#a lot of things I just might someday elaborate on

[cuppajj]

Beast Ancients AU FAQ

I’ve seen a lot of asks in my inbox that are identical to each other, so I decided to put em all in one post and then some. This’ll be updated the more I develop the AU and the more info we get.

As a disclaimer, I am very new to CRK (as of December 2023) and I haven’t gotten to all the game or story modes yet (notably odyssey), so things are definitely bound to change + be elaborated on more! Anyway without further ado:

General

What are the Beast Ancients’ themes?

Vanilla is Penance, Lily is Sovereignty, Dragonberry is Pride, Cacao is Solitude, and Cheese is Conquest. I tried to keep them within the realm of their original meanings

Essentially my philosophy is: Penance is the acknowledgment (truth) that sins such as deceit exist in the world and must be cleansed. Sovereignty is an extreme form of freedom where one can have all the agency they wish, but can be just as silent about their presence/power as well. Pride is a byproduct of passion or sloth, boiling down to the adamancy of the subject. Solitude is a choice made with both resolution and apathy in various degrees, and lastly Conquest promises an abundant future at the cost of untold destruction.

If the ancients are bad, are the beasts good?

No, the old Beasts are still a threat. With a total of ten beasts to worry about, the situation on Earthbread is very dire. However, there is still hope left, and hope can go a long way.

Is there a new set of ancient heroes with soul jams?

No, and there likely won’t be. The Neo Beasts and first Beasts still have their respective soul jam halves, and both want each other’s.

Where’s Gingerbrave and his party?

Likely the Crème Republic, which becomes a refuge for many cookies after the rise of the neo beasts. They’re at the front of the resistance movement, working with Clotted Cream Cookie to plan how the beasts will be taken down.

What do the Neo Beasts think of their past selves?

Generally they see themselves as improved or improving. The only one who doesn’t feel that way is Frigid Cacao, who doesn’t reflect on himself that often.

Did they all corrupt at the same time?

Still working on that part. The timeline for beast ancients is a WIP, but for now, it’s likely that while they didn’t corrupt at once, they corrupted pretty close to one another. Cheese was likely first, followed by Lily. Vanilla was among the last to fall and evidently had it the worst.

Do the Neo Beasts still have kingdoms? How is life like there?

Answered here

What are the cookies of darkness doing?

As of writing (5/31/24) we don’t have a lot of info on the cookies of darkness in beast yeast, but at the very least I can say Dark Enchantress cookie may or may not know about Midnight Lily’s plan to destroy her.

How would legendaries react?

I admittedly don’t know everything about the legendaries to say yet, but they’re all alarmed to some degree. I can flesh them out the more I learn about them

Individual Neo Beast questions under cut!

Saint Vanilla Cookie

How do his powers work?

Answered here

Does he know he’s killing cookies?

Nope, he doesn’t see it as that and it would pain him to. He sees purification as a form of transition or ascension in itself, to put it simply; he might even envy those he turns to stardust, knowing his own tainted soul will be so much harder to liberate.

Why is he constantly crying?

He’s just like that. He’s just that big of an empath.

Has his relationship with Lily changed?

Saint Vanilla still cares very much about Lily, and may even be more open about his feelings towards her; but he admits the only reason why she’s still alive is because she convinced him to leave her for last. Lily very well knows that Vanilla, in his mind, wants to purify her more than anyone else. Vanilla often pities her choice to stew in her tainted soul, but he respects her decision… at least the alternative is that they’ll someday be the only two cookies on Earthbread.

What happened to Black Raisin?

As the very first to witness his rise, she inadvertently became his very first martyr.

Where’s Custard Cookie III?

With his relatives in the Crème Republic, alongside the rest of Gingerbrave’s party. The kid has a hard time wrapping his head around what happened to Pure Vanilla, and it may be a blessing that he’s been largely focused on worrying about the well being of his uncle, Clotted Cream Cookie. As the head of the resistance, he’s been working tirelessly… is this what a king goes through too?

Shadow Milk’s opinion on Saint?

To put it simply, he starts out thinking that a confused Vanilla will be easy to manipulate, but he soon finds out that Saint Vanilla is way smarter and more aware than made out to be. He knows Shadow Milk is with him, and he wants to purge him from his soul; but that is a process that may be harder than anything else. So in the meantime, Shadow Milk can watch as he continues on his path of Penance towards ascension, fighting back the resistance he creates before it can truly harm him. Essentially, Saint Vanilla isn’t trapped with Shadow Milk, Shadow Milk is trapped with Saint Vanilla.

Dragonberry Cookie

Is the skull on her head real?

Yes! It comes from a nondescript monster.

If Pitaya is imprisoned, where is Snapdragon?

With Tarte Tatin and/or Royal Margarine. Dragon City likely got taken over by Dragonberry’s kingdom, but they noped out of there as it happened. The two of them might’ve been the first few to recognize Hollyberry’s spiral into corruption and where it was headed

How is her family doing?

Alright for the most part, but they can feel Dragonberry’s influence in every aspect of their life now. While Royal and Jungleberry are technically still the king and queen, it’s only a figurehead role as Dragonberry is the true ruler. She still cares about her family very much, but she’s controlling and good at keeping them under her thumb. Dragonberry’s granddaughter Princess Cookie is the only one who objects this new way of life, and runs away from the palace.

How would the other dragons react?

The other dragons aren’t canon to CRK so they’re not canon to the au by extension, but just for this question, they’d be different levels of alarmed or concerned save for maybe Longan. I could see Ananas wanting a word with Dragonberry in particular esp since they’re both prideful cookies

Frigid Cacao Cookie

Does he ever go outside?

Very rarely, but it’s usually to observe the licorice sea or meet with the few denizens he has left.

Where is Dark Choco?

Still working on this part (waiting for Apathy pt 2 to come out so I have a better idea), but he’s likely alone by himself. He heard wind of his father’s corruption though and took it less well than he thought he would. Perhaps he’ll run into someone who feels the same?

Is his permafrost truly permanent or can the frozen citizens be thawed?

Technically yes, the permafrost can be thawed, but it’s a meticulous process since Cacao’s ice isn’t normal ice. It’s a cure that Crunchy Chip is looking for to save Caramel Arrow.

How does the licorice sea work for him and how did he come to tame it?

I can’t say how yet outside of the fact that it was a definitely cool and heroic thing for Dark Cacao to do, on the scale of taming the Black and White dragons. The sea, arguably a sentient monster in itself, and all of the creatures within it came to follow Cacao and Cacao only. Now it almost acts like an extension of himself: the beast can make the sea do whatever he wants, like acting as his shield, arms, or barrier, and the licorice horrors will vehemently defend him. There are tons of monsters roaming his frozen kingdom now.

