#and a bunch of ocs i made up for this post who will probably actually appear in a fic now

[quibbs126]

…Okay, you may end up seeing these drawings yet again on a later date

I finished the page, which was small at 500x500 px, but I wanted to make the page bigger. I did that, and I drew one new thing, but now I don’t know what else to draw on there. So for now, I figured I might as well post the original full page right now

Yeah, sorry for the laziness

This is the other sketch I finished on there, for those curious

Anyways, so yeah, this new style practice I’m trying

The original page I tried these out on is this, which also isn’t full, but I thought trying it out with actual characters instead of just random poses and shapes would be better, so I switched over to Cookie Run characters

The method is still a work in progress when it comes to all the shapes and the red sketch layer

I suppose what I should do now is try drawing a bunch of different Cookies that have different body shapes, so that I have practice with that. As well as maybe attempt some full body ones

I suppose you can suggest some if you want, considering I don’t know who to draw other than like, Hollyberry or Avocado, since I should try drawing large but not buff characters here. But I should also probably draw more skinny, and also chubby

But on to what I actually drew

So I already talked about Peach Blossom and the top Dark Choco drawing prior, so no real need to elaborate

The Dark Choco and Dark Cacao one was me drawing them in their younger forms to see how they compare. Not for any sort of study thing, but just in a symbolic sort of way. Since they’re so similar looking

I think I had a lot more fun with Choco, especially his hair. I remember Cacao being mostly annoying for his weird cloak thing that I don’t understand

The hand pose was ass though. I knew the general idea of what I wanted, that being them with their hands over their swords, but I was struggling to figure out how to draw the hands. Not to mention I had to change the pose from the red sketch because the swords were further down than I put them. I still don’t think I did the pose exactly correct, but screw it, it’s good enough

I’m also noticing that Choco looks way lighter in skin tone compared to Cacao. Like yeah, I know he’s normally slightly lighter, but it’s far more noticeable here. I’m pretty sure it’s because I used Dark Choco’s ToA colors here (bc they work better with my black lineart), which are slightly lighter, as well as just that Dark Choco is wearing much lighter colors while Dark Cacao’s are relatively darker. So maybe it just makes them contrast more

I liked drawing them, but I also did basically do the same body type 3 in a row, so I should probably draw different characters

Anyways, let’s talk about that extra sketch

So for those who likely don’t remember, that there is an OC of mine called Prickly Pear Cookie

I made her entirely on a whim one day, and she doesn’t really have any character or story, just vibes, but I really like her design and wanted to draw it again

I probably should give her some sort of bra though. The shirtless chest looks cool but in my opinion sounds really uncomfortable without at least that

I did originally draw her with the green skin, but it looked weird so I shifted it to more of a yellow so it looks more human

Honestly I really like how she turned out

But yeah, I think that’s about it for now. Just wanted to show this

[tanoraqui]

now that this fic is all published, I can ramble about the things that happen afterward in the timeline! Feel SO free to ask about anything you want more details of.

First off, all three posts about Dave the Balrog are 100% canon to this au, except for where they sometimes contradict the fic's worldbuilding or plot bc I hadn't settled on every detail yet. Also, Dave’s name is probably more like “Drav”, from the Sindarin “drava-”, “to hew.”

That happens much later, though - about 1980 TA. FIRST, immediately, as Celebrimbor says: it's time to save the orcs!

That is, wildly self-indulgent crossover with @ceescedasticity's fic(verse) elves, once, which isn't 100% my headcanon for orcs but it's essentially canon for this au because it makes everything VERY FUNNY in a tragic irony way. I've thought about this so much that it really deserves its own bullet-point post, but highlights include:

- Annatar attempts to conceal the fact that Curufin and Celegorm are orcs, and, y'know, have been since they died. This works until Celebrimbor identifies a bunch of the orc army's weapons as made by his father, even if the style is strange and fell, and the two of the have a HUGE fight in front of representatives of every Elvish kingdom in Middle Earth and most of an army of orcs.

- Bellow/Turgon is having the single strangest, most uncomfortable road trip of his life, and he counts the crossing of the Helcaraxë in that total.

- Turgon tries to convince Galadriel to take Celebrían and Elrond and get out of here, because inevitably this must be a cruel trick and all the orcs will be forced to turn on all the Elves. Galadriel is like, "Honestly, I've been watching Celebrimbor's slow corruption and Sauron's slower un-corruption for about 2,000 years now, and I think we actually have a shot at this. Also, bold of you to assume you can beat me in a fight."

- Curufin and Celegorm had BOOKED IT when Annatar's summoning-compulsion snapped, on the reasonable assumption that any plan the Dark Lord had for them + Celebrimbor could only be cruel to the extreme...so Celebrimbor and Annatar go on a bonus road trip to retrieve them.

- Everyone meets up by the Sea again, but instead of taking (or, obeying) the offer of escape into Ulmo's hands, Turgon and probably a bunch of other orcs volunteer to come help break the Crucible. They Deserve This.

- In the end, as usual, the day is ultimately saved - as are the souls of thousands of trapped elves - by the power of love and overwhelming violence.

AND THEN...

Celebrimbor & Annatar don't actually rebuild Ost-in-Edhil and Eregion as they were. Those days are over, and also the surviving Númenoreans kinda...regard Annatar as Absolute Evil, for some mysterious reason. And those who knew about the whole or even partial conspiracy - namely Tar-Miriel herself - aren't too keen on Celebrimbor, either.

They leave whoever wants to stay and rebuild in Eregion, leadership tbd based on the traditional system of craft-based meritocracy, and take a few decades off to lay low from geopolitics, work on their marriage, and for Celebrimbor to learn a little bit of necromancy so he can manipulate his own fëa and hröa, thank you very much.

They stay with the Witch-Queen of Calador for a while, discreetly because officially that kingdom is also not on good terms with its “former” evil-ish overlord. (The Witch-Queen of Calador and her not really sane, almost certainly unsafe, but arguably consensual relationship with Annatar really deserves her own post, too. She’s my favorite OC of this au. She really loves bats.)

Elrond & Celebrían get married! Elrond always knew his wedding would have to involve stopping drunken brawls from erupting between people who love him but hate each other, but he’d assumed it’d be Iathrim and Fëanorians, not an elderly Queen Miriel going for Annatar’s eyes with a butter knife.

Annatar regards the birth of Elrohir and Elladan with some concern, this alarming lineage now augmented by the blood of Arafinwë (cut off Melkor’s foot) and Galadriel (Melian’s pupil, hates him). But that’s nothing to how freaked out he is by Arwen, who is such an obvious Reprise of Lúthien that it’s now CLEAR that this was all a Melian scheme to assault him, personally.

He can’t just kill her now—Elrond and Galadriel and both right here, not to mention Celebrimbor. And then she’d absolutely be his enemy when she Returned… No, the only solution is to stay in Imladris for a while and become her most beloved uncle whom she would not dream of assaulting, whom she could not bring herself to injure even if circumstance and conscience forced her hand. Love has ever been the undoing of Melian’s line. The Reprise is obvious, but not so established that he cannot twist it into irony, Lúthien’s heir as his devoted student and companion rather than foe.

