Vegeta's hands proved to be effective; he became a makeshift father figure and imparted some words of wisdom of which she'd take to heart, post Broly fight. Turles was pretty devastated too and they would finally be the brother-sister duo he's always known they could have been. It's bittersweet and sad, tbh).

Anyway, that's the evolution process. As for why she looks like this in universe-- I'm gonna be honest and say I got it from Father of Goku. There were different looking Saiyans in there, two women have blue hair. Super Saiyan has green eyes and blonde hair. Who's to say there aren't natural green eyed Saiyans who existed? Or blondes? Dark hair can mean black and/or brown, so why not both? Same with dark eyes! Make them brown, hazel, chestnut, almost black or straight up black. Etc etc. (As a reminder, Fasha has purple eyes! PURPLE). If you look at official artworks/some colored manga covers and whatnot, Goku's actually tan. Hell, Future Trunks is basically apricot or a peachy skin tone. If you want a triple whammy??? Read the manga. No, seriously. There are OFFICIAL scans that has Trunks with red hair instead of the Super Saiyan blonde. And those are mistakes from Toriyama himself. Look at Z Broly and all his in between stages-- blue hair, greenish-yellow hair, etc. It's really not that hard to create a unique looking Saiyan, or justify it-- so I feel like the whole dark hair and dark eyes should be overlooked/not a big deal. I also just don't like how restrictive it is from a narrative/in universe standpoint. It's not fun to play with.

Anyway, thank you so much. I know this was long. 😭 My bad. I enjoy talking about Maiz very much and her concepts.

[smallnico]

durge desensitizes to casual positive affection and friendship compilation

also known as real feline durge hours. esper's companions look at them and say Is Anyone Gonna Manhandle That Murderous Twink and then not wait for an answer. contexts/explanations under readmore for the curious

lae'zel and esper do morning exercises and meditation together. most of the time they pass the time in silence, but sometimes they're joined by the local wildlife. esper is a great fan of showing their friends things they might find interesting as a form of affection instead of words, especially with lae'zel, since they have a common discomfort with small talk.

esper doesn't like looking at themself in the mirror, so their makeup is always ancient and haphazardly applied, a fact that distresses the more image-conscientious shadowheart. she and esper have a sibling-like relationship fuelled by mutual amnesia and goth solidarity, among other things, but sometimes a sister has to take it upon herself to fix her stinky sibling's wings.

i already expanded on wyll and esper's dynamic a bit in this piece and i didn't feel like drawing the same thing twice, but suffice it to say, they have absolutely no idea how to talk to each other, but still look out for each other. the joke here is about how i've done a couple of long rests in-game with just alcohol i've found. hey 5 camp supplies is 5 camp supplies

jaheira unearths esper's forgotten mother issues. no real things to add here. no thoughts only cub.

gale said way back in act 1 that esper reminded him of tara, and esper isn't leaning into that on purpose per se, but as i said for lae'zel, they like getting their friends things those friends might enjoy. they also love chaos. show your evocation wizard some love by bringing him extremely destructive spells to play with. show your durge some love by casting chain lightning and letting them watch

i have no justification for this one lmao. esper isn't a Huge fan of being picked up and hefted around like a sack of oats, but maybe they should've thought of that before being small and scoop-uppable. socially, esper and halsin don't click especially well, but esper is fundamentally a creature, and therefore pretty easy for halsin to understand. obviously they don't mind that much :J

esper and karlach voted two most touch-starved nerds in faerun, they help each other cope by sleeping in a cuddle pile like cats. karlach runs warm even after getting her engine tuned up, but esper doesn't mind. she's cozy

astarion is by far the person esper is the most verbal with, probably because he's the only one who really thinks the durgeisms that slip out are funny and #relatable. everyone else errs on the side of caution with esper, but astarion knows he's allowed to take liberties with them, and he does. they have the same sense of humour. these two freaks are completely insufferable together because they're vibing so hard on a level incomprehensible to everyone around them, but astarion can put a stop to esper's self-destructive internal stress engine, and esper can drag him into helping and working hard. the others have no choice but to tolerate them as a couple because no matter how unhinged they are as a unit, they're so much worse for society on the whole as individuals. do not separate them

if you read all this, hope you enjoyed this illumination of esper's party dynamics, i love you <3 enjoy

[eowynstwin]

Obviously if your asks aren’t open then feel free to disregard this- (love your work btw I just- I cant- 🥰)

Do you think they keep the dog tags *ON* during sex? How do you think they’d wear them during it? Would they have you wear them?

You don’t HAVE to answer for each individual character obviously if you would rather just do it as a whole or just one that’s fine! Whatever works for you 💕

*cracks knuckles* I’ll do ‘em all. (Sorry for the long post, I’ll put it under a readmore when I get home 🙏)

Do the Tags Stay on in Bed?

Ghost wears his tags because, like the mask, they just don't ever come off. He is two people when he is with you--Ghost is the creature that can protect you, that can do the things Simon Riley would have been too weak for when it comes to your safety. But Simon is the man that could have loved you properly. Simon is the man Ghost believes could make you coffee in the morning, could rub your neck at the end of a long day.

It isn't initially why he wears his tags when he fucks you, but it is now--Ghost holds you in an iron grip, looms over you as he thrusts into you hard enough to bang the headboard against the wall, and feels the tags with a dead man's name clink against his chest. They remind him that you deserve whatever is left of the man who would have been far better for you than Ghost ever could be.

Soap wears his tags fully out of pride. The SAS is his life, is a massive part of his identity, and while he knows not every mission he's sent on is wholly for the good, he holds onto his conviction to act with integrity and compassion no matter what. The SAS might not always do good, but he will, as much as he can.

He wants you to be proud of him, too--he's really doing it all for you, after all. When those tags hang between you as your legs are wrapped around his waist, as they come to rest on your chest when he leans down to kiss you, he wants you to know that when he wears them he's thinking of you.

Gaz has no preference, but more often than not they stay on because he forgets to take them off. Usually, it's because the moment you're both free with enough time to actually have sex, he isn't going to bother with silly things like getting completely undressed--he wants you, now.

So, they've whacked you in the face a couple times as the two of you have gone at it. It's too funny to get mad at, and Gaz always uses it as an excuse to "make it up to you." Sometimes he'll take them off, too, and put them around your neck instead. "Keep 'em safe for me, eh?" he says with a grin.

Price takes his tags off. Over 20 years of service have left him wanting something that exists apart from violence and bloodshed, and every moment he spends with you is that something. He doesn't want to be the Captain with you, not unless he has to be--putting his tags aside gives him permission to just be John with you.

Besides, they'd get in the way. John does his very, very best to please you, to satisfy you beyond any expectation you may have of him, and sometimes that leaves you needing to bite down on his neck to keep from screaming. You’d probably not prefer to break a tooth on the tags’ chain.

Alejandro also takes his tags off, although it’s less about keeping work and pleasure separate and more about the annoyance they can be. When he is with you, Alejo is focused wholly on you, and does not appreciate distractions of any sort. He doesn’t want to have to fling his tags around to get them out of the way, or let them hang to be caught on an errant foot or wrist.

He does, however, love to see you wear them. It’s totally a possessive thing, but in the best way—Alejo worships the ground you walk on, and seeing his name around your neck inspires the same awe usually reserved for the divine. He thinks you could have anyone you wanted, and is humbled daily that you continue to choose him.

Rudy doesn’t care either way if the tags are on or off, and if the topic ever comes up he leaves that up to you. It’s an attitude that is very in-character—Rudy’s satisfaction comes from ensuring that you are satisfied, no matter what. Rudy’s love language, hands down, is acts of service.

Similarly to Alejo, however, he does enjoy seeing you wear his tags. “They belong to you anyway, mi vida,” he’ll tell you, lining your neck with gentle kisses. “All of me does.” (He has been known, however, to forget where he puts them if they do come off. So it’s probably better if they stay on.)

Bonus: Valeria gave hers to you a long time ago. She asks very frequently to see them, to make sure you keep them with you at all times. She promised herself she would never, ever carry their weight again, but she also can’t quite bear to throw them away, so now they stay with the only person in the world that she trusts.

If you wear them to bed, it will inspire a frenzy in her that will leave you limping the next morning. Those tags are a past version of her, a version she emerged from like a snake shedding its skin. While she is never sure how to feel about that previous self, seeing you take care its vestiges satisfies an ache in Valeria that she will never acknowledge.

Bonus: Graves has mixed feelings about his tags overall, being that he is technically not required to wear them anymore. They don’t mean the same thing to him now that they used to. That doesn’t mean they aren’t always on him, of course—he keeps them tucked into his boots. So you never see them.

If you were to ever find them, bring them into the bedroom? It could go one of two ways. On the one hand, you could end up benefitting short-term from the frustrated agitation those tags inspire, with Graves using your body to relieve an old, invisible hurt you never knew about. He will withdraw from you afterwords, though, too caught up in himself to really connect with. On the other, he could just withdraw immediately, recede from you, and the tension of that encounter will linger for days. It’s best not to involve his tags at all.

[jounosparticles]

this feels really odd to ask but but what do you think the hunting dogs' thoughts are about death? specifically if they die and how? cause I feel like all of them share a variation of "I will go down guns blazing and with glory"

fukuchi definitely feels it and I feel like jouno as well. they've both had rough and violent lives so I feel like they've always thought death was just right around the corner.

