#Terra: what?

[silvertherogue715]

Hello! How are you doing? apologizes for being late I got a bit busy this week and wasn’t able to send in an ask that fast ;-; but I brought Terra his coffee

(This particular blend is called death wish coffee this stuffs got 165 mg of caffeine in it… in other words don’t let any menaces get to it.)

since Terra’s the one getting the coffee I thought we focus on him for this ask. Relationship wise I’m curious on his relationships with his fellow stardroids (romantic or otherwise) and his relationship with humans(particularly Minx)? Does he know any earth Navi?

What is his job in the stardroid group I assume from the sketches of him he keeps an eye on any Navi trespassing near by specific regions? I also assume he’s the second in command or another job or rank?

How exactly does Terra act like emotionally? Besides how bad this man needs a coffee ;-; he looks so tired and done all the time XD.

Im also kind of curious as to how to came to deciding on his final design? I hope you have a great rest of your day/night! Thank you!

I'm doing well! Thank you for asking. Don't stress about taking time to send questions, I get super excited to see them all the same! If anything, I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. Been busy and art is very time-consuming :”) 

Also, I love the cup design. Terra is gonna need every ounce of that caffeine! Long answer below. Art included!

Relationship wise I’m curious on his relationships with his fellow Stardroids (romantic or otherwise)?

Terra and Sunstar eventually become a couple in the AU. 

Terra was created before any other Stardroid, and had the hardest learning curve–he takes pride in his work and is more or less a workaholic. 

Sunstar was the last “Stardroid” activated, but had Terra to help him learn his new role. Kind of funny, given Sunstar was created to serve a role above him. Sunstar is happy to let Terra run things, though, for both of their sakes. 

Both eventually bonded after spending enough time together, but due to plot reasons, it takes until present-day Earth for things to really move along for them.

Saturn is romantically interested in Terra, but it’s very one-sided. Terra primarily sees him as a frustratingly laid-back coworker, if anything. 

…and his relationship with humans(particularly Minx)? Does he know any earth Navi? 

Terra and Minx did not meet under...the best circumstances. A misunderstanding, yes, but not one that either would have been able to clear up prior to meeting. He regrets the outcome of it, but both learn to become semi-comfortable around the other eventually.

He has regrets--although he was not himself at the time.

Terra has mixed feelings about humans, he prefers them over the Earth’s…last inhabitants. He is a solitary individual, and does not have any friends (for now) outside of his ‘brothers.’ This will change!

Terra’s closest friends among the Stardroids are probably...Pluto, Venus, and Jupiter.

He knows most of the MMBN main cast’s Navis (megaman, roll, blues, shadowman, napalmman, etc). he also knows and favors minx's pet cat, Tango. Cat person.

He likes Napalmman, and is distrustful of Shadowman.

Terra respects Sofie and Nenji for their work ethic, and a cautious eye on Miyabi, but admires his abilities for a human. 

He finds Lan annoying (who is also a highschooler in my AU)

He fears Dr. Wily, to a degree (plot reasons).

What is his job in the Stardroid group?

Terra is Sunstar’s second-in-command-but-not-really who maintains their spaceship and assigns the other Stardroids tasks.

The art you saw of him in a fighting stance was him getting ready to square off against Slur near the end of Arc 2. Terra is about the second strongest of the Stardroids after Sunstar–but does not fight often.

How exactly does Terra act emotionally?

“Tired and done” is pretty accurate for Terra’s personality, honestly.

He’s no-nonsense and likes to keep himself busy–burying himself in work is his way of coping with personal problems. Which, in itself, is a problem.

Earth forces him to change this behavior

Oh, you thought closing yourself off from others would have less consequences than being open? How cute.

Despite a cold demeanor and excellent poker face, Terra cares deeply for those around him. He’s not a softie like Sunstar at his core, but he can be surprisingly gentle. 

Though he used to be a hardass, he’s mellowed out a lot since re-arriving* on Earth. 

Unrelated–his lack of experience with building deep relationships or opening up to others makes him surprisingly easy to fluster, once the joke lands.

A secret romantic at heart? Who’d have known.

I’m not gonna lie, he’s kind of bland for a decent period of time. It takes him a while to unlearn a lot of emotional repression, but it also makes it all the more worthwhile when he’s in uplifted spirits.