[smash cut to late 3rd Age Annatar watching the Music settle into place as Arwen interacts with the newest, currently toddling scion of the House of Elendil and nearly killing the child right then because no, no, thats not how this was supposed to Reprise—that’s his jewel of an elf-queen, Singer and trade-manipulator and niece, and he’s going to lose her forever? Killing the brat won’t even work, that would only make her follow him sooner, one way or another—]

Celebrimbor doesn’t want to build a city (and have his heart broken by the loss of the city) again, but he very much does want to ImproveThe World, and also to Make Things With His Hands. So he and Annatar, and whoever of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain wish to join them, set about… “Traveling” is too loose a term; just because they’re not city-building doesn’t mean anyone here wants to live on the road. They need workshops, forges, and ideally a maia-sized cat tree tall tower from which to survey their domain. They are a highly skilled work crew/technical, artistic & management consultants who change cities every 5-200 years, throughout Middle Earth and perhaps even other continents.

This what Celebrimbor and Annatar do, for most of the rest of their time in Middle Earth. A few of the Mírdain travel with them all the time. Others strike out on their own, or in similar small groups. Others stay in rebuilt Ost-in-Edhil, or Rivendell or the Havens or another Elvish kingdom, and come lend a hand when their particular talents are called for. Everyone who “died” in Númenor and was “resuscitated” by Annatar walked away with a strengthened, basically permanent osanwë connection to the simulated workshop group chat, which they’re aware of, and a location tracker and fëa-stamp saying “PROPERTY OF MAIRON, FUCK AROUND AND YOU WILL FIND OUT” which only an Ainu could detect.

They're the mysterious stranger(s) who accept an offer of hospitality on a stormy night and reward you with a magic ring that blesses your farm with fecundity. They arrive in a city in the middle of a cholera outbreak and inform the local rulers that they're here to overhaul the whole wells & sewers system in exchange for room and board; no, the local rulers do not get a choice in this. One time they do oust an evil ruling dynasty and just kinda take over the kingdom for a few centuries, but then Celebrimbor starts to get paranoid of his own growing attachment so Annatar reluctantly agrees to find and raise some honorable candidate for kingship [gender-neutral]. One of the Mírdain with them says, what about the choice of the people? And then after a lot of discussion, partly in collaboration with their local Men, they write up and seal with Power a Constitution that establishes an oversight body of political, economic, craft and etc. experts to oversee and have veto power over popular elections to kingship from a slate of candidates chosen by the current/soon-to-be previous king, on a strict thirty-year schedule. There, that should stabilize the whole messy business of mortal succession!

Also, 1300 years or so into the Third Age when this version of Gondor hits its equivalent of the Kin-Strife, Annatar takes advantage of its weakness to initiate a plan he's been contemplating for a while, especially while gaining local insight into a variety of nation-states and their management, and returns to Oroduin to forge what may he his last Great Work...a new standard of currency.

It’s called, in the common tongue developing from Adúnaic and Sindarin, the “mira”, pl. “miran”, from Quenya “mírë” (“jewel, precious thing). Where pettier currencies are based in gold or silver or the might of some particular empire, these hold value Because a Great Maia Said So—indeed, Sang So, Sang a new line into the Great Music that these coins would always have a value of…whatever he said so, if he updated a petty lyric or two of their Song. Those who use the coins don’t need to know this; they simply intuit, with coins in hand, what they are worth.

(You can lead even the mightiest empire by the nose if you control the price of grain alone, much less other commodities, or one currency relative to another. Each minute adjustment takes Power, especially to shift the natural balance of multiple interlocking goods…but Annatar is a master of the perfectly placed lever with which to shift the world.)

Maybe at some point the Valar are like, “okay, I think they don’t irrationally hate us anymore, I think this could work” and send a small group of Maiar to openly, humbly approach Annatar and Celebrimbor and ask if they might be apprentices in the craft of…whatever the fuck is happening here. Or maybe something adjacent, because Pallandro and Alatar would really like to fuck off into those excellent looking woods and hunt the remnants of Ungoliant’s spawn, and Radagast actually wandered away 5 minutes ago to talk to a bird. He’s gonna be a while. But Curumo and Olórin are listening politely!

…Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the Jewelsmiths, slowly becoming folklore, bettering the world (and manipulating wide-scale economics) one stone at a time. (They’d still be the “Jewelsmiths” anyway, even if they included those who, in another universe, were called “The Wise.”)

As stated in the third Dave the Balrog post, they do Sail eventually, several centuries after Arwen’s death. Celebrimbor just gets tired, and Annatar can’t fix it. Ossë spends the whole voyage backstroking next to their ship and sarcastically quoting Annatar back at himself, Years of the Trees insults about being made weak and pathetic by love, until Annatar nearly lunges over the side as a wolf to tear his throat out.

[ingo-ingoing-ingone]

A Personal Post

Hi guys, I'm finally making the post I kept telling myself and my best friends I'd make but wanted to put it off until I felt better. That hasn't happened and with how things are going I thought it was best to just post it now.

So for a while, since probably late 2023, I've felt less like my blog is for me, and more like it's some kind of fandom archive. Which, if you use it this way as-is, great! I'm glad my blog could make you happy like that! But that's not what I set out for it to be.

I'm the sort of neurodivergent person who likes to categorize things, including my interests. All my tumblr blogs are specific to one thing, and this one was no exception.

I began tagging things soon after I made the blog because I saw a lot of people were sad about the twins, and I thought "well since I love both sad and happy stuff, and I'm really good about categorizing things, maybe I can try and help!" And according to many, it did help!

But I think that also gave off the impression that I was making this blog for other folks, and that isn't the case. I'm sorry I never clarified. It's not an archive; I do not reblog shipping posts, posts from people I've blocked, AUs I don't click with, and sometimes just not everything I see.

I've gotten popular in the fandom, and for the most part I do, from the bottom of my heart, enjoy it. I have people who care about my hyperfixation! That's amazing! I have people who love my cosplay and want to meet up with me. I've made so many friends of all shapes and sizes and it's probably the most incredible thing I've ever experienced, truth be told.

But yeah my blog being mine has gotten away from me a bit, I think.

I want to keep tagging my submas tags, that isn't going to change. I will tag triggers when asked, unless it's kind of impossible due to the blog's subject (trains, for instance) or a name or really common word (like the word 'head' or something). Other than that please reach out and I'll do my best to remember. But other tags? Those will be up to me. I don't want to tag when OCs show up. I love OCs and like seeing them, and don't want to have to remember that one person who visits my blog doesn't.

I had anon off for a while because honestly ever since making this blog, there have been anons who really made me unhappy. (Also yes, non-anons but that's been fewer and far between). I've gotten misinformation, accusations, horrible and disgusting explicit asks, and criticisms and complaints, and I'm just... Not here for that. Keep the explicit things and misinfo out of my inbox, I am no arbiter of morality or personal decisions, and I am not here for you to share your negative opinions of submas or the fandom.

Anon is on for people who are too self conscious to chat face to face, for people to send fun headcanon ideas (remember when people did that back in 2022 when this blog started? I miss that, it was sweet and wholesome), to share song recommendations... That kind of stuff. If you have an actual problem, please, PLEASE talk to me off anon, whether that be DMs or a non-anon ask that I can answer privately. Especially if we're friends; please, please just talk to me about stuff. I don't bite! I swear!

But yeah the bottom line is I'm here to participate in fun (and sometimes heartbreaking!) fandom stuff. I'm here for FUN, not as my job. I know that we're all a bunch of neurodivergent folks and sometimes interactions can be a swing and a miss, but please try to be mindful. Please treat me like a person and not just like a museum curator for this blog.