I don't know about the rest of them though. teruko I feel shares the thought but not as intense as the other two, and I dont know about tecchou and tachihara.

anyway. it's a neat thought to me :3

ohhh i’ve been thinking of the best way to answer this for DAYS. this analysis will be long so ill put it under a readmore.

the hunting dogs and death - analysis

overall, it is shown that they can die. i assume due to their abilities and bodily enhancements that they do not die of injuries very easily. it makes me wonder how disease hits them? partially mechanical bodies may not respond to illness as well as natural bodies would? or maybe the opposite and they can heal more so internally? anyways here's my thoughts on how each hunting dog perceives dying!!

fukuchi

i see fukuchi as fairly self-preserving up until the end. he can't die in battle because he needs to make sure the decay of angels plot carries out.

remember that he was warned of this at nine years old. he had to spend his life preparing for this. he likely grew very wary of living recklessly and became great at fighting very fast and young; i assume that's why he went through dojos to fight as a child.

under no circumstances could he die until the world was safe.

i imagine he put on a selfless face and was willing to take serious harm in order to protect the peace, but i highly doubt he was ever willing to sacrifice his life until his plan worked out.

here we see his thought process and how things need to fall into place. his participation was essential because in no other situation would fukuzawa be the one able to get access to the one order. if fukuchi had died beforehand, the war would play out as the amenogozen warning claimed.

he had to leave the world to fukuzawa, the man he could trust most before facing his own demise.

of course, at this point in the series he has been killed since that was the final goal of his plan. a noble death for a fantastic hero.

jouno

im actually a little conflicted on his perception of death. i believe jouno is willing to sacrifice his life if absolutely necessary but is probably more self-preserving than the others. i believe he likely uses his confident and slightly arrogant attitude to hide this self-preserving mindset. someone who comes off as intimidating or nonchalant during battle is more likely to throw off the enemy whereas appearing nervous or angry will make them seem vulnerable. i believe jouno also sees himself as very strategic and able to get out of situations easily if needed. he's a quick thinker from what we've seen thus far.

lets look at when he confronted fukuchi.

he starts off very confidently accepting the offer. we know this is a facade but him immediately trying to throw fukuchi off guard seems so show he's pretty confident in his next move.

but when this doesn't work, he immediately tries to flee. this is fairly unique for a fight in bsd, many characters will often fight until they either get what they wish or they're too injured to move. despite jouno having an ability that could dodge fukuchi's, he still chose to try and escape instead of continuing to fight. this is a very normal human reaction to have but not one you see as often.

and at a disturbance, he begins to panic and needs to ground himself by reassuring himself instead of fighting back. he's not willing to put his life on the line to stop a global terrorism and his own escape is seen as a victory, which i see as him being more self-preserving. this all took place before the sword was set on fire, so it wasn't as if he had that threat to escape yet.

however, there's a chance he just didn't know how to fight the amenogozen; but his ability was definitely one of the best to fight against fukuchi with.

still, he's smart and made sure to plan adequately in case he was injured in the battle against fukuchi. he wants to keep himself safe, but he's still smart enough to take precaution.

i think jouno has probably been through a lot in his life and wants to spend a while living happily, making him more afraid to die than the others. this is even shown when he took teruko being angry as a threat while fukuchi laughed over it.

(as a small note, fukuchi's line in the anime was "haha. it seems our gremlin is angry today" which makes more sense in this context).

so tldr i think jouno would only go down if absolutely necessary and otherwise is fairly self-prioritizing.

tecchou

i believe tecchou would sacrifice himself if it brings justice.

however, he seems to see himself as one responsible for judgement, so i imagine he gives every single fight his all.

regardless of him acting as judgement, it's been shown that tecchou is willing to die if he fails at his work.

here he promises that if he were to fail he would commit seppuku (killing oneself via slicing through your stomach--an honourable death for a samurai fighter (which lines up with irl tetchou coming from samurai lineage)), which is an incredibly agonizing way to die. regardless, he is fully willing to do it if it is for peace. this shows a confidence in death and commitment to his sense of justice to an extreme manner.

and when he found himself in a situation where he was in the wrong, he immediately admitted defeat and asked his opponent to kill him.

he admits defeat, says his wrongs and is willing to accept the consequences.

he even jumps to the harsh conclusion that he isn't worthy of his title as a hunting dog. the stark white in his eyes show that his mind isn't corrupted and that he is doing what he believes is proper justice. incredibly noble.

luckily he was spared-and likely learned a lot about justice not always being as black and white as things appear.

overall, tecchou is a very noble fighter and is willing to put his life on the line for justice. he doesn't seem to fear death and will embrace it if he feels it is earned or deserved.

tachihara

i have less to say about tachihara than the others. i see him as the type that will go down over what's right and that's shown during his fight with fukuchi.

he isn't willing to fear death or beg for forgiveness. he will go down if it is worthy.

we also see that he keeps a argumentative spirit towards the enemy despite the circumstances. he will put down his opponent even in the moment of death, he just has the confidence to.

this panel also shows that he's more willing to die than to be defeated. he doesn't want to harm anyone and be controlled so he tries to kill himself first.

overall, he's a strong fighter who isn't afraid to sacrifice his life for what he believes in. his orders make him who he is, and if the orders are to win he either will or he will die trying.

(of course that last part doesn't really count when he was posing as a mafioso because he couldn't blow his cover by easily surviving everything).

teruko

much like tachihara, teruko seems to be very willing to put herself on the line to keep people safe. this is shown almost immediately in her introduction.

if ordered, she is willing to die. she's incredibly dedicated to her job and would go down if it saves people.

she's willing to go to drastic measures to keep herself alive as well, destroying her eardrum and continuing to try and fight sigma despite being under the directed resonance guns (which were made to destroy people like her). she didn't run, and she did absolutely everything she could have done in order to win.

she seems to also pride herself in fighting and being hurt in battle, likely to show her resilience and ability to do whatever it takes if it saves people.

she even goes on to call the hunting dogs "society's servants" and refers to the enhancement surgeries as "searing order into their own bodies."

this immense dedication makes me strongly believe that she would have no problem sacrificing herself if it is for the best. she killed fukuchi despite really caring for him, so i can see her being willing to put herself into that situation as well.

tysm for the question!!!!! this was super fun to read through the scenes again and try to piece together a logical guess on them all.

[marclef]

What inspired you to make Eyhm?

..... y'know since i don't have to spend several hours putting more effort than necessary into drawing a Cat for this i might as well answer it already lmao 😅

but, well, i KINDA have gone into it before, long story short she's an OC i've had for a long time that i really like putting into other media i like, just for the fun of it really! plus i'm just a really big cat person so, of course i'm going to make an OC based off of my favorite animal 🤗but Pizza Tower's kinda the first time i feel like i've really made her fit into the universe she's in, so much so that i've basically shoved the non-AU version of her off to the waywide, and now the Pizza version of her IS her, more or less! plus i'm just really proud of the design i made for her, i feel like there's a lot more personality than the simple design i had for her in the past.

there's been a lot of changes and other stuff i've made for her over time as well, of course, i'll share a couple silly things here just because i feel like it. (putting under a readmore because, eh, i don't feel like bothering people who couldn't care less heh 💧)

well, i do have what i think is the second(???) time i ever tried drawing Eyhm in Pizza Tower's art style, you can tell the original design i had for her was a lot different though 😅 (also behold one of my first times drawing Peppino, i still didn't know how the heck i wanted to draw this Italian Man yet)

(... and yeah, some old backstory stuff i had for her that's a lot different than it is now, mostly the fact that she KNOWS that she used to be human more than anything. but i won't get into all that here 👍)

speaking of backstory stuff, fun fact. i was inspired to change up the lore and backstory ideas i had for her a while back, partially because i didn't like it, and also in part because i had a weird-ass dream with her in it. i barely remember much about it, besides one very important detail: it had Pizzahead running Eyhm over in a car.

no, i don't know why this is important. but i did make an edit of it. here you go.

is this important to her backstory at all? no. but for some reason it inspired me to change her. thank you Pizzahead Hitting a Small Cat with a Car Dream.

..... okay maybe i got a little off track here. but that's the price you pay for asking me about my Funny Little Guys 👍👍 anyways, back to trying to draw other people's Little Guys for the rest of the month, so long 👋

[adyophene]

Hello ! I just have a little question, how do we start drawing ? I want go draw but idk how to start- any suggestion ? Or, if for starting it's better to do it with tutos, any tutorial to recommend ?

Have a great day !

Oooh, this is a tough question to answer! I suppose one the best pieces of advice I have is to figure out, before anything, what you are hoping to draw. What style, what tones, what media.

I have a feeling this might get long, so I will throw the rest under a readmore.

For me, when I started taking my art a little more seriously (I never went to art school or anything) I just focused on finding both tutorials on the fundamentals, and finding tutorials that focused on the aspects of art that interested me, which were animation and cartooning!

They go hand-in-hand, after all, and you'll find you end up honing in on the tutorials that coincide with your interests! IE- I ended up doing a lot of figure, and expression drawing because they would help me express emotion and movement better! I also spent so, so long just training my hand to be a bit more confident with drawing steady lines just because I loved the look of clean line-work!

So try to identify what your personal draw towards art is! By doing both something you like, as well as focusing the basics, I found that, at least in my personal experience, it put me in a positive feedback loop where I could keep seeing results in exactly the type of art I was interested in! And, once you start to feel confident, that is when you start adding in little bits of study from fields you might struggle with! A 90/10 split on what you're comfortable with and then what is new is usually a good way to go about it! Weirdly enough, though I don't watch him, I saw that the youtuber pewdiepie actually had a really good set of videos where he started from being a complete beginner and improving his art over 100 days. I believe its an absolutely great watch for a new artist, because he really does a great job in showing what a brand new journey into art can look like, and explains what he thinks each day. I think my favorite line was, 'after 24 days, I was finally having fun' because that can really sum up the new artist experience. It will absolutely be a slog at times, and can be really disheartening, but when you start to see progress, becomes so, SO fun.

Here is the link to the first vid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMLEudGbxQk and his second https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJDtQTTAogk

ALSO- this was just the first video that came to mind because I watched it recently. I would recommend finding other videos about people learning to draw, or doing 30-100-365 day challenge videos. As for my personal favorite channels for art tutorials (though keep in mind, I haven't watched them in a few years ;-;, I need to study again);

There were a number of others that I wish I could link as well, but I am struggling to remember them. I hope any of that is helpful. My own art journey has been very long, and non linear, and I have to say, I'm not even satisfied with my own art! Its a endless mountain to climb, but it is so worth it to do! And lastly, I want to say thank you so much for sending this ask, you've made me dig back in to artists I used to study, and made me want to really focus back in on my own improvement!

[wavebiders]

what do you think about campaign 2? is there anything it does better than campaign 3, and vice versa is there anything campaign 3 does better than it?