If Sunstar catches this man smiling it’s game over

If Sunstar catches Terra without his visor? His month has been made.

I'm also kind of curious as to how you came to deciding on his final design? 

THIS!!! Oh my god he was both a huge pain and super fun to work on (like most of the stardroids)

I wanted him to have an ‘admiral’ look to him! But also space-invader-y and elegant (to a degree)

The gloves were more to fit the ‘commanding officer’ vibe

His stomach-region is designed in likeness to a belt on the bottom and vest in the middle! 

The fun poofy boots went more with the space invader vibe, but also to give him a more navi-like appearance.

His cable-hair and visor were strongly inspired by @liskobot’s Terra.exe design. They didn't have a ton of pictures of him, but they were a huge contributor to me even realizing the potential the Stardroids had to just exist in a MMBN universe.

Speaking of his visor–Terra absolutely uses it to hide the exhaustion in his face as well as his emotions. Reliable leaders need to stay composed, don’t they? >:)

The colors were done largely in part by my lovely dearest friend @hawkthespork. She’s a coloring GOD and helped me realize that not all of the stardroids have to have super saturated colors. I use saturated colors in my art a lot.

Until next time! Terra’s gonna enjoy his coffee in peace.

Some alt. cup designs:

[balimaria]

one day, I will set this right

[luanna801]

I feel like a thing I wish was more generally acknowledged across fandoms is that "I don't find this character sympathetic" and "This character was not intended to be sympathetic" are obviously connected but are, ultimately, two completely different statements that may not overlap at all.

Ultimately what you think about any given character is a completely subjective issue that has no right or wrong answer. The narrative may be trying to evoke sympathy for them, and you may just feel that it flat-out was not successful in doing that. You may look the author straight in the eye and say "Nope, I see what you're trying to do, but f*ck this guy actually, he's The Worst and that's all there is to it". And no one can tell you that you're wrong for doing so.

But when it comes to picking up on what the story is trying to do, whether you ultimately think it did a good job or not, I would argue there's at least some measure of objective reality. And I feel like people sometimes end up conflating them, so you end up with these posts like "I can't believe people sympathize with this character when the story clearly just wants you to hate them!" and it's like... yeah, I think people sympathize with this character because the story is very clearly and intentionally painting them as sympathetic. I could point you at a dozen different scenes that are clearly meant to evoke sympathy for This Character. You don't have to have found any of it compelling, but at a certain point recognizing it's there is a simple matter of reading comprehension.

[strayheartless]

If kingdom hearts characters could swear:

Sora: Can swear, does swear. Knows there’s a time and a place for swearing and the hundred acre wood is not the time nor the place.

Riku: can swear, chooses not to unless he’s mad and/or frustrated.

Kairi: swears A LOT. Like it’s impressive how many she knows.

Roxas: swears about as much as Sora but is more likely to drop an F bomb in front of Winnie the Pooh by accident.

Xion: she can but she doesn’t. Doesn’t really find it appealing to swear. She prefers yelling creative insults.

Axel: swears like punctuation. Tries to tone it down in polite company and fails.

Isa: deep, resounding, Geralt of Rivia style “fuck” when he’s inconvenienced.

Terra: doesn’t often swear but it’s not shocking to hear him mutter “gods fucking damn it” when something’s going wrong.

Aqua: dry sarcastic swearing that makes everyone else feel stupid.

Ventus: him? Swear?! He is a little lad! A child! No no, he could never! How does one even approach such a vulgar lexicon! “Fuuuuuuu…dge. No that’s not right. Shhhhhhhiiiiuuuuggger. Hm, nope. Basssssst friend! Ahhhhh” he cannot and does not swear. If Ventus is swearing, everything’s gone to shit and people need to start praying.

Vanitas: has said fuck in front of Winnie the Pooh many times. So many he is now banned from trips to 100AW.

Naminé: you’d think she can’t or wouldn’t, but both Xion and Riku have heard her mutter “what is this shit? Come on hand, play the fucking game” while she’s drawing.

[repliiku]

idk how long this will last but i will go back to homestuck eventually

[yesthe-artblog]

Warhammer planets as the ww1 country personification art

Closeups:

[xehanortsreport]

he didn't need to say all that though.