Truth is, I haven't been okay for a while now. It's gotten worse this year for sure, and due to life stuff I cannot see things feeling better for me for some time. I need to go day by day for a lot of things, and I am trying to get better about needing to set boundaries and all that sort of thing. I suffer from intense paranoia too, and having so many eyes on me is genuinely terrifying at times. I'm trying to manage that as best I can, but I do ask that folks be kind.

NO I am not going anywhere, my blog is staying and will continue on as normal, but I really, really needed to get this posted.

Please continue to interact with me and chat and everything like that! But also please remember to treat this space, my blog, as my space. Thanks for reading!

[splatoonpolls]

SPLATOON OC TOURNEY GRAND FINALE

MUFFIN BY @demi-s-fucked-up-dog VS THE INKOID TYPHOON THAT RAVAGES THE SHORELINE BY @nylonvintage

PROPAGANDA

Inkling born at the Square who's recently moved to Splatsville, she earned the money to move there in ways she's not really proud to admit, usually keeping it hidden from even some closer friends

Her dad was a jellyfish and her mom was a humboldt, her dad being a jelly made her very squishy and stretchy (arrow pointing at her says "silly putty")

She ate a buncha canned specials (with the can) when she was 16 so she's constantly charged with special charge (Arrows pointing at her and her tummy say "She's like an electric eel" and "Full of metal" respectively)

She can recharge this energy by eating, don't overfeed her tho. She'd get a tummy ache, and probably release a buncha electricity

Agent^3 (Agent to-the-power-of Three) (Cube for short)

She shows up every tuesday at 3PM to train with the Captain

Birthday on April 28th

She's Afro Latina

Even if I don't win, I'd appreciate your vote and if you're interested in her in any way feel free to ask about her!!

POST I FOUND

TYPHOON

The Inkoid Typhoon that Ravages the Shoreline (Typhoon for short)

Backstory stuff:

Her egg got stolen and taken home by an inkling to be sold off and she ended up hatching in Splatsville, but later when she was little she got stolen back during a Big Run. Now she's inkfish-shaped and she Hates it (according to lore the salmonids have different builds based on where they hatched/how they grew up). Currently she plays drums (pots and pans) in a band and likes to take grizzco weapons from players to blast their faces off with. She also wears stolen grizzco uniforms bc they're the only clothes she has access to that fit her

She became inkfish-shaped due to her egg being stolen by an inkling and nearly sold off, but she hatched before that could happen and ended up wandering around Splatsville in her earliest years

Later she was able to rejoin a school of salmonid during a Big Run, but the early influences of Splatsville caused her to grow up shaped Like That (aka it's what made her a salmonling)

Despite her build, she's gotten herself a pretty solid place in her school! Her battle prowess especially is what earned her a name

Trivia:

Her necklace is made of fishing line and the charms were debris collected from the ocean

She wears stolen grizzco uniforms because they're the only clothes she has access to that actually fit her. The stolen grizzco weapons are just for funsies tho

She sometimes joins runs, but only ever comes out during low tide (since that gives her room to run around)

She Does Not like inklings or octolings. At all. Both because she got stolen by one and because the constant fights are getting annoying

She plays pots and pans as drums

DOODLES UNDER THE CUT!

[splitster]

answering more asks!!

featuring pom wraith, pingo, ocs?!, and older art check it out (three's some art 💖)↓↓

THANK you!! ohhh i do have old pikmin ocs... i actually revamped my old captain a while back, i can share him:

i had a whole crew of pikmin ocs who were a part of the S.S. Harmony, they were gonna be SUCH a nuisance to everyone they ran into...

i thought about making a rescue corps oc for fun. hrmm! maybe...

AHHH thank you!! i've seen a shocking number tags and asks from people saying that I'm apparently the reason they like Dingo now? and i have to say that is so mind boggling to me, because when i first played Pikmin 4 I didn't care about him at all!! he was a nothing sandwich to me... but then i drew him a few times... and started thinking... and then things went downhill and now i REALLY like him...

(referring to this post) i think dingo is better when he's withered

(referring to this comic) I HEAR YOU... I HEAR YOU... but if any tear at all would cause oxygen poisoning, i wouldn't be able to draw them all battered and cool :(

i imagine that there's a seal around the neck in case there's a breach in the suit's lining. so as long as their backpack (life-support) works and is connected to their helmets, then they can breathe✨

(referring to this post) Olimar would be horrified because he knows Louie, and if he sees that note there's only one thing it could mean! his coworker tried to eat pom!! if pom hasn't been outed as wraith and Olimar is questioning her, she'd just say Louie bit her and then refuse to answer any follow up questions 💖

Shepherd would be... concerned. she might think they have a weird fling going on and louie's talking about a kiss? she probably wouldn't realize Louie quite literally means he ate something from pom. oops!

that's a really good question... I'll be honest, with a lot of the "when and how did x happen" questions, there's not an official timeline or anything; the pom wraith au is sort of an umbrella with a bunch of different stories and what-ifs underneath it. although there was one story where louie does find out her secret!

louie and pom end up bridging their differences (with the help of olimar), and become good friends while pom is continuing the rescue effort. then there's a very unfortunate incident where pom and louie are away from the base and they're attacked... pom has to reveal herself to defend them and she accidentally hurts louie :(

its fine though, louie doesn't care what pom is. they're both freaks in his mind and that's all that really matters. he does end up having to defend pom from olimar (who's been made vindictive through his trauma with the plasm wraith) sometime later!! here's some older art:

sure

me too! they do NOT get along... louie's kinda pissed at her for chasing him around on PNF404 and beating him in dandori battles when he just wants to stay there and vibe. pom meanwhile doesn't understand him, he pisses her off too! she likes olimar a lot, and as an outsider it looks like louie doesn't appreciate the friendship olimar offers him. to someone who's trying to understand and participate in this whole friendship business, she thinks he's ungrateful and weird. they do not get along!! at the beginning at least...

AHHHH!!! THANK YOU!!! WAHH...🥺💖💖 i'm very glad you enjoy my silly little art style!! i want to make things very squishy so i appreciate that 💖

i don't think that man is going to live!

wait actually if you eat enough maybe you just turn into a wraith. that'd be scary! hopefully olimar's there to stop him

that's a fun thought! he would probably be able to sense that something is off about her. but he'd also probably just think "she's weird like me." honestly, the whole wraith thing doesn't really matter much to him -- the only thing it changes is that pom can now offer her tendrils as a skewer for his cooking at any time and location!

i think i'm gonna call her rose wraith!! and ohh, i didn't know that... i was just gonna call her rose wraith since she has a rose head. i'm creative i promise

(referring to this post i think) AHHH hehe... honestly, when Pom first learns about Dingo's fear of blood, she only tries to keep him from it because it's really annoying dealing with your coworker when they faint. he's like a sack of potatoes when he's knocked out. but yes, as they become actual friends pom will (subtly) do her best to keep blood away from dingo. it's fortunate she doesn't have any!

she might not get phobias, but she understands what its like to have a crippling fear, so she's empathetic!