Interesting question! Gonna put the answer under a readmore since it'll probably get long and also bc my feelings on cr2 aren't all that positive so superfans of that campaign have a heads up to keep scrolling

So, I'm just gonna be completely honest up front and say I never finished cr2 so my judgement is gonna be very flawed. At the time I was younger and very caught up with the toxic positivity aspect of this fandom, so I stamped down basically every issue I had until it all spilled over and I was left feeling so negative about it I had to go complete cr cold turkey until tlovm aired.

I know that's oversharing, but I just don't feel right commenting on cr2 without being upfront about how my personal feelings on it come from a weird place. I try to be more objective about it these days, but I'm afraid I'm not entirely objective.

Anyway cr2 and cr3 are really two entirely different kinds of stories. The former I consider to be most like an open-world video game, while the latter is more like an ongoing comic book. It's hard to tell which one does things better because they're not really doing the same thing at all

In terms of pacing they both struggle in opposite directions. Cr3 has had too much going on for a long time with very little breathing room while cr2 was 90% filler. We haven't had balanced pacing since cr1 so for these two it's more about what you personally prefer. For me the difference would be determined by my connection to the characters.

Which brings me to the characters. This is of course the most subjective thing of them all. I'm not going to pretend I don't prefer the Bells Hells by a mile, but there is also a reason the Mighty Nein are so popular on social media. It's the party of NPC's vs the Be Gay Do Crimes party. The latter may has well have been built in a lab for tumblr queers. Hell it's what drew me to the show in the first place.

I think cr2 was more experimental for most cast members, with them really going outside their comfort zone(Travis playing a more serious character, Liam going more morally questionable, Travis and Ashley dipping into romance) and the results really resonated with a lot of people. Personally I struggled with most of the party for a few reasons. What they were trying didn't suit me, Ashley being gone for most of the early days, a party member dying before they could really get started, etc.

With cr3, I think it's clear they took the lessons they learned from the past 2 campaigns and really played into their strenghts while still exploring new ground. The fact that the players have lived in Exandria for so long now also allows them to craft backstories more tailored to the world around them which gives them a very unique feel. I also personally just find myself resonating more with the themes they chose to explore.

Honestly I could do a whole breakdown of each character and which ones I think work best for their campaigns but this is getting long enough so I won't.

Cr2 did spend more time digging into characters backstories but for me that had the massive downside of the gap between which characters got focus being incredibly blatant. I know people like to complain about main character Imogen, but that's nothing compared to how badly cr2 sucked at balancing narrative focus amongst the party.

That's not say I'm not bothered by cr3 not taking more time to explore things specific to the pc's backstories, but with the way most of them are tied to the main plot it still works. I do think it does a much better job at balancing focus, even if Imogen obviously has the strongest plot connection.

And finally, I think cr2 is best at being a more typical found family fantasy experience(cr1 is too but a very different flavor) in that you have a bunch of assholes slowly learning how to trust each other and help each other face their demons. The bond between the Hells is just as believable and more compelling to me personally, but it is not gonna scratch the itch a lot of people are looking to scratch with an actual play show.

What cr3 excells at is deconstructing tropes, posing ethical dillemas, really making you think about the world the story takes place in and considering different point of views. This is why so many long-term fans struggle with it so much. It's also why I think, especially if all 3 campaigns get adapted, cr3 will be the most memorable one with the biggest impact.

[chaseprice]

hi!! hope i’m not a bother. i just came across u and i wanted to ask something,,,

basically, i joined the life is strange fandom in 2018 so i never got to experience the pre-bts era, meaning i didn’t get to experience what rachel was like to the fandom back then or see the different interpretations of her.

i did some digging and i found some fan content of her from 2015-2016 & i’m absolutely infatuated with all aspects of the fanon version of her, especially her personality & how she looked. i totally wanna embody her. also the love is strange vn was so interesting to play, i love how she was written. i’d love to know more!

i stumbled across ur blog while i was doing my digging and i saw an old long post of urs saying how bts didn’t live up to the fandoms expectations, as almost everyone perceived her differently.

sorry for all the yapping LOL but what i basically wanna ask is,,, how *exactly* did the fandom perceive rachel back then (2015-2016). what were some popular headcanons for her? things you guys even considered to be canon? what were some of your own *personal* headcanons? (can be silly, realistic,,, just anything you thought resonated with her)

do you have any favorite arts from that time period that you thought really captured her? what were your hopes for the prequel/rachels character before it was released? what did you want to see in terms of story? was rachel’s style, appearance, & personality extremely different than what you expected? what did you expect?

i assume that rachels treatment in the fandom was different then than what it is now. whether it’s better or worse, i’m not sure. i was hoping u could answer that too😞. recently i’ve just been seeing constant hatred or lack of care for her character so i’m starting to think that if bts was written differently and based on the fandom’s interpretations instead, the hate now wouldn’t be this bad.

from my digging it seems like you guys had alot of fun sculpting rachel’s character on your own, and the interpretations were probably more realistic than what decknine put together.

anyway i’m sorry for the yapping essay on this random saturday, most old lis accounts are dead & i didn’t know who else to ask☹️. just trying to relive what you guys experienced the best i can. hope i’m not bombarding you with this. thank you so much if u respond !!

hiii u def did not bother me, i am not in a position to answer all of these questions, but although it makes me feel ancient, it's cute to see so much passion for rachel and pre-BTS fandom opinion, so i'll try answer some and for the rest (art, hcs, etc.) im just gonna have to direct you to my archive* (will continue under the readmore)

*(tumblr archive is so broken on mobile so you gotta go on pc for this, but also there's so many gifs from that time so it will Definitely slow down your browser). i was insane and 17 years old so like, just excuse all of the cringe content i guess. you can click tag and filter it by either #lis #rachel amber #amberprice or whatever to try and find stuff like art. and i got into lis sept 2015 so that's like, as far back as it will go, but i was fully lisbrained from 2016 through 2018)

to be honest, in alignment with pre-bts thought lmao, rachel is whoever you want her to be. there was less of 'this is a correct objective fact about her personality/history' and more 'yeah, this is an idea the fandom really likes and has become fanon, most likely because it is a nuanced and entertaining and realistic interpretation of what we have seen of her character in lis1' which means people whose opinions conflicted with that might've be contested/laughed at/unpopular, but they weren't wrong per se. there were plenty of people i'd criticise (and ridicule) back then for implying that this teenage girl was evil, and being a teenager myself back then, i'd call them morally reprehensible and cancellable and whatever, but tbh, as an adult now, i can just see that it was simply a boring interpretation of her character informed by misogyny

i'd disagree with the notion that fandom treatment of rachel's character was better before bts, back then there were plenty of people seemingly excited to characterise her as emotionally manipulative, a cheater, deserved what she got, etc. as well, bc tbh, the story did leave room for that interpretation, but it left room for so much more as well. i feel like bts just really locked in on a certain story they wanted to tell plot-wise, and didn't choose to explore a lot of the questions fans had about rachel as a person. it's hard to turn the ambiguity of a friendship turned situationship over a period of 4 years into a playable experience for an audience - so they didn't. regardless, it got people thinking about rachel more, putting a spotlight on her, hence increased attention both positive and negative. i feel like there's just a fundamental difference between what lis1 fans enjoyed about the potential for her character and how she related with chloe and the world around her, and what deck9 wanted to portray in bts (yes they hit the astrological headcanons, the charmingness, her rebellion, the emotional conflicts... but it personally felt hollow, contrived sometimes, i suppose). but there were a lot of people who loved bts (i enjoyed a lot of parts of it!). just, in my opinion, some of those were quite different people from who loved lis1, and with that wave it brought a lot of emotional immaturity to the fandom (like... ship wars, really? that was an insane change to fandom dynamics for me lmao, but maybe i was just spoiled by surrounding myself with people whose takes i respected)

anyway i highly recommend also that if you're hungry for that kind of content, read fanfiction on AO3 by the old fans - by Mogatrat (TON of rachel centric ones there), explosionshark and tippytypewriter, chicknparm (though Cusp is written post-bts, it's informed by pre-bts characterisations), vicepoint (me hehe), def many more good ones out there those r jus my friends so they come to mind first, e.g. i liked homecoming by kriegersan back in the day, but you could def find some more by sorting the lis ao3 page by kudos and reading the older ones that are highly rated featuring rachel. and lastly, my gf wrote a beautifully worded blog post called "The Assassination of Rachel Amber by the Cowards Dontnod and Deck Nine" which gets into some of this from a media crit perspective (not about fandom) in a very eloquent way thru comparison w twin peaks and i highly recommend that

rachel hcs that def started way before bts: skater rachel, stoner rachel, punk music listener rachel (but also like, fleetwood mac cranberries cocteau twins grungy hippy stuff rachel too), rachel's parents being distant and still living in california, curvy thick rachel, things that i've accepted as canon but were def created by diff people: bri explosionshark hc'd that rachel paid for chloe's sleeve, mogatrat (i think) hc'd that rachel initially went to get her nips pierced with chloe (that's a longtime fan hc now idk who started that one) but chickened out at the last minute, i think she also hc'd that chloe made the earring for rachel which is cute too

[milimeters-morales]

chapter 2 of my transfem miles fic under the readmore, and our fav spidey's undiagnosed anxiety disorder is more prevalent here too

Chapter One / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter 5 / Chap 6 / Chap 7 / Chap 8 / Chap 9

Wordcount: 4k+

Warnings: Piercing ears, but nothing graphic, just Miles being sensitive to the pain.

Gwen places a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, take a deep breath, it’ll be over before you know it,” she tells him in a calm and soft voice. “The worst part will be the itching. That’s it.”

“But what if-”

“Whatever your brain is telling you will happen is 100 times worse than what could happen. Lay it on me, lighting round style,” she moves to grab the needle and sits next to him on her bed, “and then we’ll do a countdown.”

“What if my earlobe rips?” He asks.

“That won’t happen, the earring isn’t strong enough, and your body is extra durable from our powers.” She answers easily, turning the earring in her fingers.

“What if I toss in my sleep, and pierce my face or neck? What if the holes close up from that too?” His fingers start to stick to his jeans, and he tightens his fist against the material. The scratch makes him focus on his leg rather than Gwen cleaning the needle.