[zeravmeta]

really does hit the moment that both the bloodthirsty king of vampires and the warmonger nachzehrer king are utterly baffled by the sorrow they feel the moment theresa dies

because that's really the only reason why the sarkaz, why theresis, are declaring this endless war on the world starting with victoria: it's pride, it's suffering, it's anger, it's revenge.

it was cruel of theresa to ask them to forgive and forget, yes. the suffering of the sarkaz is not something that could have been fixed within a single lifetime, the wounds ran too deep. no matter how much they wish they could have believed in theresa, the suffering of the sarkaz would not just vanish no matter how much she did. the core issue between the sarkaz and the rest of terra lies in their ancient grudge, the thousands of years of entrenched bitterness and loss that the sarkaz suffered and still suffer to this day. they have no home, not even kazdel, because the only thing kazdel really is at this point is the reminder that they once did have a home, have dignity as the teekaz rather than just "the sarkaz, the devils".

but even then, theresa was simply born ahead of her time. they were not ready for her future, and they all know this. babel was a dream that theresa tried her damnedest to accomplish, but they were too bitter to accept it. no matter how much they wanted to believe in it, the royal sarkaz court, scareye, the countless sarkaz we see through Babel, none of them could ever see true unity.

it's a unity that neither theresis nor pre-amnesia doctor could conceive.

theresis and doctor have their own roles to play, and their own promises to keep: the sword of kazdel that will revitalize their past glory and strike down all who oppose them, the last survivor of an alien race dedicated to completing the ancient project of a world long past to ensure its future, they are unable to accept another way.

"I can't accept your beautiful and fleeting dream, theresa. not after all the sacrifce."

they were not strong enough to believe in her. no matter how much they loved her, how much they wish they could have seen her dream come true, they simply couldn't.

it was always going to end on that bloodstained floor. they were always going to sleep, and dream that things could have been different. that one could have let go of their past, be it the long held suffering and revenge or the guilt of duty as the last survivor.

we will always be equal. i will always hold your beautiful dream in my heart.

you have to keep going, even if I am not here anymore. you're free now.

[cherryblossmsofjupiter]

What would it take to rewrite a story set in ink? A rebel? A virus? An illegal play?

[kdayshauthor]

me whenever I have to give any kind of book recommendation

[thegreatyin]

starting a collection of this highly specific genre of arknights image

[balimaria]

Its shadow lingers

[robotsafari]

rescue operation going real smoothly

bonus under the cut:

aqua will never be ballin—

OH MY GOD SHES BALLIN ‼️‼️‼️

[melni-zirgi]

Many treasures do the crusaders have, from old years.. With gold shine the city roofs, silk-full are the chests. Spring has come, the little skylark calls across but from Malburg city he did not return. The sun set, there was a battle; so much blood was spilled, the dearest one there laid his head for Fatherland.

[cloud-ya]

guess I'm drawing sonic characters with my favourite gachas now

[yoroshiu]

I really appreciated the background Dark Road gave to Eraqus, because as we all know from BBS, his view of darkness was so prejudiced which made him do some really heinous stuff to his students, and while you can kind of glean how his mindset was formed, I don't think anyone expected the cavalcade of tragedy that occurred. While it doesn't justify his actions, Eraqus becomes more human and a character you can feel sympathy for.

Dark Road confirmed that his prejudice towards Darkness was formed by the way he was raised (borderline genetic according to him /hj), but it's notable that throughout the story he shows doubts and hesitations towards that belief. In the scene with the lamp and learning what's at stake, Eraqus admits that he isn't so sure about everything, and later on, when it was up to Xehanort to deal with Baldr, Eraqus pleads and says that there's gotta be a way to drive it out of him without having to kill him.

i think that was a core moment for Eraqus at this point. Xehanort ends up killing Baldr, ending the massacre, but possibly subconciously implanting this idea that there was no other way. It doesn't help that Xehanort's progression into using darkness for nefarious purposes. No freaking wonder he's the way he is by the time BBS rolls up.

It's also interesting that Eraqus, as an avoidant-type character, is basically a confirmed trait. You can see how he often doesn't talk about his feelings too honestly (near the end of DR where he still acts cheery even when called out by Xehanort for crying alone in his room), hence it making in-line with him that he didn't say jack about anything Xehanort did.

Eraqus went from a cheerful, impulsive, but well-meaning boy to a serious, well-meaning but jaded to the point of tragedy old man, and I'm glad Dark Road told that story.