THANK you. he has sunglasses. he's pretty cool

AHH THANK YOU... i like them a lot... 👉👈

let the marching pikmin give you the energy you need to practice🫡

[branwendaughterofllyr]

maris fic????? im soo curious about it👀

Evidently the people want to know about Maris. So to be clear, I currently have no plans to post any Maris fic, it was just one of the ideas I was playing with before I ended up writing a poison tree. I don't think I even have the draft anymore, and all I can remember about it is the line "Maris was not the prettiest of her sisters. Which was fine, for she certainly was the cleverest." I believe it was an Aemond/Maris fic, with a focus on the Four Storms.

I actually think the Four Storms get a bad rap in the fandom, considering three out of four of them ended miserably, and we don't know what happened to the other one.

And there's a very telling detail, I think, that most people miss when it comes to Elenda Caron and her daughters.

Lady Elenda Baratheon, the widow of Storm’s End, also took a new husband that year. With Lord Borros dead and Royce an infant, Dornish incursions into the stormlands had grown more numerous, and the outlaws of the kingswood were proving troublesome. The widow felt the need of a man’s strong hand to keep the peace. She chose Ser Steffon Connington, second son of the Lord of Griffin’s Roost. Though twenty years younger than Lady Elenda, Connington had proved his valor during Lord Borros’s campaign against the Vulture King, and was said to be as fierce as he was handsome.

And I honestly think this hints at something darker about the way that Lady Elenda unloaded all of her daughters off, either as septas or wives, since her new husband would have been closer in age to her unmarried daughters. Maris joins the Silent Sisters for unknown reasons, and while it probably is just a rumor her tongue was cut out, considering that her sisters also ended pretty miserably and she was partially blamed for Aemond losing his temper and killing Luke, I am side-eyeing it.

And I also think that Cassandra gets a bad rap, as well, despite her being in pretty uncomfortable straits after the Dance. Casssandra is likely around twenty (based off of Floris' age) and unmarried, no longer the heir to Storm's End because of her new brother, has lost her chances to be princess and then queen, and now a large chunk of the eligible men have died during the recent Civil War. And I don't think she was the one who killed Jaehaera, and I think that all of the above issues made her a great target for possibly being framed in the matter of the poisoning. Or if she was actually involved, she was likely an easy mark for manipulation (and considering that Tessario was an Unwin Peake appointment.....). And her punishment being to get married off to an old man with a bunch of children, while her mother declares it will stop her plotting..... Idk, maybe you should have been more on top of things, Elenda!

And then we finally have Floris getting married off to a man old enough to be her grandfather at age 14/15, who had SEVEN sons from two prior marriages but still gets her pregnant almost immediately, leading to her dying in childbirth at only 16. I don't care how sad Thaddeus Rowan was anout his teen bride dying with his twentieth kid, you can't make me like him!!!!!!

The Four Storms are really canon OCs to me, so I'm more than a little disappointed how slept on they are, and I think Maris and Cassandra are the real standouts here.

[nothorses]

Aren't you the one with the weird ass misogyny kink

This is such a perfect example of how fucking stupid callout culture is, actually.

For context, nearly two years ago now, a few blogs known for picking fights & starting harassment campaigns picked a fight & started a harassment campaign against first one transmasc blogger, then a bunch of other transmascs they harassed about reblogging his post who either didn't respond to them, or who responded unfavorably.

I won't get into the nitty-gritty here, but I did elsewhere [1] [2] and so have a few other folks.

I wasn't the original person called out. I was tacked on after the fact because I didn't respond.

What I've been "called out" for since then is, essentially, a bunch of complete bullshit made up by people who are pissed off that I encouraged people to think critically about the callout posts they came across.

Even among those lies, my sex life, kinks, fetishes, whatever- none of it has ever come up. Because I don't engage with that online, I never have, and I never will, for exactly this reason.

Would you be surprised if I told you this wasn't the first time I'd been accused of the "crimes" that original person was accused of?

You probably shouldn't be! This shit happens all the time, and it's only a natural progression of the callout culture it all stems from: one person has some shit they said taken out of context and painted in a bad light by a vindictive and usually transphobic internet loser, everyone who doesn't publicly disavow them immediately and without question is guilty by association, and what reason do they have to defend this person anyway, except so they can get away with the same thing? They must be doing it too!

And this ask especially is phrased in such a blatantly manipulate way. There's no good way to answer this: either I say "yes, but" and people stop thinking or caring there, or I say "no, here's what really happened" and I look weak and dubious for defending myself at all. The accusation has been made, the question has been asked, and now everything I say is with the assumption that this is something I am responsible for proving or disproving.

It's stupid and pointless and it's all fucking made up. It's designed to run on instinctive disgust and outrage, and what better conduit is there for rage and disgust than trans people? Especially trans people who talk about being trans.

And even putting all that aside: who fucking cares?

Who cares if one dude gets off to some shit he, in real life, both suffers from and actively tries to combat? Why are you so concerned with the private sexual fantasies of one random internet stranger? Why is it so important to you that everyone in the world know what this one dude thinks is hot when acted out between two consenting adults?

Come off anon and tell me all your kinks, anon. Tell me every single thing you have ever been turned on by, everything you've masturbated to, and why. I want detailed notes. I want links to porn. If you've made art, written fanfic, roleplayed- I want to see it.

C'mon, if this should be publicly available knowledge, let's start with you. It shouldn't matter as long as none of it's weird or off-putting to anyone else, right? You don't need to hide anything, right? There's nothing there you'd be embarrassed about, nothing you'd rather keep private, right? So what's the hold-up, why haven't you done this already? Why are you on anon to begin with; what are you hiding?

If anyone's the "sex freak" or whatever, anon, it's you. Nobody fucking needs this information about anyone, especially if they aren't sexually involved with each other. It's a massive invasion of privacy, and much more importantly it is textbook sexual harassment.

Anyway. Hi, voc and w-oc. I should be more surprised to see you two in my inbox, but I guess yall are obsessive enough to respond to, literally, a couple of tags on one reblog containing undefined, contextless acronyms of your urls. Hope you talk to a therapist about that someday.

[i-can-not-art]

Can I pretty please have more angel lore? 🥺🙏

I love how you do angelic stuff with your OCs ><

Angel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCsAngel OCs

Sure pookie💖

The last lore post even made me get off my ass and actually name+think a bit more about the seraphim siblings

So I was kinda vague with the advancement district last time since it’s kinda (really) messy, but it’s basically the huge hospital/laboratories of heaven, where technology and experiments are held.

Only thing is, Hui Shizhuo, by far the youngest Seraphim and the seraphim in charge of the district, is secretly dead and Yang Hu (military seraphim) is illegally acting in place of him being a lil silly.

And one day, Yang Hu he saw Qing Xia down on earth who got a score of 800 on the gaokao (massive test every Chinese student has to take that determines their entire future, irl highest score is 750) and did a bunch of other stuff in the scientific/medical field, basically being any Chinese parents’ dream.

The only problem is that when he went down to earth, Xia was happy and didn’t wanna abandon literally everyone she knew for some shady angel. So he did the only sensible thing and dropped some of his blood into her eye, allowing him to slowly affect her mind and make her obsessive about her research and stuff (why she has weird red veiny marks on half of her body, the “veins” grew down from her eyes over time).

Then he left and let his blood kinda fester in her mind, until everyone left her because she was literally going insane and starting to only value her science (also she killed a bunch of people or something). When he came back she accepted and she became the only human working him heaven..

For what she does, well during the centuries war a lot of angels died, but angels don’t decay so heaven just had a bunch of fresh corpses laying around, and they gave a bunch of them to Qing Xia for her to figure out how to “improve” angels.

Eventually her research led to Yang Hu “redesigning” Yin Hu and her sister (who is currently declared fallen and dead, but is definitely not actually the very much alive Wei Zhi) to become stronger but also more feral and now they murder 100x better.

For the civilian seraphim, Chaoxiang Ji, he’s the second oldest and probably the sanest of his siblings, probably since a insane person looking after 80% of the population of angels wouldn’t end good.

He doesn’t really have much going one, but he doesn’t like Yang Hu, and is very aware of how cruel and dangerous he is even for a seraphim. So when he notices Shizhou suddenly making strange decisions that line up with Hu’s line of thinking, he became suspicious. Eventually his suspicions get so bad, it leads to him making a shady deal with Liu’s dad.

For the missions seraphim, Wang, they were originally the civilian seraphim, but got moved and Ji took their place. They’re the oldest and the most mysterious, even to their siblings (why only their last name is known). They’re definitely the favorite child and the most connected to the Order god, it being said they have direct contact with them.

They rarely make children, even during the war where angels were dying left and right, they only made 2…. who died and Qing Xia has since “revived” in questionable ways.

They have certain beef with Caihong Liu’s dad, who is basically a unofficial angel but of chaos (also a great deadbeat, who knows where he currently is, certainly not Liu or her mom). During the centuries war Liu’s dad managed to find Wang and cut off one of his wings, making him go into hiding indefinitely (to this day, they rarely even talk to their siblings, just assigning and accepting or rejecting missions sent their way)

And finally the military seraphim, Yang Hu, is the second youngest, being made near the start of the centuries war, hand in hand with the arch angels. Despite not being a archangel himself, he’s noticeably more aggressive than the others, having his outbursts and giving threats much more commonly than them.

He was made especially cruel and uncaring for his children because of his job and basically all the arch angels hate him for being like your work manager but 100x worse (AND they’re all forced to carry his stupid last name).

But the rest of heaven actually kinda love him because while he didn’t win the war, he helped make it end in a tie which allowed heaven and the angels to continue existing (However that opinion quickly changed when they found out about a certain secret of his).

[spagheddiesquash]

so today i was in the mw oc server talking abt some stuff i noticed about jawbone (+ some other theory stuff as well!!)

so first of all. two kind of obvious details:

he is green (“yeah no shit sherlock” i hear u thinking. trust me there is a reason why im pointing it out)

his pupils are triangular. nobody else in the show so far has had triangular pupils. (well. i mean commander tezzoree’s eye has a triangular pupil but she hasnt made an appearance in any episodes yet and i doubt the two characters are connected)

just making this point known for now. we will hold this thought for later in the post.

another thing: so in the ref sheet of him posted to the mw tumblr back in september i believe(?), his name is written as “jawbone (a.k.a. scythelord)”

you know where a character by the name of “scythelord” has shown up already?

on a wanted poster, thats where!! he has a bounty on his head!!!

which means that tyneen and her crew are probably after him, which probably explains why they’re at the thicc chicc casino. (how do i know jawbone is there? because ricket is there, which i know because he is shown interacting with both shrike and tyneen, who we know are both there)

now. remember that thought from earlier that i told you to hold until later? now is the time to bring it back.

ok so. we already know that colors and shapes each have their own respective significance in this show, and colors and shapes are chosen deliberately.

with that said:

correlation?? maybe???

ADDITIONALLY:

this further cements my belief that ep 4 will have a LOT in it regarding the cataclysm or some other related thing. why?

(2nd pic comes from the VA application doc. unfortunately i dont have any better quality pics of it)

despite the poor image quality in the second pic, you can still tell that both of these characters have some sort of magenta (or pink i guess?) type of theming going on in their designs.

also if we look at campions, like, the flower

you can see where im trying to go with this idea.

i did a whole bunch of examining colors today in light of this, actually!!! quick fun fact for those unaware: RGB and CMYK invert into each other.

and then after i made that image i started sorting things into what colors they are. (white and black have been omitted from the screenshots simply because there doesnt seem to be any significant things tied to them)

obviously this list is probably incomplete and i will continue to add to it, of course.

(my main inspo for even thinking about CMYK for theories in the first place was @toastedclownery btw!! GO CHECK OUT THEIR BLOG IF U HAVENT ALREADY THERES SO MANY COOL THEORY POSTS THERE!!)

one final not-as-relevant theory that’s really more of a prediction: i really think joel vargskelethor is gonna be in this upcoming episode, whether it’s in whole or in part. i mean, he already voiced the duende in ep 3, so it’s not like its impossible or anything. also “scythelord” happens to be the name of joel’s band as well (which you should DEFINITELY check out if ur into metal!!!!! absolutely amazing stuff) OH OH AAAAAAND

id like to direct your attention to the title of this update, which is “the bone zone,” which i believe to be a skeleton metal reference.

also jawbone/scythelord has the little sweden viking helmet thing on the wanted poster. AND HES GREEN! LIKE FREN!!

for those who dont know, this is fren (also known as vargfren i think)

so yeah. these evidence pieces combined with the fact that zeurel has made dozens of “vargskelethor animated” videos (which is how i got into zeurel’s animations in the first place actually!!) are what led me to make this prediction.

anyway, i hope you guys liked this theory post. it’s not an update on the web, but i figured id try doing something new. though, if youd like to see the web, here’s a view of the full thing currently:

but yea thats all i really had. ill reblog with some additions if i think of anything else. bye for now!!! :^D

[laugtherhyena]

What are some of you're favourite Sprite edits you've made Whether that be this year, or any over years you've been in the sprite editing business

Ok so I've made A LOT of edits over the years so it took a lil while for me to sort out the favorites and why exactly, but here it is so get ready for some rambling!

First things first i gotta say this isn't really organized from the one i like the most and least, i like all of these edits a whole lot and i really don't think i can pick one or two to be the favorite.

So let's start from the start (sorta) i have to give a spot to my Fantasy Au twins edits, it would be illegal to not put them in this list

The Sdra2 Fantasy Au was one of the first things i made in the fandom and i was attached to it for a long while. These are actually the 4th version of their sprites, out of all them only the 3rd had a full gallery of sprites and trust me they were complex since on top of posting i even made different tails and ears to move around depending on the emotion of the sprite.

Even tho i never finished this 4th take on them I'm pretty happy with the redesign (since as i grew older i realized some of my choices were questionable and i really should have thought more before just going with it, just keep in mind i was a dumb 14-15 year old then) and the improvement on graphical quality because not only does it show how much i improved in editing but also because editing the fantasy twins were my first really hard edits and i was always happy with how well i was able to translate their weird little designs to sprite form.

The Fantasy Au as a whole had a lot of edits with a bunch of complicated details that i never finshed and although I don't like them as much as the twins i do feel like they deserve to be shown somehere so have this pile of lizards, undead firemen and two human girls.

(fun fact; i didn't know how to add textures back then so see those scales on the dragons? I made them all by hand-)

Next one on the list has gotta be the Nijiue siblings! Crazy to think these guys are only 2-3 years old like it feels like they've been with me for ao much longer!

These guys where my first try at making Oc sprites since before all i did were Au stuff and they're very very dear to me, as you can probably guess by the amount of spites an different iterations i made of them over the years. While there are a few things i could improve upon them if i were to remake their edits nowadays, i never felt a strong need to do so because as it is their sprites hold up well imo so remaking them feels unnecessary to me.

And you know I can't really talk about them without mentioning the Voidswap Au and a couple tumblr blogs owned by friends of mine. After Voidswap's cancelation i didn't thought I'd ever use these guys for anything so to think that nowadays there's so many people who not only know these characters but care for them a lot out of seeing them in Asoot and Dfta more recently really fills me with joy! I'm glad y'all enjoy my silly siblings so much and obviously huge thanks to the mods for wanting to include them in their stories, I really couldn't be more thankful for that!

And since we're talking about the fam, let me add Mako to the list as an honorable mention of sorts, a i'm still very happy with how i made her adult designs especially the whole closed trenchcoat and open trenchcoat thing she has going on and how i was able to cary out the heart motif on both of them :]

This next one is one of my newer edits + a pretty simple one which is this Irl Sora design i made for mod Bubbles around early this year.

Honestly, I don't even know how to explain why i like it this much? Maybe it's because Sora is one of the characters from Sdra2 i still decently enjoy or because i had a fun time coming up with her design. I had in mind that i wanted something plain and simple just like her in-game one, just adapted to a more adult look. Rolled up sleeves to resemble her uniform's ones and a scarf to bring back the spark of red her old design had, i also gave her the short hair that post game Yuki has because it's still her body at the end of the day + i think butch-ish Sora looks pretty good :]

From simplicity we jump back into weirdness with these last ones because obviously i wouldn't leave my girls out of this list, what did you guys even expect?

Favoritism? Absolutely, by now I'm sure all of you know how much i like these two but focusing on the graphical side for once, I'm super proud of their designs, i think they fit with the weirdness of some of Linuj's design choices pretty well which in turn makes them look kinda legit? In my head at least. I also had a lot of fun working on their sprites, especially Beni's since it had been a long while since i last tried to really exaggerate expressions on sprites of my characters so that was really fun! + I'm super proud of the baby sprites i made of them too, almost as much as i like their standard/adult designs really.

[muriellelibrary]

ARTISTS AT THE READY 6: an OCT

Hey tumblr. I'm here to spread some late stage love for something a group of us has put together. Or, well, continued together. I'm going to start with the absolute basics, since some folks might be new to it, so here we go.

ARTISTS AT THE READY 6 is open and taking auditions!

What is Artists at the Ready (AatR)? It's an OCT! What is an OCT? An Original Character Tournament! But what does that mean? It means a bunch of artists/writers get together and have a bit of friendly competition involving characters they made up! AatR particularly focuses on telling these stories as comics and uses a bracket tournament system (like... uh, sports ball?) where two contestants are pitted against each other and the judges pick a winner based on certain criteria. It's about using competition to practice your storytelling.

So then! AatR is currently looking to being a SIXTH tournament. The first happened in 2009, back during the OCT boom on deviantArt. Many of the old entries have been deleted, but there are still some up there if you want to take a gander. (We are still posting a little on there as well, for posterity.) The second was in 2011, which had so many entries there was an off-shoot tournament called Ready or Not. The third, fourth and fifth took place in 2013, 2015, and 2018 respectively. I personally participated in 3 previous ones.

What makes AatR different from other OCTs is the premise. Most OCT have you create/use characters and place them in a specific world or scenario with a specific theme and a handful of side characters provided by the judges/people running the tournament. AatR differs in that one of the characters you bring to the story is YOU! You, the artist! The premise is that you are invited to a mysterious world known as The Real and you, the artist, end up there... ready or not. There, you will meet other artists, and possibly the people running the tournament, the Judges. BUT. What made it fun was that you got to summon your own characters to have them join you on your journey! Everyone has a "tool" that brings out a set number of OCs. (It was originally 3, but now only 2 get summoned.) So you get to hang out with your creations and... well, probably fight for your life because story thrives on conflict but there never was a rule you had to actually "fight" your opponent, just interact with them and their characters. It's about who tells the better and more compelling story, really.

(It's a little like pokemon. You are the trainer and you have two pokemon to summon. They could fight for you, or maybe help you get around or go completely out of control and try to eat reality. The world is your oyster! Except instead of pokemon, it is your favorite homemade blorbos!) Every previous season has had a few provided locations, a few judges with characters, and messengers. Messengers are creatures/things that bring you your invitation. After that, they can be used in any way to help you tell your story. Or don't use them at all. Things are very open-ended and what we provide is totally optional. The previous stories from past seasons ARE VERY MUCH OPTIONAL. Use what you like, throw the rest away. This go around, the only location we have is the Deadline Bar. It has no specific place in time or space, and no specific layout/theme/interior. Make it what you will. Our messengers are equally undefined, inky animals of your choice.

Personally, I have made some of the best friends I have through OCTs and every time I have participated, it has helped me grow as an artist and storyteller. It can be a grueling experience if you try to tell a grandiose story, but time management is also an important skill for anyone to learn. I loved it and would love for others to love it too. If any of this intrigues you, or has you hopping up and down to throw artistic hands with other artists on the internet.... please come check us out. All the basic rules are on the deviantArt page, the twitter/X page, and far more in-depth material along with cool folks to chat with can be found on our discord. The deadline for the auditions is OCTOBER 11th, which gives you just about the same amount of time to make one as you would have for a round during the tournament. OR just hang out in the server, talk art and maybe participate in some of our Spectator side contests. YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO COME JOIN US AND I BID YOU A WARM WELCOME TO THE REAL! ...just... watch that first step...

[b1adie]

ur katpee raturine post is making me wonder if aventurine and ratio would even survive the hunger games ? u should become president bladie and host one

I WAS PUTTING A BUNCH OF CHARACTERS IN THAT HUNGER GAMES SIMULATOR SITE RECENTLY

here are some highlights. furthermore, i rambled (huge surprise i know)

anyways i love hunger games AUs (i love when characters suffer and die) so i will definitely spend a long time considering this. ive fully written out several with ocs. my first fandom was the hunger games ok i read all three books 11 times so now i have to ponder everything forever

i think aventurine would do really well with getting sponsorships and all that. well liked by the capitol. kind of a finnick type of guy. ratio i feel like wouldnt be as well liked, but still have a decent amount of sponsors since he’s strong and very smart so he’s got higher odds of winning.

okay wait they do kind of have peeta and katniss vibes like not THAT much but the crowd-pleasing good at acting guy and the NOT crowd-pleasing guy who is skilled in survival and not great at acting but unfortunately has to play along with blonde mans act to get ahead. i can see ratio doing that thing katniss did with shooting the arrow at the people supposed to be judging her and sarcastically bowing and going Thank You. For your Consideration. but i suppose he just throws a chalk.

i think a lot of people would want to ally with ratio but he would reject them. makes no sense if they’ll just have to kill each other later. aventurine.. hmm. well like i said he’s well-liked by the capitol which means he’s probably not as liked by the tributes, and considering he doesnt like to show his hand (haha card reference) he wouldnt have shown any skills he has, so no one would particularly have any incentive to ally with him. but. Ough. well. kakavasha. if we made them separate like in the quest and kakavasha was one of the kids that got reaped for the games. well lets not think about that too much or i’ll get sad

ultimately considering aventurine’s luck etc i think he’d make it pretty far and if he DID die it wouldn’t be an accident or a surprise, he’d have set himself up for it to either allow someone else a win, OR spare himself a more gruesome/painful death later. if ratio died i think it’d be an accident. i dont think anyone could actually kill him in a fight, but he could get caught or hit by a trap or he tried to be smart and go out to the edge of the arena but hit the barrier and got zapped. like i feel like it’d have to be somethign small, ONE thing he happened to overlook. but i think it’s obvious neither of them is winning alone. they win together or they both die OR aventurine deliberately sets himself up to die at the very end so ratio is declared the victor. i think that one is pretty likely and hurts in the best way so lets go with that one alright? aventurine eats some poisonous shit or smth in secret and ratio thinks they’re going to find a way to win together until aventurine is like. actively dying and admits what he did. Lol. 😆

[kkbardd]

was your hand inside the box..😭? why were there wooden skewers in a box? i have so many questions yet so little answers..

also sorry for disappearing </3 school suddenly decided to get 5x harder and I have 0 time for anything but sleep

+ you are making me debate whether or not to watch jojo truly the best promoter of everything by just making it yuri-fied

omg isopod!!!! dw abt school stuff, im really busy myself for the same reason!

ok so ive been making this 1/4 bjd of an oc (the succubus i posted a while ago) as a side hobby lately. ill post pictures once i finish everything, but basically what happened was i needed to spray seal all the unstrung parts after blushing them. so i was taking a bunch of wooden kebab skewers and stabbing them into a cardboard box to hold up the parts in the air. (that way i can spray them while holding the skewers, not touching the sealant & have them dry in the air etc etc.) well of course while stabbing them into the box i got a little careless and did it with my arm over the previous skewers andddd... bam theres a skewer stuck in my hand! thank god it didnt go all the way through but it was about 1-2cm in and after pulling it out i had this huge hole in my right hand lol! afterwards (and still kinda now) I can't put much strength into it and it hurts if I do too much. i probably hit a nerve or something!

its crazy though bc a ton of other bad stuff happened right after (that's way too much to talk abt) but i ended up having to get IV's in both my wrists at the EC which made my hands even more unusable 😔 I'm doing way better now but bc of all that, the skewer incident really became the least of my worries!

I am always a promoter of jojo!!!!! its so funny you say that though, because i had the exact same interaction w my best friend who's also a lesbian. (she was the one i spent 50 mins in voice notes explaining the plot of part 4 just with the change that kira's a lesbian now LOL) if u love yuri and wanna get into jojo i STRONGLY recommend part 6!! its prison lesbians!! you really don't need to watch the previous parts to watch it, most of everything u can pick up on by context clues. it's my absolute favorite part, and the way women are written in it is really good!! i got my friend on it and she loves it despite knowing nothing of jojo before.

i love jojo so much but i must say that especially in the early parts, the women are either nonexistent or badly written. its only when you get to part 6 that they get fully fleshed out (and really well i gotta add)! but even despite that i really really love jojo for all that it is!! its such a unique show and you get so many unique and interesting moments that u really can't see anywhere else. i mean who else has a plotline where u have to fight vincent van goh made from a stand called bohemian rhapsody!? its crazy! (and ofc just know that jojo is a fighting show first n foremost, so while there can be some subcontext that makes people ship characters, there's not that much actual romance, much less queer romance between characters to speak of ☝😌)

i would definitely recommend part 6 if you wanna see strong, complex female characters with an amazing plotline. and if u like mystery with a patrick bateman-type villain, part 4 is still really fun to watch (ESPECIALLY if you watch it while imagining kira as a lesbian <33 )

[goodgirlgonebard]

hi, if you’re here for the first time it’s probably because of AO3 so first off I just want to say — THANK YOU!

below is my masterlist of my fics & other social links. thank you for visiting!

asks & DMs are always welcome, but please do not DM me unless you are 18+ (I am 24!)

my fics (AO3 links)

Series — The Stars Aligned

artwork (middle) by @/mekanikerik 🧡

Goodnight, My Love

First person, female Tav (wizard, high elf) x Astarion

Fic that takes place during the game; essentially a character study on how things might look if Tav had an actual backstory and actual feelings. This fic deals with a lot of trauma and does not gloss over Astarion’s feelings about sex after the confession in act 2, so I would read with caution if that’s a hard topic for you but for me as a survivor it’s been very healing to write.

This fic is my first re-entry into writing since college and you can definitely tell I was finding the voice/swing of things in the first bunch of chapters, but I’m quite fond of how it is now and I have a lot more planned for my BloodMoon babes 🤍

Luna lore can be found under #my ocs: luna

Star-Crossed

A companion piece I wrote for GML that covers several different chapters from Astarion’s POV leading up to the act 2 confession. Both fics include chapter guides on when I would recommend reading this one, but this fic can be read as a stand-alone or doesn’t have to be read at all to understand GML.

Could also start with this fic and then jump straight to the confession chapter if you want to skip my world-building stuff, I won���t judge 😝

Series - Willow & Astarion

Dealbreaker

Third person alternating POV, female Tav (bard, human) x Ascended! Astarion

This fic takes place a few months post-game, after Willow (Tav mc) originally broke up with Astarion post-ritual, not wanting to become a vampire spawn. Obviously they reunite, and they both want each other but have to sort out what that means for their own individual goals/desires post-tadpole.

My characterization of A!A is less storybook villain, more deeply traumatized and suddenly incredibly powerful man unwilling to work through his problems to end cycles of abuse. If you’re not into it, that’s okay, don’t read it!

Willow lore can be found under #my ocs: willow

moodboard for the first date chapters | moodboard for the party chapters

Shiver

A short story I wrote for Fall in Faerûn featuring Willow & Astarion pre-ascension. It takes place in early act 3 and is about eight thousand words of pure fluff & smut ❤️ Can be read completely independently of Dealbreaker, but will likely be enjoyed more by (and will likely hurt more for) readers of the longfic.

ko-fi

(in case anyone ever wants to support me by buying a coffee but no pressure I just write stuff for fun and love u either way)

twitter is ambs_thebard

I made it just to follow bg3 artists but I kinda don’t use it rn but I maybe will! who knows!

[redbayly]

Zutara Fic Progress

Currently trying to get my next chapter finished for "Hot Ice, Strange Snow" and I'm getting close to smashing my laptop in frustration. It's been over a month since I've updated and I'm furious with myself.

I am so close. So very close and I want to post the chapter so badly. I probably shouldn't even be distracting myself by writing this, but it's like 1:00am and I'm tired and want to ramble.

I've been reveling in Northern Water Tribe worldbuilding and developing Gran-Gran's backstory beyond just "she was engaged to Pakku and ran away because arranged marriage sucks." There's this whole thing about how regressive policies get passed and some stuff about access to education and student activism and protests.

And then I began writing in stuff about classism and bullying and academic pressure and domestic abuse and reproductive rights and how inherently horrifying the idea of forced marriage actually is. I kind of went off when thinking about all the ways NWT culture probably messes with the people who are part of it. Not that I'm making everything and everyone terrible, I've just been thinking far too much about how sexism influences and shapes culture and people.

Obviously, Katara ain't having any of this shit.

Also, I've decided to make Yugoda a more notable character because she deserved better than, like, five or six lines of dialogue and two background appearances.

Anyway, here's where I'm at story-wise.

(spoilers ahead)

I've dived head-first into Katara starting an underground waterbending class as part of her master plan for a full-on social revolution. In doing this, I ended up giving Katara a bunch of new friends around her age and made things ten times more complicated for myself by building those OCs as characters and using them to explore the effects of NWT sexism.

Aang is having some problems in Pakku's class and unintentionally offends people wherever he goes. He also gets caught up in some tension among the Water Tribe boys that he doesn't really understand.

Sokka gets to witness the effects of sexism on a society and has a proper epiphany about why Katara has always been so mad about it. Like, not just realizing girls can fight, but finally understanding the deeper problems. He has therefore decided to be a supportive big brother who aids and abets in illegal activities if they are for a good purpose. Also, he's thinking of busting out the Kyoshi Warrior uniform for good measure because non-bender girls need a teacher, too (yes, he still has the uniform. He was wearing it when they left Kyoshi and he's not going to get rid of something that important. It's a travesty that he never got to wear it again in the original series).

The main part I'm struggling to get through is the Zuko sections. I've got him into and out of a seedy tavern and onto a northbound merchant ship where he's learning that, while being a deckhand isn't great, you can't yell at people to solve your problems. I'm trying to figure out him having a meaningful chat with the captain who hired him to give him some sort of important life lesson but I'm still feeling stuck.

I'm so sorry, Zuko. You've been taking kind of a back seat in this chapter. I promise, you'll get your spotlight back soon. You just need to get up north and reunite with the Gaang (and especially with Katara).

[bonnyhoddie]

Ocellus - Teenage Exocolonist OC

I need to post more so here’s something I made in February for a game I love a lot - I was a Teenage Exocolonist!

The character is called Ocellus (yes, like the changeling in MLP I could not think of anything else that sounded sciency or eccentric enough, ideas are welcome!) and their augment is chameleon, because I thought it’d be easiest for my mental health and art block to create a character with obvious signs such as that, without going into classic animals, like a cat or mouse. (Also I had a snake as a pet called Misty and I wanted to give a character a reptile tail)

The idea sketches (as you’ll find from the inconsistent outfits and lazier style, and also Ocellus being pink and blue to match the butterfly, when in the reference, it became decided that those colours would be romantic (I might change them actually)) and the reference drawing was actually made either on the same day or a day before I left my toxic environment lol

Also, fun fact, someone accused me of character theft because a bunch of members were planning to make a mod called Extracolonists (NOT Extracolonist by Seraphic on Reddit) so, AFTER I made Ocellus and just had to do some final details, I was like “omg how cool would it be if I joined in on the mod, they have some space left” so I looked through the discord search thing, looking up “chameleon” and I found a character called “Chanterelle”.

So, finding a chameleon augment character already I was like “oh ok so it won’t go in the mod, ah well, I’ll just post this in the art channel and make a little joke about it.”

Important thing to note: These characters looked nothing alike, aside from being POC and having multi-coloured hair. However, Chanterelle was default blue/pink and all I saw was an image, so I imagine a lot of the functionality stuff like the sign language and the tongue being too big in the mouth, is all mine (or, it’s ours now because sadly I did probably give too many ideas to them). Another thing to note is that I was exclusively following Exocolonist eccentric explorer styles, while the image I saw was Chanterelle’s child version just kinda in a blue hoodie.

And, at first I got compliments and, what confirms my thoughts about the functionality being mine, is that I was being COMPLIMENTED for my ideas AND my character. UNTIL, one person, decided to be like “I’m really uncomfortable with this” and, when I asked why, I get “Because it’s character theft! The characters look exactly alike!”

(They don’t, at all, whatsoever, again, aside from being POC and having multi-coloured hair with COMPLETELY different types of hair texture and multi-coloured types (Ocellus has straight thick hair that’s essentially just very tiny chameleon scales, so it’s a little heavy, with colours at the ends, while Chanterelle had afro space buns and split dye), which, is probably telling that those features make characters look “exactly alike” but idk I’m white, I don’t think I get to decide on what’s telling)

So then, the ENTIRE group, even ones that were COMPLIMENTING me, decided to just turn on me LMAO, (fucking pick a lane a stick to it dudes lmao /j) which, from the perspective of “I had just joined a few days ago and they don’t know me and they have established friendships” I get, but, first of all, I was doing a bachelor of ARTS at the time, which I stated on the first day, I’m sure that I wouldn’t be doing that if I was uncreative enough to be a thief, and, whenever I tried to defend myself and prove my innocence, I was not listened to and I had the EXACT SAME PHRASE repeated to me “you know how it looks right?” Over and over and over again no matter how many times I responded to that, it just was not going anywhere, my attempts of defusing the situation just was not working at all, and I was not being listened to. So then the person who “called me out” decided to post in another channel “let’s make another server for the mod because this doesn’t feel like a safe space for me anymore :(“

EXCUSE ME??? YOU accused me of character theft and dismissed my Timelapses, which is the ONLY way of proving that I didn’t steal a character design. I was reasonable and polite the whole time because I wanted to calm things down and clear up a misunderstanding, while you wanted to argue, and accuse me and my friend of being toxic because she has harsh tone sometimes, while YOU YOURSELF were displaying extremely toxic behaviours, the only bad thing I said to her was:

“I’m so sorry, this saying is only ever said in a mean way and I have no other way of saying this, but, I’m not gonna lie, I feel like it has to be said, you aren’t special, not every coincidence you see in a character is theft against you, and I’m literally in Uni for ART and MAKING CHARACTERS, where I am watched and observed when doing character design tasks, I’m not gonna be uncreative and steal a character design. I just checked to see if Ocellus could be in the mod, that’s it”

Because, I’m gonna be honest, the character wasn’t basic, and was fucking adorable, I’m not trying to insult the character, BUT, she had a LOT of popular character design choices when I checked, and not really much to separate her too much from the norm, which is absolutely ok, BUT, that means that that person is going to see a LOT of characters that look similar, and they can’t expect people to NOT have coincidental ideas of things that ARE unique to the character.

So I just sent a really long message about how I’m gonna leave because I TRIED to peacefully and calmly settle the issue, but everyone was willing to just attack me DESPITE complimenting me before, and not listen to me at all despite showing my Timelapses to show my thought process. And then for the person who started this whole thing to suddenly feel “unsafe” despite the fact that I was the one being attacked.

So, one of my friends (me and 3 others joined because we wanted to be a part of a community) stayed in the server, either that one or an 18+ one to see what happens after or for anyone to try and talk to me through her, and one of the mods did contact her, super sweet like:

“Hey I’m so sorry your friend went through that, we had a talk with the others, we don’t think Chari (me) did anything wrong and we’re gonna make a ticket system so things never escalate like this again, so if they want to join back at all, they are free to, again, we’re so sorry, we don’t let these things slide without a reaction.”

Anyway, I haven’t joined back since, because I said that I would if the person who called me out apologised, and, if I DID rejoin, I should get an apology from the people who escalated everything (bit immature I know and I did state that), but the mod kindly explained that she wouldn’t apologise and would just leave if I joined back, so I just decided that, instead of chasing her out of possible safe spaces by just existing, I was just gonna stick to talking about it with my friends and maybe in the future join another server, which I haven’t done yet. Also there was some Vace lovers /j

So yeah, fun story lol, I wonder how they’re getting on and I do hope the project is going well for them.

Might also add some more patterns and details to some parts of Ocellus and make an Ocellus mod, not out of spite at all, I promise, but because I really wanna do something with them and I really wanna make mods.

Also, despite how it seems, I’m not actually mad, I find this haha funny. I was also stressed and annoyed at the time but not exactly angry.