Gwen frowns and nudges his leg with her foot a bit roughly. “Well, that won’t happen as long as you keep the backs on, and if that ever did, you’d feel it enough to wake up and handle it. It’ll heal up nice and easy, and you could take medicine for the pain if you get a headache. If the earrings come out completely, and the holes close, we can just do this again.”

Miles tries to get his thoughts in order to ask his final question. He turns to her and meets her eyes. “It’s… it won’t be stupid-looking, right?”

Gwen smiles, the warmth flooding her features and the colors of her room, and says, “Miles, you are literally one of the only people who I can say, with my whole heart: you could rock any piercing. We’re going to be using some different earrings that I know how to clean though, these look really expensive and I can’t really tell what they're made of.”

She finishes cleaning her needle and grabs the earrings she intends to use. “Ready? Three,”

“ SSS —” Miles sucks in a breath through his teeth as a sharp stinging pain hits him, “hhuhh…”

“Does it still hurt?” Gwen asks.

“About an eight out of ten… I thought you said you were doing a countdown.” He grumbles, roughly gripping his wrist to stop his hand from reaching up and cupping his throbbing ear.

“Yeah, but then you’d be too tense. Sorry.” She admits a bit sheepishly. “I really didn’t think it’d hurt that bad. I’ll numb your other ear with some ice.”

Gwen gets up and leaves the room, presumably heading to the kitchen.

Won’t that mess up the marker, he wants to point out, but he really just wants to rest his head on something cold. He can probably use the ice when she’s done and put it on his forehead or something. Would Ganke like it? How’s he even going to explain this to his parents?

What is he talking about— he’s worrying about nothing again. Both Uncle Aaron and his dad had pierced ears when they were kids, and his mom wears earrings almost every day, and Ganke literally has double piercings in each ear. Stop it, Morales.

He will need to explain how Gwen pierced his ears, though. He can always just lie about that, say she dragged him to an actual professional and paid for it. Or he can pull his, “At least it wasn’t with Hobie” card, but he’s felt really bad the last few times he’s used it.

God, he wants to scratch his ear so bad. He uncurls his fist and harshly scratches his hand to try and redirect the feeling.

“Okay, hold this to your ear for a minute,” Gwen says as she re-enters the room with a bag of ice, quickly shoving it in his hands. “Where’d you get those earrings anyway? That looks like diamonds.”

“Oh, some lady. She gave them to me after I found her dog,” he says, very carefully not mentioning the dog’s name because he knows Gwen would find it hilarious rather than anything else.

“So what made you want to keep them? Coulda gave them to your mom,” Gwen asks.

Miles looks away. “I don’t know. Guys sometimes have earrings.”

Gwen holds her hands up, “Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply anything else, it was just a bit out of nowhere. We should give you a piercing like mine next.” She snickers and Miles rolls his eyes.

“Oh toootally, because my parents would love that. No heart attacks and disappointment at all,” he laughs.

“Hey, better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Gwen said with a shrug. “We can ask Hobie if he knows anybody who can tell if this is real diamond.”

Hobie seemed to always know a guy who knows a guy, and that guy happens to know a few other guys. Nobody really asked how he knew all these people because as a spider-person you’re bound to run into all types of them, but it didn’t stop Miles from wondering.

“Alright, time to countdown. For real this time,” Gwen says, grabbing her needle and pulling his hand and ice pack away, “Three,”

Miles takes a deep breath.

“Two,”

The pain is the most obvious answer, but why does this feel so much bigger than it actually is?

“One.”

That same stinging pain happens again, making tears prick at his eyes as he grits his teeth and tenses up.

“You’re done! Do you think you’ll need some painkillers?” Gwen says, quickly moving everything and herself away from him so he can stand up.

“Nah,” Miles shakes his head and tries to open his eyes, but the pain is dialing all of his senses to a hundred. Squinting, he shoves his twitchy hands into his jacket pockets. “I’m cool. Thanks though.”

“You are cool,” Gwen laughs, “Alright, get out, I gotta get ready to go out tonight.”

——

Miles isn’t nervous about what people will think about him with earrings. It’s more about them knowing he doesn’t really know how to take full care of them, and sensing his fear about them falling out, stabbing him, stabbing someone else, melting in his ear if there’s a fire, being yanked by a giant magnet a villain has and tearing his ear, the holes closing, the usual fears people have when they get a new piercing.

He’s kidding.

He knows his anxiety is pretty irrational, he looked up what the actual usual fears were for this just to calm himself down, but it didn’t really help. He trusts Gwen’s reassurances, but he just can’t help himself from double, triple, and quadruple-checking.

At least a few girls actually complimented his earrings, saying how they liked how “elegant yet chic” they were, whatever that meant. They were simple studs with no special shape or color, just a shiny silver. But Ganke liked it, he made that very clear when Miles stepped into their dorm and the boy stood up and started turning his head in his hands, smile growing bigger and bigger the longer he observed the earrings.

“Ganke,” Miles laughs, “let me put my stuff down man.”

Ganke turns his head to the left, and Miles sighs as he lets the other boy manipulate his head. “Who did these?”

“Gwen did. I was gonna use some other ones, but she said she didn’t know how to clean ‘em, I think,” Miles answers as Ganke then turns his head to the right, “we’re gonna go to Hobie’s soon to get them checked out.”

“They make you look even more beautiful,” Ganke says, not seeing Miles’s bashful smile but knowing what his compliments do, letting go and walking back to resume his homework, “you should totally keep them.”

Miles laughs shyly, tapping one of his earrings. Beautiful, huh? Ganke hasn’t used that one before.

——

“Miles? What’s— you got your ears pierced?!” His mom exclaims, nearly dropping the plate she was washing. “Jeff!”

Oh, great.

His dad walks into the kitchen, “What’s wrong? Hey Miles—“ his dad does a double take, “—WHAT are those?!”

Better to ask for forgiveness than permission my ass, Miles thinks. “Um… they’re… earrings?”

“And where did you get those? When did you get those? Huh?” His dad’s voice slowly got louder as he put his hands on his hips.

“Uh, Gwen took me to get them done yesterday,” he mumbles, shrinking under the gaze of his parents. Sweat starts to coat his palms. “...Sorry?”

“Ohhhh, he’s sorry,” his mom says, dramatically widening her eyes and turning drying her hands on a towel.

“Why didn’t you ask us?” his dad demands to know.

“I…” Shoot, he doesn’t actually have an answer for that!

His mom slaps down the towel and turns to face him fully. With her pursed lips and narrowed eyes, and his dad’s piercing glare, they make a furious duo that could rival the villains Miles fights any day.

“I… I can take them out—” he begins weakly, shoulders slumping in defeat, but then his mother raises a hand.

“Ah ah ah! No, you got them, you take care of them. You’re gonna do everything you have to do, since you can obviously handle it,” his mom says with her eyes closed as if she couldn’t stand seeing the piercings.

“Exactly what your mother said,” his dad agreed.

“They’re just earrings—”

“Aht!”

“—and I heal easily—”

“Miles,” his dad warns.

“—I’m just saying, it’s not that big of a deal.”

His mom huffs frustratedly, “Miles, this conversation is over. You’ll keep those earrings in and take complete responsibility, ¿entendistes?”

Miles looked between his mom and dad, mouth open as he fumbled for an answer. After he could think of nothing he just turned his gaze to the floor. “Yes, mami.”

——

Pavitr toyed with his own earring as Miles recounts yesterday.

“They were pissed,” he groans. “I’m never listening to Gwen again.”

“Dude, it was your idea!” Gwen exclaimed from upstairs.

Miles flopped back onto the basement floor, grunting as his head met hard concrete.

“I don’t know bro, they sounded more mad that you didn’t ask before you did it. That’s what some kids at my school complain about all the time,” Pavitr suggests, “did you sleep okay with them?”

“Yeah, it was fine. I don’t know why I was so worried.”

“Oh, that’s good! I was a baby when I got mines pierced, so I never had to really worry about that,” the other boy laughs, “so how long before you can switch them out?”

Hobie chooses that moment to stomp down the stairs with a small shoebox tucked under one arm and a bucket in his hand. “Might take six months. That’s how long this one took,” he said while tilting his head up and flaring his nostrils. Gwen followed down the stairs soon after. “But you heal faster than anybody I know.”

“Let me see those earrings,” he offered a free(?) hand to Miles, who pulled the black box out of his pocket and handed it over.

Hobie whistled as he put everything down, bringing the earrings under a small lamp he had in the corner. “These don’t look like real diamond.”

“Aren’t they heavy?” Pavitr asked, twirling a finger in his hair.

“Well, we wouldn’t know if they were,” he responded.

Gwen sat down next to Miles. “I’m sorry I got you yelled at by your parents, I genuinely didn’t think they’d be that mad.”

Hobie made a noise of intrigue. “Mad?”

Oh no, Miles can already tell what Hobie was thinking. Escape plans. Extra food. An extra room wherever he lives right now. “They didn’t yell at me, Dad just got a little loud, and I just have to take full responsibility, which I was already gonna do,” he explains with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, at least they were fine with it,” Hobie said with a click of his tongue, “not that you’d care if they weren’t, right mate?”

Miles nods before remembering that Hobie can’t see him. “Yeah, yeah.”

He wouldn’t care.

——

“But yeah, he was such an asshole, you’d think dying once would teach him to appreciate me a little,” Peter says to him on the balcony of an office building that they were most definitely not allowed to be at. He said it’s not illegal if they weren’t actually doing anything other than sitting and eating, and Miles didn’t feel like pointing out how that wasn’t true because Peter definitely knew that already, and how Peter was the only one eating. He honestly wasn’t listening to a word of what the man was complaining about, he had more pressing matters on his mind that caused him to visit in the first place. “Peter, if Mayday got earrings without asking you, would you be mad?”

“No? What? What does that have to do with this?” Peter’s brows furrowed as he dug around in a bag of McDonalds. “See, they forgot my nuggets. They always do this. Can you go down there and ask for some? Here, take this in case you need to pay,” he said as he handed over slightly damp dollar bills (ew). Miles was grateful for the suit gloves protecting him from the no doubt highly radioactive Washingtons the older man decided was okay to spread to others.

“Oh you’re being dramatic, it’s just sweat. You’ll get over it bud.”