Mystic Flour’s opinion on Cacao?

Working on it, but to some degree she knows Cacao is much stronger than he looks. She might see his apparent apathy for his frozen kingdom with fondness though.

Celestial Cheese Cookie

Is the Golden City still running or did she leave it to die?

It may still be running but in a scaled-down beta form. Cheese learned to accept the fact that what she’d built was entirely fake, but she didn’t move on from regaining what was lost. Her virtual Golden City serves as a blueprint for the kingdom she wants on Earthbread, and then some; with nothing in the barren desert to grow her kingdom, her brightened eyes turn elsewhere towards civilizations that could be brought into the fold. Such is the beginning of the Beast of Conquest’s terror.

She does sometimes visit her golden city, only sometimes. It doesn’t look the same; it’s not a paradise for her to escape to, but it is a promise of what she will have someday. This time, it will be no mirage, and there will be no one to threaten its destruction ever again.

Midnight Lily Cookie

What is her opinion on dark enchantress cookie?

DE is the source of insecurity for Lily, who regards herself as the weakest among all the beasts. Because she’s half of a complete whole, who was already half of another whole, she is passionate about reuniting her souls. While she is focused on expanding the influence of the faerie kingdom, her true goal is to track down Dark Enchantress Cookie and destroy her; but she knows she will need more help than just herself, and has considered asking for help from other vengeful allies.

Does she still guard the silver tree?

Yes, she still fiercely honors Elder Faerie’s wishes.

Have her relationships with the other neo beasts changed?

Ish, most notably her and Celestial Cheese are a little more on speaking terms; but they’re connecting through their potential partnership as Lily hopes she can help her take down Dark Enchantress. In return, she might help her expand her kingdom and take down Burning Spice.

If more FAQs come up, I will make a part two. Thank you for your interest!

[blue-mood-blue]

I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

[gaelsstuffiehome]

Welcome back to our third and final part where we learn all about Gael's Stuffie Home and meet the various plushies who help her each and every day! Click here for part 1 and Gael's own story, and click here for part 2 where we meet the first members of her team!

While she's resting a bit as we get ready for new listings this Friday at 12 Noon EST, let's meet the others!

Trumpet: An odd little multicolor elephant from Avon and their Full of Beans line! He came to us from another adoption home, as did a few others of Gael’s friends, so he understands how important it is for the stuffed animals who come to the home to feel as calm and safe as possible. This has made him something of an expert on the best blanket and snack combos for stuffies who are sad or scared. He might be a little too cheerful sometimes for some of our grumpier stuffed animals, but everyone loves him all the same.

Bonnie: A non-binary handmade bee who came to live with us after my wife found them at a craft fair! Bonnie is very     squishy, not soft, so is a little different from the others in the group. Not a problem! We love all sorts of stuffed animals, and Bonnie is a good reminder that friends can come from all sorts of interesting places! Bonnie loves to drink chocolate milk and sometimes provides a lot of calm to some new-arrival stuffies who might be overwhelmed by everything that’s going on.

Winks: While obviously a very good friend, Winks the TY elephant is also perhaps the most argumentative member of Gael’s staff. It’s not that he’s a know-it-all. He just happens to think he’s always right and everyone else is almost always wrong. It would be nice if everyone could just get on board with that. To be sure, Winks does know quite a bit about important things like picking a good go-kart and how to make the best ice cream sundae, but when it comes to things like thrifting or quantum physics, everyone generally agrees Gael is the expert.

Tiny: This poor elephant has always had a bit of an identity crisis. To be clear, Tiny loves being here and loves her friends and family, but she also wishes she knew just a bit more about where she came from. This is something stuffed animals can struggle with sometimes, if they don’t have any tags, and it’s hard to figure out where they might have come from. Tiny doesn’t want this to be the only thing about her, because she loves to visit the ocean and enjoys karaoke and old video games, but someday she would like to learn more about her origins. Gael and the gang help her whenever possible, and maybe someday, we’ll find something!

Freakshow: The story of Freakshow is a bit sadder than the others. He’s very quiet and sometimes gets very anxious around humans, or even other bears, but he’s incredibly kind and loves to spend time in the sun. He enjoys stories and giving hugs to smaller plushies. Gael and I are so glad we were able to rescue him from a haunted house that had glued a horrible mask to his face. Then someone threw him in a pile of old broken things the haunted house wasn’t using anymore, and that’s how we found him. We brought him home and learned that the mask could not be removed without severely damaging his face. In the two years he’s lived here, he’s learned to love the way he looks, even if it’s very different, and he picked the name Freakshow because he wants others to know there’s nothing wrong with being a freak. In fact, he sometimes says very, very softly, being a freak is actually pretty amazing.

Freddy & Chica: Found on the floor of a Dave and Busters arcade. Freddy and Chica try to cause murder and mayhem wherever they go, but they’re extremely small size, soft bodies, and lack of functional limbs makes it almost impossible to do anything more elaborate than growl once in a while. When they aren’t wee little harbingers of doom, they like to watch horror movies and love to help Gael make snacks for some of the older stuffed toys in the home.

And that's our team! Gael's Stuffie Home opened almost three years ago, and in that time, I've watched Gael make so many neat friends, while finding homes for every sort of old stuffed animal you can imagine. I can't wait for you to see what we're going to do next, and I thank you for coming along with us!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I see you are open to Ms Spade/Lilia prompts. I am seeing a lot of speculation that Ms Spade might have been a delinquent in her youth like her son Deuce. It would be funny if Ms Spade and Lilia got to talking and the topic turned to the crazy things they've done in their pasts. Who has the crazier story: delinquent Ms Spade or former General Vanrouge?

Referencing this unofficial blog event!

adklbaboiyfyegea It might be hard for me to write stories in headcanon form, so instead I ended up doing general headcanons for delinquent!Dylla and Lilia sharing their experiences with each other!

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Dylla is very shy with sharing about her delinquent days. She holds a lot of shame and guilt about that era of her life, especially since she blamed herself for being a poor influence and a bad mother to Deuce when he went down the wrong path. It's only when Lilia talks about his own past as a veteran that Dylla gains the confidence to let him in on her secret.

She's still not that proud to talk about her delinquency, but Lilia lends her the encouragement and the kind ear she needs to truly open up. When things get to be too much and the feelings overwhelm her, Lilia stays with her and holds her until Dylla has stopped sobbing. "There, there," he murmurs soothingly, a hand rubbing her back. "Let it all out. A good cry will set you straight."

With time and practice, Dylla becomes accustomed to sharing her stories. It's hard to believe that she was ever insecure about them to begin with, not when Lilia grants her so much strength.

