#acorn ramblings

[inquisitoracorn]

Sad Dragon Age feels hours for Varric and Hawke and Veilguard spoilers for end game!

Listening to You Have Everything That You Need off the soundtrack, which a lot of people will recognise as the song that plays during the moment where our hearts get shattered irreparably into pieces in the fade prison 🫠. I noticed it has this acoustic guitar motif which tends to play when Varric is around, and it stands out a bit because we don't get that many plucky strings in either Inquisition or Veilguard soundtracks, so Varric's quiet acoustic guitar bits resonate quite loudly especially compared to the bombastic tracks in the rest of the soundtrack.

Anyway coincidentally I also listened to the Hawke Family Theme very close to that and noticed both acoustic guitar and harp bits, and it made me think of Varric in Veilguard.

I am one of the players who left Hawke in the fade and I always had a lot of sad feelings about the sort of grief Varric has to go through after that, working for a cause that was so closely tied to him and Hawke before the Inquisition even began, then choosing to continue working for the organisation and person that ultimately got his friend killed.

But then I compare it to Varric's speech about acceptance in the fade prison, "my choice, my sacrifice, and you don't get to take that away from me" and I just think of how many years it must have taken him to work on getting to that stage after losing Hawke and accept his friend's sacrifice. To look past the blinding grief, the self-blame and resentment towards others, and ultimately risk it all to save the world and his friends just like Hawke did.

This ofc only works if you left Hawke in the fade, but it was too painful and beautiful for me not to cry about it a little bit 😭

[rayroseu]

"Because i want you to live a long and happy life"

[megalomari]

i watched the hobbit !! it was… an experience…

[mirrorcatcreditcard]

Why won't my brain leave me alo-

Y'ALL I'M FINALLY WRITING THAT ALIEN STAGE HISTORICAL AU AND MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS GOING *DEEP* AND I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE EMOTIONS WELLING UP INSIDE OF ME THAT I CAN'T EXPRESS BECAUSE AHDLSBSKSBSK

I have everything I could ask for in a fic and more because I do what I want.

MiziTill dated as teenagers but they're now friendly exes.

Sua killed her fiance.

HyunLuka is in the fucking trenches but they're so perfect for each other I want to bash my head into a wall

IvanLuka is thriving in toxic yaoi as they play this fucked up dance of bargaining information and making out.

Ivan and Mizi are best friends in a contract marriage and pretty much have weekly sleepovers where they make crafts and rant about their crushes/relationships.

Till wasn't even assigned a gender at birth and is nonbinary.

Dewey bombs the clock tower at the capitol because he misread the mission before eating the paper.

The entire cast is queer; ¾ of the cast is trans (or maybe all the cast idk); ¼ of the cast is intersex (Sua, Luka, & Acorn [yes, Acorn is important]).

The fucking plot relies on discussion of aphobia and aroace erasure due to the empire's religion. (The entire main cast is under the aro-spec, ace-spec, or aroace-spec umbrella.)

Hyun Woo is alive and frequently swaps out jobs with his sister because they're near identical with enough make-up. Yes, they're spies.

Hyun-A is a revolutionary leader.

Multishippers, in case you're worried, polyamory/polygamy is encouraged. We have room for everyone.

You guys are going to love to hate the emperor.

Multiple different culture references because I'm afraid of just using one country and doing something wrong and pissing people off so all the countries are fictional

I'M GOING TO CRY ALL I WANT TO DO IS WRITE BUT I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS AND I'M WILLING TO MAKE ANYTHING OR DO REQUESTS BUT AKDVSKDBSKSB

I don't care who. Please go in my inbox and ask for something about this AU so I can center my tasks. Please, I'm begging y'all moots and strangers and followers alike 🙏 y'all can just ask for ship content if you want I'll feed you, prommy

(I'm supposed to tag someone but I forgot their user sksksks lemme go find it and add it)

[wereh0gz]

Ppl hate on Lanolin for being a shitty leader as if that isn't Literally The Point of her character

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Taylor Acorn is basically punk pop Maisie Peters idk why y'all are sleeping on her

[misteria247]

Been dealing with some depressing stuff in real life, so I decided to doodle the gals

[r0ckyreck]

Sally and Shadow have a similar amount of depth to their stories.

A lot of Sonic fans don't like Sally, and a lot of them attribute it to her Lore being complicated

Even though we have Shadow's story right there

Not to dis on Shadow.

Shadow and Sally have really over complicated backstories. And they both work inside the Sonic universe.

They both talk about how lost you can feel when someone manipulates you, and breaking away from people's control over you will make you whole again.

They do take one different meaning and different goal for each: Sally is a lot more focused on helping her people be free even if it kills her, Shadow's honors Maria's wish to portect humanity but will do it in his own way following his path.

Their plot lines are so strong that a lot of the comics/games stories have a big focus on them, considering how detailed their stories are. So much so that you can say Shadow & Sally have their personal Villains (Black Doom, Mephiles, Infinite) & (Ixis Naugus, the SoA, King Max).

Now, they aren't inherently tied to Shadow or Sally, but they connect to their backstories that they have a bigger connect that even Sonic does.

End of my rambling

But yeah, this is all to say that Sally works in the Sonic universe, be it JP or US.

[ninjapotatohead]

The cinematic parallels are uncanny

[fbwzoo]

I'm so excited and proud of this boy. He's just getting better & better. Today he ate some mustard greens for the first time, didn't even skip eating a day or two to protest first. Ate a full third of the greens I put down. So he got roaches as a reward & was SO quick to zoom over when I showed him the bowl. Chomped them all down in no time!

And as you can see, he's shedding!!! Already gotten a bit off the neck. The rest of his body is getting dusty looking, so will be joining the party soon.

I'm just so happy about him today.

[eebie]

take a gander

[acorncake]

Is it bad that I wanna get nommed by p@nd3m0nium from pr3ssur3? What a silly monster it is tho, one of my faves besides S3b@stian,,

[royilyoily]

how do people find weevils scary

like this guy ain’t gonna hurt you lil bro he hardly knows he’s alive

[asriel-poggerr]

"A Robian's Lament"

Made the sketch for this the same time as the Bunally "Holding Her Heartstrings" piece, but didn't finish until now due to finals. No Christmas art unfortunately, but I might try to bang something out for New Year's (maybe with Tekno and Amy?)

Anyway, this is all tied to an Archie fanfic I'm starting to write (yet another WIP added to the collection lol), hopefully I can start pumping out chapters during winter break. All surrounding a hypothetical scenario where the Super Genesis Wave doesn't happen, and Sally is stuck in her robian body with no hope of deroboticizing her. Lots of angst and the like, hope to get the first chapter up soon.

[dootznbootz]

As someone with ADHD, you know you're fucking exhausted when you're not even fidgeting. :'D

[acornsandoaktrees]

so, Greenwood cats.

(hear me out, hear me out)

Norwegian Forest Cats:

larger and more powerful than most domesticated housecats, they're adapted to colder climates, with very thick and long fur. they take 5 years to fully mature. as the name implies, before domestication they occupied Scandinavian forests

Ocelots:

on all fours adults come up to a human's knees. historically, they were sometimes kept as pets by Aztecs and Incans. they take 2 years to fully mature. they're active at twilight and night, and live solitary. they require dense foliage cover, which often means forests

etymology:

while The Hobbit's Mirkwood is not the only instance of the name, Tolkien has admitted its roots to be in early German, Old English, Old Swedish and Old Norse

the Old Norse word for a domestic cat (tom-cat specifically, but isn't it always) is köttr. in terms of lotr-invented animals, Warg is drawn directly from the Old Norse word for wolf, vargr

(side-note: Teldivo was a giant black cat in Tolkien's early development of lotr, later replaced by Sauron, so the idea of Big Version of Real Animal wasn't lost on him)

and what does this all amount to, you ask?

well, that quite neatly for a fantasy world, Greenwood's forests could feasibly be inhabited by large wild-cats known as Kottur.

(as decided by the author of this post, who has a frightenly loose concept of deriving words from others lol)

and with that said, here's a fun fact about Norse tradition: cats were often given as wedding gifts to brides. this was done to honour Freyja, the goddess of love and fertility, whose chariot was pulled by... Norwegian Forest Cats! who would've guessed

also want to add that -- as i've said before but a while ago -- i don't put much stock in elves marrying. they just... live too long for that kind of monogamous commitment. 'til death do us part' doesn't really carry much weight, does it? however, i am willing to say that some elves choose to 'bond' with one another, sort of entertwining their lives without the rather daunting promise of a singular eternity. and yes, polyamoury and divorce. again, they live too damn long for the expectation of one partner in an entire population to be sensical

so to bring this together, here's my concept:

newly bonded Greenwood elves sometimes gift their partners a Kottur kitten, not to be luxuriously treasured pets but to act as hunting companions and protectors. considering Silvans' deep bond with nature, it's plausible, no?

(kittens only, because once Kottur start hitting maturity it becomes nigh impossible to train them)