Miles huffs and jumps off the balcony, scaring a few citizens who were trudging along the sidewalk, and walks into the McDonalds. It’s when he’s finally at the register that something peculiar happens.

“Hello ma’am, what can I get for you today?” The cashier mumbled, before yawning into her fist.

Maybe it’s because he’s wearing a pretty oversized hoodie and baggy pants on top of the suit, and maybe it’s because his mask is hiding his face, but could she really not tell? He’s never gotten called ma’am, not even as a joke or tease, but he feels like he should… feel. Something. Anything about it.

“Yeah, I’ll just take a four-piece nugget, thank you,” he says.

The cashier simply nods (or maybe she was just trying to pick her head up from falling asleep) and walks off. Is she supposed to do that? Isn’t there supposed to be someone at the register at all times, or is that just a thing in his universe?

She comes back quickly, handing over the little carton and accepting the cash. “Have a nice day, uh…” for the first time since Miles has stepped in here, her eyes focused on him.

She doesn’t know which word to use, he realized, nice.

“…sorry. Cosplayer,” she finally decided on, which somehow left him feeling more confused than her for a second. She really couldn't tell, even after he spoke?

Hey, hold on, he thought, nice? You mean funny?

“You too!” he said happily before exiting and returning to Peter. “You owe me eight dollars,” he told the man.

“That’s not how that works, you know that— ah. Well, I guess I should have specified how many nuggets,” Peter sighed annoyedly, “did you make any new friends down there?”

Miles ignores the question and asks his own from earlier. “So, if Mayday got earrings—”

“I already said no—”

“Okay, but what if she was a boy, and she came home with earrings? Would you be mad?”

Peter stops chewing, “No, what kind of— kid, if you got earrings and your parents are mad, then it’s probably—”

Miles waved his hands. “No no no! I know why they’re mad at me. Probably. I’m just asking because you know you’re like… their age and all.”

“Ohhh, you just wanted a different perspective. Well, I’d be disappointed in myself if she felt like she had to hide it from me, obviously. Buuuttt, if it was like, a belly button piercing or a nose ring when she’s… 16? Is that the age you can get them alone? Whatever,” Peter waved a hand, “I’d at least like to know beforehand. Any younger than that is… I’ll admit, I didn’t really ever think about this. But our healing doesn’t really make that a problem with a ton of sh— stuff.”

“You can curse around me.”

“I’m practicing for Mayday, have you considered that not everything is about you?”

“Aaaanywayyy,” Miles says pretty loudly, scaring away pigeons that were getting closer and closer to the bag, “the cashier called me ma’am a few minutes ago.”

“We’ve all been there,” Peter says quietly, as if laughing at some sort of inside joke. “Honest mistake, they must’ve been tired.”

“Well,” Miles picked at his shoelace, “even after she kinda woke up, she still didn’t know what to say, so she just called me a cosplayer.”

Peter hummed, waving Miles on to continue.

“And that was it,” Miles says. “I thought it was kind of…”

He thought nice earlier, and he felt happy when he told her bye, but now he doesn’t really feel anything. It’s like it never even happened, and the only proof he went down there at all is the now empty carton of nuggets balancing on Peter’s knee.

“… I mean, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Peter hummed again, wiping his mouth on some napkins.

“It wasn’t,” Miles felt the need to defend, “she looked super tired anyway, and she left the front counter. Is she allowed to do that?”

“Bud, they could spit in my food and I wouldn’t give a dam- darn. And I wasn’t saying it was a big deal. I even used to get called ma’am a lot when I was younger.”

Miles didn’t really believe him.

“Did you hate it?”

“Hate’s a uh, a pretty strong word for it… Sometimes I did, sometimes I just didn’t care, sometimes it felt only a little uncomfortable. Once I started growing facial hair though, that all stopped,” Peter explained, stroking his chin. “God, I need to shave.”

“I shaved. My um— my legs. A few days ago.”

Miles had no idea why he told Peter that. Peter didn’t care about Miles shaving for the first time, he didn’t care about how smooth and light he felt.

“Ooh, any cuts?”

“Nope,” Miles replied, a smirk tugging on his lips.

“Heck yeah bud, that’s what I’m talking about,” Peter replied and high-fived him.

They sit in silence for a bit on the balcony, watching people mill about to their destinations and birds fly by hoping to sneak a fry Peter hadn’t managed to inhale. Time always felt like it passed so much quicker in Peter’s dimension than anyone else’s, even Pavitr, and he was an entire day ahead of Miles.

Miles was going to shave his legs again tonight.

——

As Miles cleans his ear and piercings with some saltwater spray (the one from Gwen’s dimension was probably currently glitching out of existence under his bed), his dad passes by the open bathroom door.

“Good on keeping them clean,” he told him with a nod, suddenly stopping to ask, “…did you shave your legs?”

Miles felt like a few rocks were suddenly in his stomach and growing heavier with each nanosecond that passed with his father still in the doorway. “Um,” he swallowed hard and kept reminding himself why he did it in the first place. Nobody would care, he was curious, and it would grow back anyway. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t look to see what his dad’s expression is. He keeps staring at the mirror, willing for the rocks to go away.

Why are you so nervous, his reflection asks him.

Nobody would care, he was curious, and it would grow back anyway.

“You didn’t cut yourself at all?” his dad asks.

Nobody would care.

“Nope,” Miles said, popping the p to add to the faux-casualness. Because he was just curious.

“Huh. Good job. But we can get you your own razor, you don’t have to use ours.”

“Thanks, Dad.” It would grow back anyway.

“Oh, Miles?”

“Yeah?”

Nobody would care. He’s just curious. It would grow back anyway.

It’s just Dad, his reflection pointed out. He loves us. Why are you so scared?

“Don’t be lying to me about those cuts. I know you heal fast, but infections can happen faster.”

“Yeah Dad, I hear you.”

“I’m serious Miles. Don’t believe me? Ask your mother!”

His mom passes by the door as his dad says that. “Don’t drag me into this, I’ve already got my gown on,” she tells Jeff.

His dad huffs with a fond smile on his face, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Before he leaves to also go to bed, he turns to Miles one last time. “Miles, you know you can tell us anything right? We were just upset that you didn’t tell us about the earrings. I need you to know that,” he says softly.

Miles stops cleaning his ears and looks down at his legs. Bare legs. He can tell his parents anything. He knows that. He has always known that. But there’s nothing to say. He’s confessed to being Spider-Man, he’s confessed to going to different dimensions and his friends being from different dimensions, he’s confessed to how depressed he got after Uncle Aaron died and the true extent to how complicated those feelings got— basically he’s confessed a lot. There’s nothing else to really say.

Looking back into the mirror, his reflection doesn’t seem convinced. Nothing else? But you’re so hesitant about something, it points out.

“Yeah, I know Dad. Thanks,” he says, giving his dad a small smile.

——

He lies awake later that night, after a short patrol to try and calm his nerves, and stares at the ceiling. It’s normal for boys to shave. His dad shaves. Uncle Aaron shaved. Peter said he needed to shave earlier today. The boys at school shave. Almost everyone shaves at some point in their life.

There are still rocks in his stomach, and he doesn’t even know why. He could possibly blame the feeling earlier being caused by his dad questioning him so soon after he got in trouble, but that doesn’t explain now. He knows his anxiety tends to linger and be worse than others about things that aren’t really serious, but this is just ridiculous.

Some people shave. Some people don’t. Nobody cares. It’ll just keep growing back, and you can keep doing whatever you want to it, Miles tells himself, curling up and squeezing his eyes shut. Nobody cares, you shouldn’t either. You didn’t care before, don’t ruin it now.

——

Come Saturday morning, Miles is ready to throw himself out a window if it meant the constant stream of anxiety going off in the back of his head would shut the hell up.

He barely slept, and he’s sure it shows, because when he gets up to go get an apple for breakfast, his mom gives him a questioning look.

“Itching kept you up, baby?” She asks him, quickly putting her hair into a tight bun.

“Yeah,” he sighs. There’s no need to tell her about all… that, when she’s rushing to get to work.

“Don’t worry, it won’t last forever. Just don’t scratch, and keep cleaning them!” She calls out as she leaves through the front door.

His dad must have already been outside waiting for her. They usually drive to work together, with his dad dropping his mom off at the hospital and going to work himself, and then picking her up if his shift ended before hers. It’s a bit like how he and Ganke go to class— Miles will drop him off at his homeroom and scurry back to his own (almost always directly at the bell), go and grab him for lunch in the courtyard (or Miles would sneak them out to go get actual good food) and they’d grab the other at the end of class, depending on who got let out first. Of course, there’s the issue with the teachers not letting students from different classes in the room when the dismissal bell hadn’t actually rung yet, but that was an argument for Monday that Miles would inevitably have with Ganke’s history teacher.

Miles opens his eyes, not even realizing he closed them. Then he noticed the quiet, the lack of worries that plagued his mind, and how empty the house was.

Ganke probably wouldn’t mind coming over just to fall asleep again. Hopefully.

A/N: i hope i got across that Miles loves Ganke a lot and gets ramble-y when it comes to him because you will see it often #yaoiyodeler. Anyway when I wrote this it was a bit hard to capture the awkwardness that comes with an overly anxious Miles interacting with Peter, especially when he's unknowingly seeking validation for what he'd subconsciously deem non-masculine, without giving too much information so it could still fit once BTSV comes out (fuck that movie already), if you get what I mean? I hope it got across though

[heartless-curr]

aria! / akito ! aka:

the reapers collective

(this blog is a sideblog! follows from

@bigender-akutagawa )

[this pinned is long so. putting it under a readmore!!]

-- >> audhd + dyslexic + DID

-- >> Host is Akutagawa [you can call me any nickname based off it or An, but friends/mutuals can also call me Ryuu] (she/him), Atsushi (she/they) (signs off on rbs with a.rb, and posts with a.txt or atsushi.txt), cohost!

-- >> Sourcemates and doubles feel free to stop by and say hi!

-- >> We're open to answering respectful questions about plurality, and about our personal experience with being plural!

-- >> 18 years old!!!!