She's surprised that Lilia fought in a war before--and not only that, was served as a general--because he's so tiny. (Huh, that's odd. Dylla doesn't remember there being a war or major conflicts in recent years. She wonders which war Lilia is talking about, but he doesn't elaborate.) But Lilia reassures her that it's the cutest ones you have to look out for.

He demonstrates a few of his moves from back in the day, each of which Lilia has lovingly granted an overly embellished (almost magical girl-esque) attack name. Moving with lighting fast swiftness, he very adorably chants, "Ora, ora, ora 🎵 Watch out, I'll kill you dead 💞 Take this! Lilia-chan's Super Special Axe-Grinding Roundhouse Kick~!"

He casually talks about all the people he killed--"My, I was quite the reckless roughneck in my youth. If only I could go back now and properly mourn their losses."--while squirting ketchup all over the omurice she made for him. Dylla awkwardly laughs, but only because she thinks he's making a dark joke. (Lilia was, in fact, not making a dark joke.)

One day, Lilia brings his magearm with him to show Dylla. He even encourages her to try swinging it around! ... Which she does, and nearly chops off some of his bangs in the process--but he took it in stride and came out of it unscathed.

Dylla was a self-described speed demon. She loved riding fast on her bike--a hobby Deuce also picked up--but seldom rides anymore. After all, she has to keep her driving safe and smooth, especially when she's on the job! "Oh? I would love to go out on a romantic ride with you someday," Lilia tells her. "Let's do it--and no holds barred, okay? I want to see how fast you can truly take me."

Her fashion used to be a lot more daring. Leather jackets, combat boots, bold animal prints. Now all that remains of that era is the roots and strands of her bleached her. "You should consider experimenting more!" Lilia suggests, fingering his own hair. "I used to have this much longer, up in a ponytail--and I regularly dye my streaks different colors."

Compared to him, Dylla thinks her stories are much tamer. Sure, she committed minor crimes (shop lifting, skipping school, drinking while underage, being a public disturbance, etc.), but the worst she ever did was get into fights with peers. "I think I was just lost," she admits to Lilia. "Lost and mad at the world for not guiding me." He takes her hands and looks at her tenderly, whispering, "... And I as well."

Lilia mentions that he used to have a crush on the person he was sworn to protect. "That story," he admits with a sad smile, "is one that ends in tragedy." Dylla's heart aches--not with jealousy, but for him and the pain he feels. She takes his hands--like he has done for her--and lets him know she's there for him too.

At the end of the day, both Lilia and Dylla understand that they're changed people, and they're so proud of each other for that. They have new lives, new children, new identities--and each other. They aren't lost or mad or alone anymore.

[vespidclan]

just got here so I'm foggy at best on the lore, but here's some (more generic) questions you might like anyway? Asking a few so that, hopefully, one or two hasn't been asked yet - you of course don't have to answer all (or any) if you don't want to. :)!

What inspired you to do this story?

2. How do you warm up before starting drawing, if you do at all?

3. How do you warm up before storyboarding/writing scripts, etc; if you do at all?

4. When designing a character, what steps do you take? (Pinterest, google search "cat"?)

5. Do you have a favorite, least favorite?

6. What's your VespidClan music, if you listen to music? Any songs that scream your characters? The lore in general?

6a. ^ If you do listen to music, are there any songs that are completely unrelated to your characters that you associate with them anyway?

Bonus: Unrelated to your clan at all, but do you have a song you just hate? (Can you tell I like music?)

That's all I can think of for now. Hope this might spark joy among the... state of your inbox :)

I got inspired by a lot of other clangen blogs I was reading at the time. It sounds very generic but just seeing how many people in the clangen fandom (and warriors fandom for that matter) take the time to write stories simply out of a simulation game made me think “hey I can do that too!” so I just… started writing! Other stories that were big inspirations for Vespidclan were IHNMAIMS and The Mandela Catalogue to name a few. I’m a big fan of things with dread and scariness, I’d totally check these out of you haven’t already.

I usually look at cat references and the way other people draw poses for cats before drawing. Believe it or not I’m not very used to drawing quadrupeds, but at least Vespidclan helped me improved with that?

You all know I do the script/dialogue before I start drawing comics. I base off the script from what event happened during the moon and start off there, sometimes writing several scripts for a scene and figuring out which would be best (there was an alternate ending for The Frame-Up!)

Pinterest is a big help lol, but I try to figure it out on my own. Since they’re from clangen, the design is already there, I just give em shapes to work with and stuff! I really want every cat in Vespidclan to be distinct and unique (there will be a LOT of characters to work with), the sisters were a good starting point for that. Iciclestar is lean and spiky, Heartflicker is long and droopy, and Snakevalley is round yet sharp. Sizes also help differentiate the cats, which reminds me I really should make a size chart for them hehe

Webspeckle and Sparkbreak are my favorite designs, but Heartflicker is my favorite to draw. It’s not that I hate her design but Iciclestar can be such a pill to draw, I made the mistake of giving her cool eyes and head shape that I can’t ever get right!

Secret is out! I DID have a Vespidclan song list on Spotify! I say I did because I have to remake it since I made whipped it up while I was just figuring out the story and I think it doesn’t really fit it much currently. Maybe I’ll fix it someday………….But there is a 404 playlist you can listen to. 404 is a very compelling character to write about, she still is! I thought making a personal playlist for her would help with that.

I’ve somewhat mentioned it before but Shut Eye by Stealing Sheep fits Heartflicker, and Who Can It Be Now? by Men At Work suits Stonepaw, maybe there will be more later on!

Don’t start me now—I despise every and all songs from The Beatles. I get angry when I hear it. It isn’t anything bad, it’s just a personal vendetta that I acquired in the 4th grade that would be too long to elaborate on. Like I ain’t even joking, I’m really not a spiteful person… but hearing The Beatles ruins my mood (one song especially, but that’s a story for another day)

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I hope Tommys able to regain his love of content creation someday. Not even bc I like his content I haven’t watched it in a lonnnnnng while, but because I Know what it’s like to lose love for stuff bc of weirdo adults ruining it for you and it SUCKS. It’s not fun! It doesn’t feel like moving on it feels like having things you love ripped from you and smashed into itty bitty pieces. It’s what happened with the Nova AU, actually! I haven’t talked about what happened there much, and this is probably a bit of a heavier read than usual, so sorry about that, but it’s important to me. Discussions of grooming and sexual exploitation below- NOT that I’m saying the same happened to TommyInnit, it’s about what happened to ME.

The Nova AU comes from concepts that existed since I was very little, but the last time I was super into it was when I was fourteen. I’d gotten super into Sonic again and a lot of the major concepts that'd become integral to the AU- Sonic's injury, Nova's experimentation with roboticisation, the themes of how child abuse even if done in different ways can have the same effects, even the fact it’s Metonic at all- were stuff I’d developed hanging out with friends.

