#but this ask hit very close to home.

[nanamikentorp]

small town girl here, moving to a big city all alone, I am overwhelmed but I know I need it. I finally got away from that stuffy town, but holy crap am I feeling so lonely for the first time, even though I am between more people than I have ever known. theres so much more to study, so many more chores and just...it's a lot.

Any suggestions, Kento?

Hello small-town-girl anon.

I'm going to tell you very openly, that adulthood is a very lonely period. Especially this age you're in right now.

You leave behind all you know to start anew. You've grown up and understand yourself better so making friends isn't as simple as we once found it when we were younger. And the world is much larger and sometimes feels, a little scary, doesn't it.

But that's all okay. Trust me. There are things you can do to help.

Please start learning to be at ease in your own company. You will find yourself alone with yourself a lot more now. This is not a curse. This is good. Solitude is peaceful. Solitude allows for you to step away from the muchness of the world and therefore gives you the space you need to grow. It is good to grow.

But do not let solitude become your only friend. Seek out like minded people. It might be scary at first, but there are people around you who will be like you. People who like similar things like you, who appreciate your quirks and oddities. Go to them. Be around them. Take part in activities that will make you become part of their groups. A human is a social animal, this is also good for growth.

Remember that everyone is different and you may not agree with everything someone says but petty battles are not worth it. You might find yourself at odds with someone, you might find yourself unable to stand someone's guts. It is alright. Not everyone will be exactly like you. This is the beauty of life. People are as varied as we are numbered. We each have our own quirks and oddities, like I mentioned before. They will learn to love you how you need, and you should extend that love to them as well.

Love. Freely, openly, without worry. Just love. There's so much hate in the world that loving is an act of rebellion. And rebel you should. Don't forget to extend that love to yourself, at the end of the day, you are your oldest friend. So be that. A friend.

I hope this helps anon, and if you ever need it, this inbox is always open.

Also, I'm sure some of you have also gone through similar things, so if you have anything you think would be helpful please do leave it in the comments, or you can send it in an ask. This is such a loving and warm community I do believe we're all going to help each other out here.

Much love,

Nanami and Admin

[quirkle2]

i have GOT to stop drawing things for fics i haven't written yet

[katyspersonal]

Marika & Messmer are fascists but not the hornsent who chop people to small pieces and put them inside jars to achieve divinity because they believe they're "chosen" people and therefore superior to other races? Have you considered the possibility that sometimes both sides of a war can suck? This is why frenzied flame is the way🙏

Anon, I am going to scold you before I get to the topic because "have you considered [thing]" here should be reserved for a problem when someone is ignorant and in a bad, poor-taste way! Which I was not because obviously I "considered" this! You are referring to a silly post of me liveblogging how I got to Messmer, and so of course I addressed Messmer! I should not add long disclaimer about every other lore-relevant thing when I make a basically liveblog-ish remark to "demonstrate" that I do not let other culprits in the story "get away" either! 😣 For example recently I've been focusing on Fire Knights to express my hatred for religious purism, but later in another post about story of Abyssal Woods I've instead focused my vitriol on Hornsent Inquisitors! There is its own post and time for everything!

Okay back to the LORE with light heart now!! This is true of course that both sides are atrocious; the Hornsent basically pulled a mad cult crusade on the shamans, and very ironically long time after their folks were victims of also a religion-driven crusade! This is basically playing extermination ping-pong for generations and regardless of who "started it", none of the innocent people (children, those who disagree and simply belong to [race], distant descendants that did not DO anything etc) deserved to be exterminated by association.

To get more elaborate, one has to take into consideration just how long the conflict has been going on for, and everything else Marika has done besides the Crusade. The people being killed by Messmer's army are most likely generations apart from the people who hurt Marika's! I've mentioned that earlier where I questioned how Grandam and Hornsent (NPC) seem to not even know why Marika/Messmer went with war at them at ALL. Like, both are/were barbaric in their own way, but there's clearly a side that has suffered enough now. Like, this was such a disgusting conflict that even Marika, who was the one who had it ordered in the first place, felt the need to distance herself from it because it WAS the battle without glory or honor. There were the Hornsent, likely a cult or something, who murdered and mutilated the Shamans back in their time, but Marika was the one who started the war and kept it going even after it was clear that the Hornsent had lost, and ruined the lives of many people that weren't even part of the war in resistance like the Hornsent NPC! (One more nitpick about it is that her/Messmer's war was that of exterminating of all who have no Grace, as opposed to some insane idea on how to force them to be reborn to "join" her type of people hfhhhbhf)

Correct me here if I am wrong, but so far we can't know if ALL Hornsent accepted the practices of Bonny Village and their higher religious institution. The Greater Potentate Cookbooks that we find relating to hefty pots describe the author as having been "haunted by the grotesque practice of his village of birth". This guy didn't sound like he was very proud of what his people were doing, and it's coming from someone who was raised there! There's likely a lot of other Hornsent who found the practice just as disgusting, especially amongst those that didn't do it themselves, but we don't know that because most of them are dead and the ones who remain are understandably upset and distrustful of "our" kind!

🤔 It is also because of this why it's more reasonable to call the two leading figures of a cleansing war fascists than an entire race, because we can't just assume that ALL Hornsent are fascists just because their religious order and justice system is fucked up. We just don't have a key leader figure to redirect such sentiments towards, unlike with the Golden Order! Basically confirmed fascists are Marika, Messmer + Fire Knights + Black Knights + troops, various warriors and perfumers and what not who agreed to participate @ the Hornsent who are doing the potting, the Hornsent who did slaughter Marika's village, and remaining corrupt clerics leaders of the religion!

(On a side note, Frenzied Flame is definitely the answer but y'all shouldn't tell Melina on me hfjjchjgdh)

________

UPDATE 1 from July 4th that I wanted to add in the OG post instead:

I have nothing to add here, all of these are rather fair points! I am a little late with adding these screenshots but you've probably seen some more speculation on the Hornsent Inquisitors these couple of days by me and @val-of-the-north in my blog! Here if you missed these: ( x ) ( x ) The gist of it is that seems like Inquisitors are hunting their fellow Hornsent as heretics for serving the "impure" nobles, but regardless of whether it happened before Marika's mentioned "betrayal" or after, it is STILL horrible to harm people for association with those that didn't even do anything wrong :^)

Still applies that calling the whole race fascist doesn't work (heck, the Hornsent who choose to stand with Midra and Nanaya are confirmation of strong exceptions!), but the sentiment is certainly very strongly rooted culturally.

Sigh.. I am pretty sure there are people somewhere in the fandom that would fall into "hornsent deserved it" pit over this, too. Like "hey, even currently Hornsent culture is a rich soil for Shaman Villages 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0 and so on to happen, so why not preventively exterminate an inherently dangerous culture?" (..if anyone here really thinks along these lines, please know that this is a dangerous line of thinking and you'll get ideologically groomed into excusing genocides before you know if you don't question what you're implying here) What they needed was more communication with other cultures and adopting more tolerant and humane principles. Seeing that various horn-ness species are just like them rather than sitting in the "we divine they filth" bubble if it is THAT bad. Maybe Marika even HAD the power to provide such change and bridge the gap while she was still a trusted figure to them during her "infiltration", and yet instead of putting and end to terrible traditions with careful planning and diplomacy, she chose the path of revenge..

Genuinely a depressing point to think about. And yes, absolutely doesn't do her a honor to choose ruin and hate.

________

UPDATE 2 from July 11th:

I also completely forgot to back it up that the fellow Hornsent were also facing execution through being stuffed in jars!

Yeah nah, definitely their people in power were so dangerous that should someone protest against the murder of Shamans and alike, they'd meet the same fate.. Having to swallow what your insane authorities do, with your own life in the line, is also something very real. This situation obscures the number of people who are against it from the superficial look.

I myself live in the country where people can't protest against the government unless they want to go to prison or face other dire consequences, so having to sit quietly for the sake of yourself and your own families for the outside world LOOKS like we don't care and ""'"agree""". :)))) Fun stuff. :') Here, anyone who would ask why Hornsent that disagree with their leaders don't express it would technically be in their right to do so, but most people will protect their own life first, especially if sacrificing it won't really avail anything. Again, Elden Ring is incredibly real with these topics. :')

[aleksanderscult]

Is anon dating Mal 💀

I shouldn't laugh that hard but I did bye--😭😭

[tj-crochets]

Do you have a particular organization you work with for providing disaster relief?

At the moment, no. My dad and several of my neighbors have been helping out with various local groups, but so far my donations have been things like clothes I had on hand that happened to be the size my neighbor's coworker, who lost their house in a flood, needed, or stuff like that The baby blankets are going to a different neighbor's kid's school, who is arranging donations for...I think it's a particular city but I am not sure how to reveal what city without giving away where I live more precisely than I really want to? I live close enough to the flooding that I don't really need to work with an organization, because everyone in my neighborhood is at max two degrees of separation from someone who lost everything in the floods. I can give things, including baby blankets, directly to the families affected. I mean, that said, I am giving them to my neighbors to distribute, but that's because I can't drive and a lot of the places donations are going you can't drive to at the moment anyway. One of my neighbors is organizing people with ATVs to go take food, water, fuel, and other necessities up to some of the communities that currently have no road access I got very, very lucky with where I live and the infrastructure that happened to be in place*. There was severe flooding less than ten minutes away from where I live in more than one direction, but where I live made it and enough of the roads are intact to be able to get out. Some routes are more circuitous than they used to be, but it's still possible

*by happened to be in place I mean in my particular neighborhood and the work my dad has had done in our yard, not the rest, I know a lot of people over a lot of years made the infrastructure of the larger area

[topicaltropic]

oops! all wips

[storytellering]

Love your art and I'm generally curious as to what the appeal of Dante/Vergil is to you? Do you have any hc that you're drawing from or is it just personal preference? I struggle to imagine the right conditions for them to be involved in that way and would like to know what inspires you.

I will premise this by saying, that I’m actually not a MASSIVE fan of just DV for its own sake, if Nero isn’t also included (or like, with the assumption he will, 100%, be included once he’s in the picture). To me it’s kind of a baseline pairing?

As in, I don’t even have to think about it. Of course they’re in love, of course they’re together, of course they’re fucking. It’s almost an afterthought to me, the way the married parent couple of the protagonist in a story inherently are. It doesn’t necessarily interest me by itself, that fact, it’s just a certainty, it just is. I guess, for me, the interest in DV specifically comes more out of what other people make of it, because for me I’m almost always approaching first from the perspective of Nero being there also, haha.

There’s also the fact that I have a lot of hc about just like, the way demons function as a species, I guess. I took a lot of things dmc canon gave me and went like, “alright, time to project this into the most self indulgent, non-human society but humanoid looking species I can think up in my brainhead”. To me a lot of the appeal comes from it being not necessarily a predestined thing as much as like, a biological inevitability - (going to speak in definitives about my own hc from here on, so not making any statement about canon dmc lol) demons mate with their kin, and with whoever deems worthy - and twins from the same litter would inevitably end up being the other’s first partner, their first choice, their other half. In a sense, to me, they’re soulmates - though honestly I prefer to think of it more as two halves of the same soul, following the implications in 3 and the 3 manga that them being twins comes from the spawn of Sparda being too powerful to just be born in one body. That might sound like I’m just saying they’re soulmates in a different way, but not really - to me, if I had to go the soulmate route, Nero would be both of their soulmate - because the two of them make one single soul, and the match to that would be Nero’s.

I kind of just go off of the assumption that they are in love and have been since they were in the womb, you know?

That colors the way I see their every interaction. To me, in their fighting, their squabbles and their feuds, there’s always love at the source. Familial, yes, but romantic and sexual as well - and to me, when I think about them, it’s all one and the same. To love each other like family is to be intwined, is to be mated, is to be a pack and is to be one.

That’s the more deep thoughts I have about it, I have more shallow/surface thoughts (and specifically ship dynamic thoughts about like, what appeals to me about them sexually lol) but if I had to quickly sum it up that’s what I would say, I think. 

[nursewashing]

god i just love anya so much. i'm struggling to put into words just how much she means to me as a character already, and i haven't even written her for a month yet!

[woodsborostabathon]

pondering the kirsch siblings orb yet again and you really cannot convince me that quinn would not have been moving like depression era bella in new moon from the moment she even FOUND OUT richie was moving to modesto...

[barghest-land]

ooooohh listening to sad songs while drawing javier was a mistake...

[orcelito]

This morning, my therapist called me to let me know she's setting up her own practice via telehealth (which is what we were using Anyways) & asked me whether I'd want to follow her there. She still has to set stuff up with insurance stuff But her out of pocket stuff is like HALF what I've been paying out of pocket for the company she was in. So I was like, Hell Yeah let's do it

So im gonna keep up with appointments, maybe once a month or so, just so I have the accountability + the ability to ramble about what I've achieved. Bc that's been rly nice for me. I'll have my therapist back!!!! And better than ever, if only because I have to pay so much less for it 😂😂😂

And ALSO, today I put in my course request for the orchestra into the form. So different from just two weeks ago, where I was practically begging to be given a chance to audition. I was sitting in the same spot of the lobby even, but putting in my official orchestra request instead of sending an email as I vibrated in hope and anxiety. I Got It tho. And the class won't even be that late in the day. It's really exciting.

[porcelainvino]

for song asks: 14, 19, 23? :)

14. A song that inspires you?

chemical overreaction / compound fracture by will wood and the tapeworms… looking through my playlist i’m slowly realizing i have NO (objectively) inspirational songs (i think i kinda hate inspirational music… like i don’t like when they tell me what to feel i guess??? 😭💔) bUt this song gets me GOING MAKES ME WANT TO DO STUFF IDK WHY

19. A song that you'd recommend to me?

in der palästra by sopor aeternus & the ensemble of shadows it’s about trans pain and agony and (imo) one of sopor’s best songs and it’s so GOOD I LOVE IT SO MUCH AHHHHH

23. A song from your childhood?

let it be by the beatles it was my fav song as a kid as well as a lot of the beatles’ songs my dad would play their music all the time

[emdotcom]

My brain is so full of Bees about Post-Shift 2.

It's a fan game that was delayed for 4 years -- by the time it released, fnaf fangames as a whole were not as popular as they had been, & most people in the scene had forgotten about Post-Shift 1, so not a lot of people heard about it/played it.

Worse still is the people who did talk about the game. Pretty unanimously, the consensus was this: this game is the craziest, most insane fnaf fangame. It's overly difficult with mechanics that have no rhyme or reason to them & tutorials that are wordy, unhelpful, & sometimes actively mislead the player, meaning you need to comb through a lot of text only to be misinformed. It's not as infamous as some other fangames, but it definitely was talked about very poorly.

In general, I think most of these criticisms were blown up out of proportion, but I can't really disagree with most people's problems -- it is difficult & wordy, & rather hard to understand. I think, however, that the game is still 1. Really fun, 2. Not a bad game at all, &, most importantly, 3. Is a free fucking game that was clearly a passion project. Most damn fangames never get off the fucking ground when made in groups because the creators will never make a red cent off the thing -- this game was made by one dude for 4 years & delivered to people for free. It didn't ask anything of you except to accept it as a difficult game & to not go in with wild expectations. The dev just wanted to make a game that was rough, but he also wanted to make a game that felt unique & was fun. & It is fun, too, is the damn thing.

[dayurno]

i feel like dear john by taylor swift gives kevin vibes

its because riko is an expert at sorry and keeping lines blurry never impressed by kevin acing his tests all the boys that youve run dry have tired lifeless eyes cause youve burnt them OOUUTTTTTT!!!!!

but yeah i agree :-) [i took your matches before fire could catch me / so don’t look now] is very kevriko

[drysauce]

truly a blessing that im not home right now or i don't what i'd do to my roommate. fucking audacity

[tinamybeloved]

im an autistic adhd dream fan and it really makes me happy to see dream talk abt stimming type stuff and it makes me feel better about my stims too and same with when he talks about his adhd it makes me so happy and i feel Seen because its like… I do that too!!

☹️this is so cute anogie and I’m glad it makes you feel more seen