-- >> Our art is free to use as a pfp / header etc. As long as you credit us :]]. If you ever use it for smth like an edit however @ me I wanna see gimme gimme gimme

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BYF:

We are pro-endo, however, we despise syscourse and will never engage in it. Try to engage us in syscourse, and we block.

We are also ship neutral, however, we will never ship incest or pedophilia. We aren't interested in shipcourse or engaging with it.

Just because some of the media we like may glorify these elements (which I can and will criticize if the topic comes up), does not mean that we want to engage in fan content focusing on these relationships.

Attempting to get us to engage in these topics or trying to get us to talk about it (unless we start the convo) will get you blocked.

Handy dandy links / credit!

tagging system info

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[dividers by @/cafekitsune]

For bsd fans — this is a drive filled with screenshots, icons, transparents, official art. etc. Continuously updating. Please credit if using an icon or banner.

if you're here for bsd — check out @bsd-transparents and @bsd-fanart !

(matching the character meme with @shinigamichan and @2500ji you should go follow them and say nice things they're super cool people)

[scummy-writes]

finally, FINALLY finishing @xxsycamore's ship chart after what? over a month? I didn't write out the fillables for longer answers due to CSP making the text unreadable, so it's in the post! I'll put it under a readmore, especially since I'll start rambling vaguely. @dododrawsstuff is who drew Constance's portrait in this!

Constance:

Green flags -> Patient, Tries at least once,

Red flags -> Will get drunk at times when unable to handle emotions, Stubborn, will hide issues

Gilbert:

Green flags -> coaxes her to think on her own, encourages her not to become like him, deeeeeep underneath his layers of clothes he does very much care about a lot of people enough to {*long winded rant*]

Red Flags -> Look at him.

How did love change them? Gilbert was willing to put his plans for a damn revolution on hold, due to*waves*, but him. For Constance she gained more confidence and self-love in a very odd way. Found a voice again, so to speak.

How do you imagine their bad end? Together or separate? Separate... Gilbert -> ⚰️, Constance forcing herself into a life she didn't much want in the way of quashing hopes and dreams to be 'normal'. ...Ok ok it's not that creative, but sue me. Constance's whole thing is about how she lets others step on her all the time until she can't take it anymore or learns better. She's not fleshed out and won't be for another year.

Together? hm... I am unsure. I feel like it would be a simple thing of her not living up to expectations, something that would kill them both quite literally.

What is the perfect story event for them? One where Constance can get away from the palace and people who know Gilbert a bit to learn more about him in a 1:1 setting and without a crazy amount of judgement. So like an island event- ashjbfsdfs kidding, but there are a few events about Gilbert strongarming Mc into a date, so.

If the other didn't exist, who would they end up dating? Gilbert -> ⚰️, Constance... I want to say Rio but also don't because it seems like a mean answer. I think she would either live alone or get with someone who seems decent enough and isn't crazy important to her.

i had this in my drafts for so long and Im tired of it being intimidating... orz the reality is that I haven't given Constance a coherent storyline, but this was fun to think about. Maybe in a year I can redo it.

[onionpainter]

I have a question about your prep for oil painting, or more like when ur practicing. Do you use a specially treated paper to practice with oils (studies, quick thumbnail sketches, etc) before using canvas or do you just sketch ideas, layout on canvas and then under paint? I enjoy the medium a lot but I actually want to sketch and do studies in oil (without much drawing involved) but don’t want to waste canvas. Also hate painting gesso over stuff repeatedly. Is paper something you have tried? Any advise would be appreciated o wise onion painter

Ok, so as for my personal habits, I tend to do "Practices" digitally [I have a tablet and SAI] or sometimes on paper like so: [garlic is pencil on paper, rest are digital]. I do draw thumbnails but they are usually in marker or pencil in my sketchbook, and are little more than like, very stylized symbols representing subjects or different compositional patterns. Most of my painting planning and composition happens via digital photo collages.

The rest of my very long answer is under the readmore

I'll do colour studies occasionally if I'm feeling particularly anxious about a picture, OR if it has a colour range that I am yet unfamiliar with. I have done a couple colour studies for my current big picture with the cattle, one I did on location so I could have an example of the colours present in the landscape to my eye, and another of a seascape because this cattle picture will be my first significant effort to include the blue colour range into my vocabulary, and also to spend some hours painting clouds to get a feel for them. [for context, when I began with my current method of painting I began only painting white objects against back fabric with a value range from chromatic black to titanium white and then added in new colour ranges one by one once I was fluent in all of the preceding colour ranges] When it comes to your practice [and I mean "Practice" as in everything you paint overall] I think you might find canvas panels very helpful, as they take up very little space BUT they are still rigid and therefore don't need to be taped to a board or anything. They also come in a really wide variety of sizes and are very affordable. If you enjoy using canvas paper then you should continue what you are doing, but try different kinds of surfaces. Some people prefer to do oil paintings on sheets of copper. There will be a material that suits your style and your personality, you just have to find out what it is. I like belgian linen, but others may prefer gesso'd particle board.

You have several points going on in your question, so I will address them individually:

Not wanting to "Waste Canvas" Canvas is not a precious commodity. It is a raw material which can be used in the process of painting, therefore, its value lies in the work hours and expertise of the craftsperson who uses it. One of the most common uses of canvas is in art training. So you are not "wasting canvas" by using it for the purpose of learning the skills necessary for painting: that is a perfectly acceptable use for canvas, and all other materials. I'm not "wasting" a pair of hiking boots by walking at the bottom of a mountain, I'm using them, and if I don't use the boots at the bottom of the mountain I will never get to use them at the top.

Putting Gesso over oil paintings Don't do this. Gesso is a water based paint so it dries much faster than the oil beneath it. If you want to paint over a painting you can either paint over it with a neutral oil colour, OR, just do the new painting over it without the middle stage. Some things to watch out for if you reuse canvas this way: Ridge lines [bits of textured paint from the previous painting sticking up through your new painting might take away from it], oil layers [remember the fat over lean rule when choosing a canvas to paint over. if you have high concentrations of oil, aka fat, on the canvas already, it might be better to choose a different canvas], dryness [try to only paint over pictures that have had a good amount of time to dry.] Basically all of these warnings are to prevent cracking and other conservator problems with your paintings. A good painting can happen to your canvas at any time and it would be a shame to paint something you really like and have it crack later from poor application.

"Without much drawing involved" Painting is "mass drawing" [shapes not lines] with colour, so you can't really avoid drawing if you want to paint. This doesn't mean you have to use pencil or other dry mediums if you don't want to though, painting a value study [mass drawing] with oil is a very popular technique which many employ. I'd recommend that you look into "imprimatura" and "grisaille", two methods of value painting used for oil.

In conclusion, I don't want to get all "just be yourself" in here, but i'd recommend you research the different techniques and materials available to you and pick the one that has the fewest barriers to your work flow, feels the best to work with, and creates the final product that you want to create. If you were me I would tell you to work on belgian linen stretched canvases and occasional cotton canvas panels, but you may prefer something different so that advice may not be helpful. Keep at it!

[nyaagolor]

Pride Month Headcanons

It's about time I organized these. Under the readmore bc I have a lot to say

- Salvatore and his wife are bi4bi. More accurately, his wife is bi and Salvatore isn’t putting a label on it because while he thinks he’s bisexual his only real world experiences with men are a single makeout session in a Lumiose club during a language immersion trip and lingering too long on some Instagram models’ posts about their abs. If you ask him about it he will not say he’s bisexual bc doesn't need anyone other than his wife, but he’s pretty sure he’s bi in his heart

- Hassel and Brassius have been together for almost 30 years but aren’t officially married. For a variety of reasons, mostly centering around Hassel’s family being a possible threat to Brassius’ safety, they decided to just keep it on the DL. They live together and are for all intents and purposes married, but never actually signed the paperwork. When people ask, especially strangers, they refer to each other as artistic partners or close friends, but anyone who knows them well is well aware they’re husbands. Most people assume they got officially married, and when the school finds out they beg the two to have a ceremony, even if they don’t sign the paperwork. Tbh I could prolly make a whole post on just them (and prolly will)

- Dendra is a lesbian, she‘s had a crush on Tulip for YEARS. Despite her usual extroverted and confident attitude she never confessed and has no idea if Tulip likes women, nevermind if she reciprocates Dendra's feelings. Tulip figured out Dendra is a lesbian but never realized her crush. Somehow.

- Eri and Carmen are girlfriends. The rest of Team Star admins took a LONG time to come around to this, since they think Eri forgave Carmen too fast and were worried Carmen was trying to take advantage of Eri again. They got over it though, and she’s been invited to their hangouts ever since

- Penny is trans I’ve talked about this like 26 times and have zero intention of stopping. She transitioned a lot over her suspension in Galar and has the most supportive family and friend group imaginable. Her body image is extremely fragile but that’s honestly just anxiety from general past bullying, and her new friends have helped immensely in that regard

- Sada and Turo are bi4bi this is a hill I will die on

- Iono is super tight lipped about her sexuality because of idol streaming stuff. Unlike most, she actually likes to keep people guessing, it’s like a game to her

- Every pride, Larry wears a rainbow tie. No one has ever been able to figure out if he’s LGBT or an ally or what. Rika’s running theory is that his Staraptor is gay and he’s trying to be supportive

- Geeta is a career focused person and never took the time to think about her sexuality. If you ask her about it, she won’t have a good answer and you might just make her short-circuit. I think kissing her would make her explode

- Ryme is aroace. I have nothing to say abt that specifically other than aroace people are the coolest and so is she

- Rika is Butch. She got top surgery and everyone is gay for her, myself included. However she has negative game. Pickup game pathetic. Cringefail, even

- Raifort is a lesbian but is only into really toxic women specifically. Genuinely just the worst taste imaginable. She is always complaining about how much she dislikes men as romantic partners and then is actively running towards red flags like she’s playing flag football

- Jacq is non-binary but is a little worried to ask if he can get his pronouns updated on the academy registrar. He’s sure it’ll be fine, but he’s perpetually stressed out and a liiiiil scared of Clavell. He/they enby king with enough anxiety to put anyone else in the hospital

- The academy is the most accepting place in the world. The GSA (which Hassel runs) is one of the most popular clubs, and cishet students and teachers will often sit in just to learn or support their peers. They go HARD in June, and are the official runners of the Mezagoza Pride Parade ever year

- A big part of the reason people feel so safe in the academy is bc there’s a ton of GNC people, both LGBT and not. Saguaro comes to mind, and is someone that a ton of students look up to. He’s cishet but could prolly crumble the gender binary in one hand. He would too

- [gestures vaguely at Clavell] he got smth going on. Idk what I haven’t thought abt it but something

[night-dark-woods]

Yet she had also decided that she felt a strange kinship and sympathy for it, this cornered, desperate god, making infinite sacrifices out of its people.