It was also in those areas where I was pressured into sexual conversation, had people joke about masturbating to (entirely innocent) images of my, again, fourteen year old self (and I looked a LOT younger than fourteen), and during a game of truth and dare I was pressured into looking at Sonic pornography and describing my sexual fantasies and masturbation to a group of adults. I openly had a crush on Metal Sonic at the time, being a teenage furry, so it seemed like a funny joke, but it always made me feel really weird inside. I didn’t like looking for that stuff, it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I made sex jokes, sure, but I was fourteen. I thought they were funny because I was a teenager. I didn’t think about this sort of stuff or wanted to do it. I found it kinda disgusting, actually, to think about in such a way. It was uncomfortable and it really stuck with me, and drained a lot of my love for that AU. It felt weird and tainted. It made me think of that stuff I didn’t like. I have the images burned in my brain, the exact ones I sent to get them to shut up about it. I couldn’t forget it if I tried. That, along with everything else, made me feel repulsed from ever exploring it in depth for several years. It broke my love of something that was a huge drive of my creativity.

And not exploring that? It didn’t make me happy, or make me feel relieved. I felt trapped. I had something I loved a lot, that was a very important part of my history in creating art and writing, no matter how silly or weird it might seem, but I had images and words burned into my head that made it hard to think about. Elements of it are absolutely visible in everything I’ve create, salvaged and repurposed, but I didn’t want to salvage it. I wanted to be able to get excited and draw and make up elaborate timelines. But I just. Couldn’t.

It’s been seven years since I was fourteen now. And I’ve finally been able to go back to my silly Sonic AU. And do you know what? Out of all the things I’ve done at twenty one, being able to do that has been one of the most joyful, freeing things. I’m able to explore the stuff I loved so much and that made me feel so inspired without thinking about being exploited and hurt anymore. I’ve been so enthusiastic about this AU for a reason- it’s not just something I’ve had for ages, but it’s something that was ruined to me up until it wasn’t. And that’s the most wonderful feeling, y’know? Being able to recover stuff and make it yours again.

Obviously, we have no evidence that what happened to Tommy was anywhere even close to that, and I don’t want it to seem like I am. Even far less serious stuff can ruin things for you for a long time. But I know how utterly agonising it is for things you love to be tainted by asshole adults as a kid, and how painful it is to have the pieces of something you once loved but being unable to fix it from a final painful memory. It’s awful. No one deserves that. The way he talked about content creation reminded me a lot of myself, but I have recently been able to return to what once was tainted to me, and it’s made me giddy with joy. I hope everyone who experienced that might do the same someday

[imperialkatwala]

“… Magic can do a lot of things that you might not expect,” Legend says quietly, picking his knitting up again. “Like affect your dreams.”

“Is it affecting yours?”

Legend shrugs. Knit a stitch, purl a stitch. “Sort of. I… well, I got pulled into some dream magic when I was younger, and… I guess it really changed the way I think about dreams.”

Sky hums softly. “Tell me about it? I’d be happy to listen, if you want to share.”

Legend takes a breath, setting his knitting down in his lap, and echoes the words of something that might have been a god. “Verily, it be in the nature of dreams to end. When thou dost awaken, only the memory of this dream land will exist in the waking world. Someday, thou may recall this island; that memory must be the real dream world.”

Sky is quiet at his side.

“… I miss her,” Legend says, very softly, and doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t think he can, right now.

Sky still doesn’t speak. He just holds out his hand, palm up.

Legend takes it and blinks away tears.

(Read the rest on AO3! :D)

[nerdyfan1]

Ok thinking about this again and I feel like this is considered sacrilege to say on tumblr specifically for some reason but, I’ll never not hate how much ppl try to make the argument Pentious needed to be super serious and evil. It always misses the point of his character to me. It’s really was never about Pentious being evil. It’s why it’s gotten out of the way so quickly in the beginning of Radio Killed the Video Star. You know with Alastor right here:

This is literally the first thing we get with Pentious and I think it set up quite well. Him being evil and then turning soft wasn’t what you were supposed to take away from his character, it’s his arc of learning to value himself and open up to others. Alastor whole thing is he likes to mess with other characters’ insecurities. That’s what he’s doing in this clip. Messing with Pentious’ biggest insecure, his fear of being forgotten. Just another face in the crowd that never meant anything despite his intelligence.

Pentious while doing evil things it’s not inherently evil. It’s a front he put on. Like Angel Dust he is putting on a mask to hide who he really is. Remove the corny villain persona and the war machines and this is who he really is.

A vulnerable man who’s finally allowed the space to wear his heart on his sleeve and let his emotions show. He never deep down wanted to be the villain, he was only that way cus of the environment he’s in made it where that was what he had to be. It’s eat or be eaten. He had to survive and fight to even try to get on top.

Unpopular opinion I don’t think we needed much to set this arc up. The Alastor stuff is fine enough in getting this point across. That even gave us a cute joke as pay off too. It gives you all you need.

Now in a perfect world I would have loved an episode of Pentious before the hotel to specifically explore his seemingly parasocial and toxic dynamic with the vees. Specifically Vox. As they are criminally little on it rn. However that’s me being more curious. I acknowledge it’s not technically needed. Maybe they’ll someday find a way to elaborate on it but, it’s fine I don’t mind I think they still said it all with that one part we did get.

Tho yeah Pentious as is? I think he’s far more interesting now than he’s ever been. Hell I’d argue he was always kind of implied to be this emotional and sensitive. Seen a lot of ppl say it’s a problem he’s so goofy but, news flash so was his villain persona.

Like the 3rd pic especially. You can see it right? He’s still trying to get attention, it’s silly but, also a sign that he just wants to be acknowledged. Remembered. Even if he’s kind of cringe about it.

I think he’s far more interesting this way and I hate this idea that “if a character is sillier or goofy means they by default are less interesting”. Heck his silliness and habit to blend into the background is neat cus it makes the reveal at the season finale way better. Pentious just being this silly man who fought for others cus they gave him the love he needed? That’s beautiful.

Also this criticism of him being too goofy is insane to me given the show itself. Like with how the tone of season 1 is I do ask how on earth making him more overly serious would make a lick of sense. Sure we are getting statements by crew we might get a more serious season 2 (which um I’m conflicted on) yet that’s season 2. The first season is more light hearted by nature. Besides episode 4 tho yeah that is understandable given the subject matter that episode is tackling I definitely would expect the show to be more serious tackling it and this show did as such so well.

By just adding angst onto a character who genuinely didn’t need as such it would mess up the tone and potentially even pacing cus that need more set up. Which is a bad idea given this season’s pacing is already on thin ice.

So yeah if he wants to babygirl the hell out and be himself then I say let him. I doubt this will change anyone’s mind I just get sad every time I see this here. Probably a me thing but, I’ll never subscribe to this idea his character was ruined. I wish ppl in this fandom would acknowledge that the softer characters are interesting too. See ppl be really dismissive of Charlie like this as well. Pentious is like Vaggie in a way. Two ppl who seem to have done something horrible yet actively try to be better ppl. Characters don’t need to fit an evil or nice box all the time. The point of hazbin is its main character are different shades of grey you know? Pentious is not an expectation and writing him like a typical redeemed villain wouldn’t work as well at least to me.

Edit:

In conclusion this is Sir Pentious:

[taegularities]

My rant about CMI 13🥰

Hiii Rid, I just finished catching up with CMI and pls I loved it so much. Reading the 2 chapters gave me so much comfort. I really needed it so I am very grateful for you and your writing. I am happy I found you! The whole hometown arc was AMAZING! I think this chapter was my favorite of all time. I loved how jk‘s mom and his brother were so welcoming and nice. 😭 Ria is such a sweetheart I loved her! And it was so interesting to see how the jealousy slowly grew from the beginning of the chapter and later exploded at the wedding. I personally loved the bicycle + strawberry plucking scene and the fountain +gift scene the most! It was so heartwarming and so fluffy. Their love is so pure and innocent like it makes you wonder if a love like this truly exists and if it does how lucky they are to have it.🥹 I wrote many things down for this chapter so I am having troubles typing it down LMAO. But the whole NARA situation goddamn it was so good, like I am a sucker for drama so it was chefs kiss. Oc‘s overthinking and her insecurities were portrayed so well, I could feel everything she felt and this shows how great of a writer you are! I am happy Nara spoke to Oc at the end and that they both cleared the air. I also felt a little sad for Nara cuz it’s hard growing up with your first love and yk growing apart and breaking up with the one you thought was the one for you… but tbh I am glad the Nara plot ends here cuz I love my girlie Oc. THO I must say I am interested in Nara‘s life like what she does and who she will meet and fall in love with. She deserves all the happiness cuz she seems like a nice and kind person. LET‘S GET TO THE MAIN TOPIC THO! HIS FATHER! He is such a freaking jerk! Jk didn’t deserve this at all like no one does… poor guy… The fight between jk and his father was soooo damn intense. I stopped breathing while reading. I am happy tho that he realized his mistakes and will work to better himself. It was DAMN late but at least better late than never. But it will understandably take jk a long time to process this and (maybe) forgive him. He deserves so much better… I LOVED how Oc supported and him while he broke down and confronted the jerk of a father. She is really an Angel. You did our boy Christian dirty tho LMAO (The smut was amazing as always🤭) BUT YK WHAT BROKE ME ? THIS:

“But even though you colour in all the spots in his room—

You think that in turn, he colours in every patch of your soul.“

This owned my heart right there and made me tear up. Thank you for your hard work! Sorry that this got so long.💜

NAWH and i'm happy you found me and have become my friend, too <3 oh gosh, your fav chapter ever?? that's a huge thing for me – i'd been planning it for so long and genuinely loved writing it, so this means a lot, love. with the jealousy as its key part and then things resolving, i was so curious what y'all would say lmao and the reactions to cmi13 were just what i wanted and needed.

i bet a love like this exists somewhere… things might seem hopeless at times, but we deserve this, too, so let's keep hoping and manifest the words i write into reality. also, i am so happy you could view the nara situation from all perspectives. like yeah, the whole thing was intense, but honestly, i feel a bit sorry for her, too? after all, jk wasn't just her boyfriend in the past, he was her friend as well. so to lose all that, even though she's moved on, must sting at least a bit. hmmm, maybe i'll elaborate on nara's life someday!! good point hehe.

NAWH THE FIGHT THO… i was holding my breath writing it, and idc if it's my characters, i was very happy jk flipped like this :') oc will always be there for him. let's hope that the only way's up. jksfnksf i know i did christian so fkn dirty, but i had no choice 🤣 maybe i should write original ian fic someday and give him the affection he deserves lmao

the last line… yeah– that's all i'll say. just yeah :') sigh. thank you for always reading bby <3 i will always wait for you, so don't stress yourself about getting to a chapter at all. i'm just so thankful for this msg <3

[ask-agent-rapzutin-vodello]

Hey raz since it's Halloween what's the scariest thing you've seen in someone's mind.

[Raz] Obviously, a lot of things are classified and I've come across so many variations that they all kinda blend together, but nonetheless every bit scary. The mindscapes of people can be a terrifying reflection of their own troubles.

Take someone who is haunted by the deeds of their past and, poof: their mindscape is a haunted mansion with spectral Censors and Eldritch Nightmares.

How about something mundane? You have someone who feels like they're being slowly crushed by the the unfathomable weight of their responsibilities? You take a Psi-trip into their mind and suddenly you're stuck inside a sinking submarine and you have to escape in time, solving elaborate conundrums before the ever-increasing pressure of the ocean makes you implode. ...it's puzzling - heh - how often the Psychonauts come across puzzles while venturing in someone's mind.

I once interrogated a claustrophobic suspect and when I went into their mind, I got stuck in a tiny box. Couldn't even get my smelling salts. Those were a scary 20 minutes ...and just when I had this itch as well.

This one might be more disturbing than scary, but nevertheless unsettling. We once had to go deep inside a suspect's mind and this guy ...well, let's call him the very peak of narcissism. This guy was litterally full of himself. Every Censor, every Nightmare, Enabler, Doubt, Regret, Bad Idea, all of them ...had the suspect's face.

Even worse: we came across a room with, ugh, 'adoring female fans' and those, too, had not only the suspect's face ...but their voice as well. Jeez, that was a sight I'll hopefully someday forget.

[taylortruther]

i'm the john/jake anon and i didn't elaborate it in my ask but i meant in a way that this fandoms imo places way more emphasis on jake situation than john (partly because taylor explores her relationship more with jake than john) when in reality imo she wouldn't have dated or started her ''pattern'' of dating older men if it weren't for things that happened in relationship with john. this opinion is based on how much more haunting/scathing wcs is. like compared to all too well 10m version, you can see her starting "what if" shit from that relationship onwards.

hmm i don't agree. the pattern of dating older men as a young woman is already encouraged by society at large, in many ways. it's possible jake would've still happened if john never existed.

i think a lot of the pain and anger in wcs is partly because taylor was in a period of introspection and retrospection, and she was also the age john was when he pursued her. she was at a point in her life where she could clearly say how wrong, confusing, and painful it was - not just his actions, but the way he denied it/didn't take accountability for her it, and her own guilty at pursuing it as well.

i think the fandom puts a lot of emphasis on jake, beyond just how much she's written about it, is because she obviously really loved him. i mean, at some point she considered him her twin flame or soulmate. he told her they might have kids someday. she couldn't shake him off of her, he really, really did a number on her.

[atoriv-art]

asks :)

guess who let them pile up for months (meeeeeeee)

tysm!!! i share a similar view wrt his hair :) i think it's a very fun way to interpret it given he's one of (/the?) only characters to ever go through a change like that! especially given his snake transformations i think it's completely plausible that he found himself mirroring the guy too much and wanted to distance himself from that lol

---

thank youuuu it's one of my favorite things to draw honestly :) especially with the uchihas where their eyes are such an integral part of their character design hehe

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:D the positive reception to them honestly makes me really happy given they're a relatively obscure pairing hahahaha thank you!

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thank you so muuuch 🥺 my biggest goal with my art is capturing like, emotional snapshots of the little guys i like and i'm glad it comes through!! :]

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[ post linked ]

it's a fair question! i might elaborate more someday but atm the basic premise is that it's likely it'd be like a pragmatic deal between them? sasuke needs a source of strength and obito is both very powerful and a sharingan user, and obito has reason to look out for sasuke because of itachi hovering over his shoulder + if he trains sasuke correctly he can have a powerful ally on his side... which is i think?? the reason why obito let sasuke hang out with him for so long in canon but it went nowhere looooool

i find orochimaru's integration and then sudden exit from the plot to be a little bit messy so i like to think of ways of streamlining the process and just having sasuke be with the "main" naruto antagonists from an earlier date :0c with the rest of the kids still being with him as i am very fond of both karin and suigetsu ahahaha

i also find the idea of sasuke being in closer proximity to itachi during the timeskip (while still distant ofc) to be fun, like him being akatsuki-adjacent while itachi is also there brings fun scenarios to think about! + the fact itachi really doesn't like obito, so there's an added layer of 👀 as he hates that obito is the one training him but he can't really do anything abt it without showing his hand lol

and, the rest of the akatsuki interacting with a bunch of kids on a "friendly" level is a funny concept lmao

---

grouping these together since i assume it was the same person ^^

kks headcanons: hmm i'm actually not sure! i think a lot about kakashi but im blanking on specific headcanons i have :P

top 5s: without much thought to ordering them i'd sayyy

characters: obito, kakashi, itachi, sasuke, and gaara or neji depending on my mood

pairings: sasuneji, sasugaa, kakaobi, itadei and kisaobi or sasusui

what got you into naruto: mostly being really curious about kakashi 😅 he seemed like the type of character i really would like so we watched a few episodes "for fun" just to meet him and then. you know.

thoughts on kakagai: i love kakagai i think it's super cute :)

do you like sasuke x naruto: people keep asking me this KSDJSKJD i'm ambivalent about the pairing, i can see why people like it but it's not for me

would you ever draw naruto (the character): possibly! just no real guarantee since i tend to focus on a small group of characters is all

---

🥺 thank you so much!!! sorry about the 25 minutes hahahaha

---

thank you so much!! if it helps any i struggle a lot with traditional art hahaha :P

i haven't ever drawn the rest of team 7 atm, no! if i ever do i'll definitely post it as it seems a lot of people are curious about them hahahah

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😭 tysm!!!!

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:D! i'm a firm believer that sasuke is one of the most sun-adjacent characters i've ever seen but alas he is cursed to be misunderstood because he's an emo boy 😔

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:] i'm glad!!! he's very fun to draw hehehe

[birdsandbatsofgotham]

Working on the next installment of my Pantheon AU:

He stood upon the edge of a rooftop, a single point of perfect darkness, gazing out impassively across his city. And Gotham was, truly, his city at this point. Whispers of the Bat flowed through the backstreets and alleyways, making the criminals clutch at their weapons and more innocent souls breathe just a tad easier.

There were shrines popping up, too. Alfred had helped him create a small temple in the cavern beneath the Manor, something to anchor his power in Gotham, but shrines- Tucked away in corners, hidden in the shadowed nooks, each one served to spread his influence, catching and multiplying every bit of belief offered up to his name. To his symbol.

The outline of it still hummed against his chest. Simple curves and narrow points, nothing elaborate. Nothing flashy. But so far, it proved to be his best choice, out of all the new things pulled into his sphere of influence. People had begun to carve it into bricks, to spray paint it onto concrete and asphalt - each one a testament, not only to his growing influence, but to the good he was doing.

Someday, the overhanging layer of fear might just dissipate enough he could request the Patron of Hope make a proper visit to the city.

Caught up in the pride over his work, it took the god a moment longer than usual to notice the increasing glow around him. At first he tensed, alarmed that the Day had come to try and convince him of returning to the divine plane.

But the light didn’t brighten to obnoxious levels; it remained a soft, silvery color, rather than the overwhelming yellow of the sun. And that put a different sort of alarm into him. 

“So I hear you’ve been getting around a lot lately,” a voice purred.

“Moon,” he rumbled, turning to face her. Rather than the elegant gowns or silver armor of days past, she approached him wearing a black bodysuit, equipment belt slung low around her hips, intense gaze hidden by a pair of goggles. “Selina,” he amended.

She hummed, looking his guise up and down. “And what should I be calling you these days, my Lord Night?”

Before, he wouldn’t have reacted to the mocking title beyond a stern grunt. Now, he grimaced at it, and turned back towards the roof’s edge. “Bat. Or Bruce.”

After a beat, her footsteps resumed their approach, muted like a feline padding across snow, or perhaps thick carpet. “How about Tiger?”

He twitched, eyeing her sidelong as she stepped right up alongside him. “No.”

“You sure? I’ve been saving that one for you. Could use Pussycat instead, I suppose-”

“Selina,” he huffed.

“Cat,” she corrected, angling just enough to smile up at him. For once, it appeared genuine, instead of mocking. “If you’re the Bat, then I’m the Cat.”

“...alright,” he managed to say, more than a little taken aback. “What are you doing here, Cat?”

“Wonder’s looking for you. Apparently the Day has gone missing, and she wants your help to find him.”

And just like that, he could feel his walls pressing back in. “Then she can ask the Oracle. I’m busy.”

“Pretty sure she would, except Little Miss See-It-All is missing too.”

That- sounded alarming.

---

Bruce ended up bringing her as far as the rear gardens of the Manor.

Selina couldn’t come down into the caves with him - just as his empowered form required the cover of darkness to travel anywhere in the mortal realm, so too did Selina need to remain in places where her moonlight reached. They could, of course, fold down into purely mortal shells to escape the impediment, but-

But.

Being Bruce Wayne... he didn’t quite want to share that part of himself. Not yet. And for all that the Moon knew him best of anyone besides, perhaps, the Day- he didn’t think she wanted to really expose so much of herself to him either.

There were many eons of harsh words and curt dismissals to overcome first.

Still. She liked Alfred, when the man came out for an introduction. And he seemed a touch charmed in return, with the easy, teasing manner Selina liked to speak in, especially each time Bruce huffed an exasperated breath.

By the time Dawn began to paint the eastern sky, their garden possessed a new little bower, with silver flowers blessed by moonlight. “If you ever need a touch of divine help besides his,” Selina said, smirking in Bruce’s direction, “Pluck one of these off the vine, and I’ll come as soon as I can.”

“You are extremely generous, Miss Selina - perhaps, though, I might be able to do something else if there’s a cup of tea in need of sharing, rather than an emergency?”

The Goddess of the Moon laughed, already starting to fade back to the divine realm. “Just one petal, then, for social calls.”

Once she was gone, Bruce let his shadows fall away as well, returning to the much smaller and more visibly petulant form of an eight year old boy. “A cup of tea?”

“Well, if you won’t indulge in such rituals with me, Master Bruce...”

“Hmph.”

[sineala]

☔, you have so many plot ideas that I'd love to know what didn't make the cut

Lishan! Hiiiiii!

I feel like this one is hard to answer, not because I don't have things I'm not writing but because a lot of what is on my "write this someday maybe" list is stuff I'm not entirely ruling out not writing. Wow, that had way too many negatives in it.

Anyway. So there's stuff on my ideas list that I just haven't gotten to yet because I am trying to knock some current WIPs off my WIP list and I've promised myself I am not starting a story I know will be novel-length until I've finished something else. (Unfortunately, I accidentally a novel for two of my current WIPs. Whoops.)

So that section of the WIP list has a lot of stuff that's, like, fully outlined -- not quite down to the scene-by-scene level but in enough detail that I could start writing. This would be, like, "the story where Steve time-travels from the future to meet ToS-era Tony before the Avengers exist and they fall in love -- I mean, Steve was already in love -- and then Steve has to leave before the Avengers form, and a couple months later Tony is very surprised to learn that Captain America is alive and also he's been banging Captain America from the future." I could start writing that right now. It would absolutely be a novel.

There's stuff that I'd like to write that's pretty well fleshed out as a premise but not currently writable, because of things like I haven't yet figured out exactly how the POV works. This is, like, "the BDSM AU where the serum was supposed to make Steve a dom and it did not and he decides he can just lie about it and never tell anyone he is a sub, because then they will kick him out of the army, and then he has entirely different problems when he gets to the future because wow does he like Tony." Also a story I would describe as "Secret Empire canon-divergent AU with wall-to-wall non-con" but I also haven't figured out how the POV works or how any of the comfort in the h/c works but I know how to break Steve and Tony very, very badly. I just can't put them back together yet. Also those would both be novel-length.

And then there's stuff on my ideas list that I just come up with randomly that I think might be fun, because I am apparently just very fond of generating elaborate sex farce plots on the fly, and there's nothing wrong with them but there's also no immediately compelling reason why I should write them right now. Like "the one where Steve extremely earnestly asks Tony if Tony would like him to send nudes and Tony's not sure if Steve's trolling him and somehow Steve and Tony end up in a situation in which Steve sends Tony artistic and photogenic dick pics every day and Tony can't figure out if Steve means for Tony to jerk off to them or just admire them for their artistic merit because they're actually very well-composed and elegant and Steve doesn't say. Tony feels like he can't just ask Steve this because he thinks this is the kind of thing he's probably already supposed to know about their relationship, you know, whether they're in any way involved with each other. So in the meantime he's just going to die of lust and also frustration." I might write it! I might not! It's fun to ponder, anyway.

So, yeah, those are some things I'm not writing.

[sagesilentfire]

I FINISHED A SKETCHBOOK! Every page is drawn upon. It only took me... eight years. Wow. I only started working on it in earnest about six months ago, though, so... yeah. 

TO CELEBRATE: I want to take one of these sketches and develop it into a full rendered digital painting. I will make a fun little quiz and we'll narrow it down to one drawing. Quiz and logistics coming later, but will be posted here.

A lot of this is me figuring out designs for characters I haven't even written about yet, so look out for that. I'll elaborate one every sketch if you're interested, so keep reading if you want to know who's who. The sketches are generally in reverse chronological order from top to bottom.

1. Alice, a new character in Star and Marcie and the Forces of Evil, my latest project. She's fighting. She's a fighter. She's a love interest, but I hope I make her interesting on her own.

2. Cinder, wearing a shirt Kowari and Kultarr got for her. He will never take it off.

3. Various faces for Iako, a character in my next project that I'm 90% sure on the design for. She lives in a world of kitsunes who accidentally got addicted to gaining their nine tails through murder. Also magic powers are cursed. Iako wants to make magic better, so she goes on a trip to a mysterious island that holds the key to ending the curses... and their lives. Also it's based on the original premise of Lightlark. Hehe. Prologue can be found here. It's part 2.

4. lorge Sílthéy and small derg. 

5. Practicing SilkWings and playing around with dragon faces, plus their defining attributes.

6. ANCIENT Sílthéy expression practice. This is years before the eye redesign, but you can still get the essence of her character and how she's born out of my religious trauma.

7. ANCIENT Sílthéy expression practice cont.

8. SilkWing practice with face shapes.

9. Alice fullbody. My second drawing of her, getting her design down.

10. a. Evelyn, the protag of a story I'd like to tell someday. I can't say much more than that, except that it's a tragedy of epic proportions. b. Human Sílthéy

11. Alice and Shinjai. Shinjai is a main character in SAMATFOE, and she and Alice have an almost-thing going. 

12. Iako and a still unnamed... side character? They're studying the book Iako gets in the prologue.

13. This is [NAME REDACTED]. They're from a universe inspired by Star Wars, but if it was animated and also deeply weird. [NAME REDACTED] is [TOP SECRET INFORMATION]

14. First drawing of Alice. Figuring out her cheekmarks, and what I wanted to keep in her show design (she's based on a one-off background character).

15. More Iako drawings. Left out her hair in a, can't remember if it was intentional or not.

16. A dragon from a Wings of Fire inspired sci-fi world.

17. RPG species. They're aliens who are eusocial, and females are split into four "genders"/roles in society. This gender is soldier, distinguished by their massive claws and size. Their job is everything that requires strength.

18. An early Tethalaos, and also an entirely plausible form for them to take.

19. Above mentioned RPG species. This gender is gatherer, distinguished by their small body and delicate hands. 

20. Another dragon from above mentioned Wings of Fire inspired sci-fi.

21, 23-26. More sketches of [NAME REDACTED]. As you might guess, I quite like them. I just think they're neat, and I wanted to get their design down solidly.

22. Wasp friend :D

27. Shinjai's new crown, as seen in the latest chapter of SAMATFOE.

28. Funny Christmas Carol-inspired AU of SAMATFOE that I drew after being bludgeoned over the head with Christmas music for hours in a holiday sale I was working at.

29. Sílthéy being big mad.

30. RainWing. Not sure who this is.

31. Toffee's Mewberty wings.

32. More Evelyn.

33. LunarWings, but in my sci-fi world.

34. Yet another species in my sci-fi world.

35. Star and Marcie from SAMATFOE

36. Espina, a character from an urban-fantasy boarding school story about being bonded to animals people often find disgusting and repulsive. Espina controls wasps.

37. All the they/them nonbinary characters in SAMATFOE at the time of this drawing. From left to right: Nova, Toffee, Necahua, Dr. Edevane, Mayhem and Miette Maizley, Higgs, and of course, Tethalaos. Drawn at a nonbinary people meetup.

38. Sílthéy again

39. The oldest drawing in the book, Darkstalker from before we even knew what he looked like. An old doodle, but it proves how dedicated I was to Darkstalker being a good guy back in the day.

40. A design for an old idea I had of a hollow mountain filled with outcasts from society. Might revisit it, there's enough there to make at least a novella.

41. Toffee fashion sketches.

42. An old drawing of Sílthéy in her Wings of Fire dragon form, a hybrid named Liminal (nicknamed Lin). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, honestly.

43. Sílthéy even BIGGER mad

44. More from the hollow mountain. The outcasts are protected by these guys, and in exchange they're cleaned and fed.

[pbstarot]

Hiii I'm new to the fascinating world of tarot and I have a very basic question. I hope you answer this I have been thinking a lot

So from what I understood tarot is reading of energies right? And energies change from time to time... so the answer might also change? Can a total negative change to a positive and vice versa?

And there are these future spouse reading right so is there like one fixed person for everyone or with energy can that change too? And readers who do like celebrity tarot readings... is it easy to tap into the energy of people like that?

Ok, so, there's a lot of questions here to unpack. I think first you have to understand that it largely depends.

As someone who has compiled tarot readings for 5 years, in a neat little folder, usually the energy that changes is my own and the energy that doesn't change belongs to other people. And here it's where the "it depends" comes in, because I believe in fate. I believe that people have free will to decide where they're gonna eat tomorrow, but not to change certain things that are fixed points in the Universe. What do you believe in? Tarot is spirituality. It's not an exact science. I can tell you my beliefs. I can tell you that my future spouse readings haven't changed all that much in five years (but I haven't met anyone else that compiled readings so thoroughly, so there's nothing that tells me that for other people it's the same. What if I meet a person who has, and this person gets married to more than one person? It'll make sense if they get more diverse readings) (and there is nothing that says I won't myself marry several times or no times at all, other than faith that I won't and my own intuition, and of course an unwillingness to keep going with it after a divorce, cause what's the point, really?).

So, does energy change? Yes. In my opinion, it changes if a person decides to pick up an apple not an orange, not if they're gonna die in a car crash at the age of 34 or if they're gonna marry their childhood best friend (unless they marry several people and their marriage is not a fixed point on the universe. Again, a personal belief that can change someday).

Can a total negative change to a positive? I don't believe so. If the cards say "Well, this isn't gonna happen for you," my experience was that it won't, unless the answer was a "maybe," or more elaborate. For example, if you ask about being successful in your career and instead of a no you get a "if you work hard, yes" then the answer can change in case you don't do what the cards say (to a no, likely), unless being super successful in your career is one of the fixed points I mentioned. If you're inquiring about a person, it usually doesn't change either, unless the reading says "If, in the future, you two came back together, it could work." That's why it's important to ask the right question to the tarot. Don't ask "Who's my future spouse?" If what you really wanna know is if you're gonna marry. I feel like a lot of people forget that the universe's tendency is to sort of play tricks on you and that the right question is the most important thing to have.

Now, you might have another question: If I'm not gonna marry, then how come future spouse readings still answer my question? And I tell you, it depends. Do you have a crush or a type or a specific image of who your future spouse should be, depending on the way you were brought up or your personal beliefs? I don't know. Could be that. I have no idea either. Remember, none of this is science. Most people here probably will be able to tell you that tarot worked for them. Why? No clue. How? No clue either. Will it keep consistently working? Probably not, it'll fail you someday, but then you'll go back and see that it actually didn't fail, you just chose to believe the more optimistic part of the reading (which happened to me before, many times). Do skeptics have a plausible explanation for all of this, hinged in psychology? Probably. Are they right? Who knows. Are we?

This is probably much more philosophical than what you wanted. What you wanted was probably a straight answer as to how tarot works, and I'm not the person to ask that to. I know it does. Why? I don't know. I know it failed me before, or rather that I failed to accept the truth of what the cards were telling me, something a lot of people go through, probably. And I know it has also seen me through many times, or that it has told me things that were right in front of me, but that I never was able to notice before, to an embarrassing degree. It told me I'm never gonna be a writer, for example, not for a living at least (maybe for fun), because I don't have what it takes (and it was the first time in 14 years of wanting this that I finally accepted that I didn't have what it took to sit down and type an entire novel, at least not enough times, simply because it's not dynamic enough). So that's that.

Something else to note here is that you only know if the cards were telling the truth if you live your life, and take tarot more as something to take notes of, and keep them in a folder for five years (where things might change or not). I take tarot seriously myself, for the aforementioned reasons (faith, faltering or not, and the ability of the cards to call me out), but I also know the best way to know if things are true, is to do them. And controlling the future so much might have irreparable damage in your ability to just see things through (my writing career, for example, was seen through in a way because I have submitted things for publication and not been accepted, until I realized I had nothing else to submit and no will to even write anything else. Embarrasingly obvious, like I told you). I'm probably a terrible tarot reader for saying this, but I have been doing it for seven years, and this is my own experience. Live your life, take the cards' counsel if you want, then curse them in the future when they turn out to be right, like I do, but remember that they can be wrong too (especially depending on who's reading them and if they are a good fit for you). Go with what you think is right and true for you (like my writing thing, again).

(Also, can you read about people far away? Yes. That I know to be true, because I have conducted very accurate private readings for people in other countries. And yes, you can probably read about celebrities. I have embarrassingly done so when I was 20, and have been right in the end. Is it easy to tap into it, though? Depends. Is the person experienced? Can they tap onto the energy of people around them? It depends. Lackluster note to leave on, but I felt it was important to mention).