I'm on a "rereading Forsaken loretabs" kick and I'm rotating this line in my head. Mara constantly sacrificing herself and her people to protect the solar system as a whole. Her sense of duty. Determined and deadset on saving everyone and the thing is she does she DOES save everyone!!! But does that make it worth it does that make it right!!!

What got me started again was the last line on the loretab of this year's Dawning ship (Hiera Hodos - which also... thats the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, as in the Eleusinian Mysteries that Mara's throneworld is named for...):

And Mara walks alone, between the City and the dark outside.

Which made me think about this part of the Savin loretab (Title is also from this loretab):

Perhaps the Earth would be better off if the Traveler vanished or was destroyed, she thought. Even in the Reef, she felt as if she were living next to a torch held up in a dark wilderness, calling out across the galaxy to hungry things with too many eyes.

And so now I'm down the "Mara and her god complex" rabbithole again. Under a readmore because it's long:

If you have grace, then see our sorrows, but swallow back your tears. We were made to pay this price. I led us to our fate. (Archiloquy)

She feels this absolute guilt from the very beginning because she saw deeper meaning in a freak accident:

Because I asked us to leave, Mara thinks. Because something came out of deep space and killed the man next to me, and I saw the omen, and I said we should go. And now I feel like a coward. (Cosmogyre II)

And then you combine that personal guilt with her mother and Alis Li telling her she's responsible for what others think of her and that she is capable of more than those around her:

"It is one thing to have a particular power over people, Mara. But it is another to deny that you are using it." ... "Mara, you are an Auturge, a volunteer. I cannot order you to stop, and your work is exemplary. Are you putting anyone else in danger with your… art projects?" "No," Mara says. "Just myself." "False!" Li barks. "That is a selfish answer. You are now a symbol to my crew, a house god. If you were to die, they would lose something important, something Human that they have created out of loneliness and void. It would be an unforgettable reminder of the hostile nothingness that surrounds us. When you endanger yourself, you endanger that symbol. You are part of this mission's behavioral armor, Mara." Mara is thunderstruck. She's never thought about it this way. "All I did was take some captures. I didn't ask to be anyone's… mascot." "You presented yourself as a conduit to secret knowledge," Captain Li counters. "People made something out of you, Mara. Please take this from a starship captain: What people make of you, what they create of you—even without your consent—becomes a kind of responsibility. If the Mara they see when they look at you is good for them, then you have some duty to be that Mara." (Brephos III)

And you put all of that on the shoulders of an already self-important and borderline suicidal 19 year old who is convinced she's seeing secret meanings in things (and she is!!! Is the thing!!!) You cannot tell me she's not, given that her favorite enrichment activity is going on EVAs and taking off her suit in order to experience this:

The void boiled the water off her skin. Her body swelled with unchecked pressure until her undersuit forced it to stop. Alarmed cytogel crawled down her throat, hissing emergency oxygen: not enough. Her skin blued with cyanosis. She was bathed in the most profound emptiness. She recorded all of it at the neural level. The exquisite darkness. The sense of fatal independence from all things. There are those who will give anything to feel that void. (Brephos II)

And then after they are in the Distributary she keeps her idea of the duty of the Awoken to herself for so so so fucking long and plays such a long game and sacrifices her own people in that game to keep the Awoken from being truly comfortable in the Distributary:

"I have worked for many hundreds of years to arrange this outcome," Mara says, forthrightly, but without the courage to look Alis Li right in the eyes. "I have nurtured and tended the Eccaleist belief so that there will always be Awoken who feel uncomfortable in paradise. Guilty for the gift of existence in the Distributary. People who'll come with me." (Nigh I)

And all for the sake of her eventual goal of returning to the real world and saving the solar system that she is absolutely completely incapable of abandoning, regardless of the cost:

"Do you understand what you've done? Have you reckoned the full cost?" She has convinced tens of thousands of Awoken to abandon their immortality. She has deprived the Distributary an infinite quantity of joy, companionship, labor, and discovery: all the works that might be accomplished by all the people who will join her in her mission to another world. When she lies awake at night, seized by anxiety, she tries to tally up the loss in her head, but it is too huge, and it becomes a formless thing that stalks her down the pathways of her bones like the creak of a gravity wave. "Some infinities are larger than others," she tells her old captain. "I believe… we are here for a reason, and this is the way to fulfill that purpose." "And how much would you sacrifice? Your mother? Your brother? Are the Awoken real to you at all?" Alis leans across her pinned hand, viper-fierce, striking. "Do you think my people were made to die for you? "Not for me. For our purpose. For our fate." (Nigh II)

And she is so so so deeply aware of that cost, in Fideicide II Alis Li knows that "Mara knows the unthinkable value of even a single Awoken life," and she is so deeply deeply guilty about that. Like when she does tell Alis (and Sjur, eventually) we get to see her the most fucking vulnerable we ever do and GOD.

"No," Mara says, with her heart in her throat, with trepidation bubbling in her gut. You cannot keep a secret buried like a vintage for so many centuries, and then unbottle it without any ceremony. "The boon I ask is your forgiveness." Then she explains the truth. She tells Alis Li what she did: about the choice Alis Li would have made, if Mara had not made her own first. It's only an extension of what Alis has already deduced. When she's finished, her ancient captain's jaw trembles. Her hands shake. A keen slips between her clamped teeth. The oldest woman in the world conjures up all the grief she has ever felt, and still it is not enough to match Mara's crime. "You're the devil," Alis Li whispers. "I remember… in one of the old tongues, Mara means death. Oh, that's too perfect. That's too much." She laughs for a while. Mara closes her eyes and waits. "You realize," Alis Li says, breathing hard, "that this is the worst thing ever done. Worse than stealing a few thousand people from heaven. Worse than that thing we fled, before we were Awoken—" "Please," Mara begs. "Please don't say that." Alis Li rises from her chair. "I'll support your fleet," she says. "I'll use every favor and connection I have to get your Hulls completed and through the gateway—and I will do it so that I can hasten your departure from this world. I will do it out of hate for you; I will do it so that every good and great thing we achieve here will ever after be denied to you, you snake. No forgiveness. Do you understand me? It is unforgivable. Go. Go!" "I'd be very glad if you didn't tell my mother," Mara says. (Nigh II)

The last line there fucking kills me. "I'd be very glad if you didn't tell my mother." God. And then when she is brave enough to tell Sjur, to try again after last time backfired so fucking spectacularly, Sjur forgives her:

"I was first," Mara says. And she explains the missing half, the first half of the sentence: I made the rules and initial conditions that deceived her into believing she herself had decided It ends like that, where the rest picks up. Sjur Eido looks at her in expressionless silence. Sjur Eido's hands stroke the seam between Mara's skinsuit and the glassy petals of her helmet. Long ago, this woman betrayed her oath and went to serve the Diasyrm, a woman who cried out in anguish at the curse of physicality and the possibility of suffering. Long ago, this woman threw away her whole life to punish the highest crime she could imagine: the denial of transcendent divinity to those who might have claimed it. "You're the devil," Sjur says. "You're the lone power who made death. You allowed the possibility of evil. You might be responsible for more preventable suffering than anything that has ever existed." Mara cannot shake her head or even nod. "Well," Sjur says, "if you hadn't, none of us would be here. I guess I don't see what else you could've done, if you cared about those we left behind. If you wanted us to be able to go back and help in the fight." She leans forward and very gently kisses the inside of her helmet, where it meets Mara's: in her mind, in that place that is bound to all other Awoken, Mara feels the touch of gentle lips. (Tyrannocide III)

And like, those chapters also make me lose my mind because of the twofold meaning of the title- Tyrannocide because she is killing Oryx, yes, but also because she herself is dying. The self-appointed (and only ever real) Queen of the Awoken:

We are risen from man and fallen from heaven. We are made again in the fall. What was once us will not ever again be us. I am the uncrowned ever-Queen and my only diadem will be the event horizon of the universe, which is my dominion. By falling, I will rise. (Palingenesis II)

&

"Mara, with all my respect, all my genuine gratitude for bringing us here," Esila sighs, "who died and made you Queen?" Mara says nothing. But she thinks: Everyone, Esila. All of us died and made me Queen. (Revanche II)

&

On the day the Fallen struck, Mara was proclaimed Queen. It happened swiftly, though after no little debate among the people, for everyone was afraid of a monarch who could speak to their thoughts. Yet they feared more to deny her power and sovereignty, for they had come between worlds in her name. To refuse her would be to refuse their choice. (Revanche V)

And the thing is that she is their queen in such a real and tangible way like she made them she made their fate she can sense every single one of them and feels their deaths and at the same time as she is sacrificing them for The Greater Good she would do anything to save them:

Mara crawls through compartments choked with vaporized coolant. She keeps low and clutches the breather to her face. All she can think of is Kelda Wadj's last message and the data attached. "Mara. The paracausal effects are strongest around you. Whatever's happened to us, you are the locus. I cannot overstate how subtle and how important this discovery might be. Mara, when we use radioactive decay as a trigger for simulated bombs—bombs that could harm Awoken—the trigger atoms are a thousandfold less likely to decay near you. People are literally safer when you are around." She has to get into the riot. She has to protect her people. A horrible groan vibrates through the habitat structure, and then, with an apocalyptic shudder, something tears off the Reef. A ship. A ship is leaving. Mara has failed. ... She rolls onto her back and stares up into the swirling vortices of coolant, seeing faces, futures, the lives she has just lost, the lives she might yet lose. She brought her people here to die in the sense that she brought them into mortality—but she never wanted it to happen quickly. (Revanche IV)

And she keeps losing people and losing people and losing people. So many of the Distributary Awoken defect and go to Earth:

Nasan purses her lips. "I want them to understand that you are—that you—that you are good. That you aren't what they think." Seeing Sjur bristle, she holds up her hand. To her relief, Mara makes a slight warding gesture as well. "And if they know that and still wish to live apart from us on Earth, that's fine. That's their choice." "I don't need them to understand that," Mara says softly. There is the faintest husk of grief in her steady voice. (Chords of Meaning)

And then she loses Nasan too and she comes back as Orin and the Traveler has taken yet another of her people from her (and brought them back wrong!):

"Woof," Sjur Eido says when she sees Orin for the first time, "Mara's gonna hate this." She crosses the detainment cell to get a better look at Gol. "Figured this might happen eventually, but I'd always hoped…" She pulls at the nape of her neck, then gives a little half-shrug: well, what can you do. (Queenslaw)

And then she loses Sjur when she is taken/killed by the Nine:

"This was on her body, Your Grace." A strange coin lay at the center of Abra's outstretched palm. Mara took it between thumb and forefinger and held up it to the cosmos with dainty contempt. Weregild, she thought. Powerful grief filled her chest, as thick and caustic and heavy as unset concrete. (Oathkeeper)

And she turns to Orin for assistance with that and then because of that (!!!) loses Orin again as well:

On the day that Sjur Eido dies, she receives a call from Mara Sov. "I would ask for my boon," the queen says with shaking voice. It is the first time she dares to trust a Guardian. It will not be the last. (Debt)

&

On the day she leaves to find the Nine, the Techeuns name her Orin the Lost. (Synesthesia)

And then she answers the question Alis Li asked her so long ago about whether she is willing to sacrifice her brother (a resounding, grieving, determined yes):

Mara will begin the end of that Queen's brother today. She knows what that means for the fate of her own. An eye for an eye. She must think now of the fate of entire cosmos—and of her tender, half-assembled answer to the cold sword logic of the Hive. She must not grieve. She must not fear. (Tyrannocide IV)

And then at the Battle of Saturn all of this loss she has been dreading and yet causing for millenia finally comes to fruition and she then will have a good long time just sitting with that in Oryx's throne world:

This is the moment of absolute sacrifice, the incarnation of Awoken doom: to give up their lives in defense of the world they once abandoned. The sense of their great dying rips at Mara like a sob. (Tyrannocide V)

It's just like. Such a classic and compelling and well-executed examination of do the ends justify the means? (Seth Dickinson at it again! In so many ways Baru is Mara is Baru is Mara!!!) Every one of her actions led to this point, to defeating Oryx, and was that not worth it? And yet how could it ever be worth it?

I think especially the outside perspectives from Earthborn Awoken & Guardians are really interesting on that front because while they still have the connection to Mara - "However, there was always in their souls an itch, a vector pointing to a distant place in the Asteroid Belt, where their Queen still dwelt." (Revanche V) - they did not choose to follow her and they do not have the same loyalty:

Zavala:

"She was a charlatan," Zavala says, quietly. "Fighting a war that existed only in her mind. Dragging you all behind her. Any of you who will admit that are welcome in my City. But I will not take in whatever conspiracies she left unfinished. If you come to us, you come to join the City." (Refusal)

Arach Jalaal:

She speaks. "Earthborn. Did you mourn for her?" He thinks she will know if he lies. "I respected her, yes, but I despised the way she seemed… entitled… to us all. I never regret choosing the path I did. I was Awoken to continue the search we started long ago. The quest for worlds worthy of our lives." (Fleet)

Master Rahool:

We long feared that if it were intercepted by her Majesty your Queen, it would be denied or manipulated to serve some need of her own. (Of Earth and the Reef)

Mara is just such an incredibly compelling and complex and interesting character and she is so stubborn and full of herself and self-righteous and she saved the solar system and she doomed her people to mortality and she's always right because she has to be and because she makes it so and she keeps secrets from everyone and has lost more people than many people ever meet and she has felt every single one of their deaths. She is everything to me.

[thefinalwitness]

i think i already made this post but i'm in the brain space and i want to be super clear about my intentions re: dawntrail spoilers, so this is the rundown of how i'll handle them, and how i handle all expansion spoilers!

for the first month following the full release (not the pre-order release), i won't be posting anything at all about dawntrail—no story spoilers, no non-story spoilers, nothing at all until august 2nd 2024.

after that, i usually start posting small spoilers, but not major ones, for anywhere from 6-12 months after release. all these posts WILL be tagged with "7.0 spoilers" (and "7.1/7.2/etc spoilers" when it becomes relevant), and since i've seen it's popular, i'll TRY to tag them as "dawntrail spoilers" for as long as possible too, but full disclosure that isn't how i naturally categorize ffxiv spoilers and that tag may be missed even on early posts, and may disappear much sooner than its patch number counterparts. "7.0 spoilers" is by far the most reliable way to block dawntrail spoilers fro me!

whenever i DO start posting major spoilers, these will be put under a readmore and both tagged as stated above, as well as prefaced before the readmore with a warning that it contains spoilers (and probably some details about what kind of spoilers, ie story/non-story, what level any related quests/zones are, etc).

furthermore, i personally take spoilers REALLY seriously, and will be blacklisting any and all words related to the expansion until i complete the MSQ. because this account is just a sideblog to my main blog, the dashboards are combined, so there's also a chance i will be temporarily blacklisting usernames and/or unfollowing people to avoid spoilers, as i would otherwise have to stay off tumblr as a whole, which would be very boring for me LMAO.

this isn't personal at all! i'm just REALLY allergic to even very small spoilers, and especially because i will likely not be playing dawntrail when its pre-order release goes live, i want to make absolutely sure i avoid spoilers as much as possible. again, once i finish the MSQ, i'll unblacklist and refollow any blogs. :)

i also want to touch on something i feel a lot of regret for regarding how i handled endwalker spoilers with friends: specifically, i had a tendency to debunk friends' theories with pre-endwalker information. at the time i didn't think this was a problem because i also didn't know the answer, just that xyz theory wasn't it because of pre-endwalker info, but in hindsight i think this has a lot of potential to ruin the fun of others who really enjoy speculating on the story as it unfolds, so i'm going to aim to not do that this time around! specifically, i'm not going to debunk other people's theories, EVEN if the info i'd be using comes from pre-dawntrail sources. i just think this was an unfun mistake on my part that i don't want to repeat without explicit permission, and i'm sorry to friends i did this to whose fun i soured in doing so. spoilers are really important to me, and while i know these aren't technically spoilers, i think they still have the potential to hit the same, and i don't want to make anyone feel the way i do when it happens to me.

i think that's everything! i hope everyone has fun in the new expansion, and i look forward to joining you whenever i get my own stuff sorted so i can play too! <3

[takadanobaba]

I have a few :>

1. Do you plan to reference Hisui in any way? The events before or after Ingo disappearing or perhaps even foreshadowing?

2. The question probably on everyone's Minds: will you be able to marry/date both of the twins? Will there be special heart events for both of them as well?

3. Will the other townies make reference to the twins in their dialogue or will we have special events with one or more characters with the twins in them? (e.i: the joja cola commercial with Shane, Clint and Emily).

4. Will he be able to go inside the train station?

5. will we see Emmet's giant horde of joltiks?!

6. Will other people be allowed to make portraits of the twins?

You don't have to answer every one of them

I'm sorry asdfghjkll I'm just really excited about the mod,

i've played over 600 hours of stardew valley and I also adore Ingo and Emmet

Thank you for the ask!! This is quite long so I'm putting them under a readmore.... I hope I answered your questions well enough!!

1. Just a bit of foreshadowing! We do intend on making a Hisui expansion later down the line, but we are currently focusing on just making their pre-Hisui storyline for now!

2. Of course the twins will be datable! I started making the mod because I couldn't wait for Pokemon Masters EX to add them in and decided to just make the submas dating simulator myself haha... Stardew's base game doesn't allow for marrying more than one character at a time and currently there are no references to dating both at the same time (we still have a Lot of dialogue to write in general...). I do know that there are mods that allow you to marry multiple characters but I personally have not tried them myself (I read that your spouses would kiss each other and and quickly departed.... please do not try to make them do that. This is a no blankshipping zone. If anyone deliberately tries to use the mod for incest purposes, you will be tied to the tracks and promptly ran over). For now, the heart progression will assume that you are only going to date/marry one of the twins. If there is enough demand (or if someone else wants to write it....) another "route" could be made later on that has them acknowledging you dating each other? It would be difficult to implement since daily dialogue is tied to individual heart levels and there's not much I can do about having them acknowledge you dating the other in the base mod.

Up until you officially date them, they will simply just be very good friends with you (and a bit obsessive... they're quite lonely in Pelican Town and you're one of the few people who don't turn them away! Can you blame them for becoming so attached?). Emmet's heart progression will consist of him not quite knowing how he feels other than that you are verrrry important to him and will be verrrry similar to Nemona's friendship in scar/vio (if you know... you know) until you decide to date him. Ingo will suffer from his repressed feelings of love and write secret admirer letters to you to cope, all while ensuring that you can he is very much grateful for your friendship... he is a gentleman and wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable with his feelings so directly!

3. The other townspeople will acknowledge their existences! We are still working on specifics, but they will interact with them. Most characters are wary of them and their pokemon, so it will take time for them to warm up, but they are liked by Jas, Vincent, and Granny Evelyn (who will mention having a Bellossom long ago...).

4. The train station will be enterable! Still working out the details for that too, but we intend to make it sort of like the Community Center... We do also want to add quests to improve the exterior of the train station too (there's so much.... dirt.... it's so ugly....)

5. Most likely?? I still have a lot of spriting to do!! There will be joltiks though!

6. You are more than welcome to make your own portraits! The portraits that I drew up are too big to fit inside the vanilla game dimensions (64x64 pixels... tiny...) so I have to use portraiture to load them in (otherwise it loads the resized versions I have implemented... which are quite blurry ^^;). If anyone wants to make vanilla sized portraits to be added into the base mod then then please let me know! If you also make your own portrait mod, I would be happy to link to it when I release the mod. Though... do be aware that the portrait sheets this mod has the dialogue coded for are quite long. Here are the full portrait sheets: