#going back to my roots as a dragon artist

[myriad-of-things]

had a series of fuck ups with the watercolor brush. ended up making a cool effect. i have no idea how im gonna replicate this for red eyes

[ghoulgeists]

omg hiiii what that mouth do

[cheezyhamster]

Thimbus! (She/They)

[bodiedbyteecosplays]

Modern!Human Hantengu Brothers headcanons

Heeeyyyy babiesss!!! I’m sorry it’s so late but I FINALLY GOT MY HANTENGU BROTHERS HEADCANONS DONE 🥹🥹!! I sincerely hope y’all enjoy them!

Alright so, The headcanon came from the roots in the manga. Hantengu (the demon) was known to have multiple wives and children and he killed every last one of them. After Muzan’s defeat & Hantengu was reborn, he sadly abandoned his wife and his two children because he still had his memories from his past life and felt guilt & fear. His son grew a bit of resentment for him and promised that when he became a father that he would be there for his children through and through. He met the Brothers’ mother because she was visiting Japan from Nigeria and fell absolutely head over heels in love with her. They soon started dating after getting to know each other. Then married later on and their first born son, Sekido was born, then came Karaku, Aizetsu, Urogi , & Zohakuten.

Their Mother, Dr. Kehinde Adeyinka- Hantengu is a OBGYN & their father Urami Hantengu is a co director for a very big movie production company. ( my boys came from riches but still humble )

Their parents come from different cultures so they always brought them up in a way where they were exposed to both equally. They know Japanese (that does include how to write in Japanese too), Yoruba, Nigerian Pidgin, English, and Swahili.

SEKIDO

• Much like his past life, Sekido still remains the oldest. His birthday is September 3rd, 1995 making our angery baby a Virgo ♍️.

• When I tell yall he is nonchalantttt!! Whew! He literally says the first thing that comes on his mind. His mom always told him that he was like his father in that regard.

• Also much like his past life, he always looks angered (Resting bitch face go brrrrrrr) Most people are kinda afraid to approach him.

• Definitely gets annoyed by his brothers antics (mostly Urogi and Karaku playing pranks on him and pissing him off and Aizetsu constantly second guessing himself)

• Loves the rain and finds it peaceful when it’s thundering outside.. it sets the mood when he’s by himself playing the piano (one of his hidden talents)

• He works as a Auto mechanic at his own shop. (which explains how he knows to keep his cars in perfect condition)

• He is most DEFINITELY a cat person. He has a Black Maine coon mix named Zeus. He found him just laying on top of one of his cars one day as he was getting ready to go get groceries and when he came back from the store, he was sitting in front of his apartment and he started growing fond of him and took him in. Zeus is spoiled rotten so I can only imagine when Sekido gets a partner 🫠.

• Is a greeeeeaaaaattttt cook! Other than their mother, his brothers usually latch on to his place when he does cook. (He definitely has a special apron on when he cooks too) He learned from his momma 🤩

• Has a giant dragon tattoo on his back that was drawn by Zohakuten and tattooed by Managi (Modern Human Gyokko. In my headcanon, he’s a famous Tattoo artist that grew fame from TikTok)

• Definitely is a Heavy sleeper but don’t let that MF Fan Turn off. He gonna wake up PISSED.

• Academically speaking, Sekido is extremely intelligent. He graduated top of his class in High school & has a degree in Engineering (he also graduated top of his class in college too)

• BLACK COFFEE ADDICT! Can’t stand overly sweet coffee or sweet ANYTHING. Likes really savory foods! Lots of meat but not too too much. Also loves vegetables, stews, curry’s, and etc. The only thing he can tolerate that relates to sweet foods is dark chocolate.

• Definitely the type to go to bed by 10 pm (grumpy old man 😂😂)

• LISTEN! My baby is BUILTTTTTTT. He definitely hits the gym after work He’ll OCCASIONALLY go with Karaku if he doesn’t have to work. He’s also tall (he’s 6’3 1/2 and the tallest out of the brothers)

• He adores his family and anyone he deems close although he does get annoyed with their shenanigans he will always and forever care.

• y’all know that bath & body works scent “ Mahogany Teakwood” yeah, literally smells like that plus Shea butter & mint.

KARAKU

• Karaku is the second Born like his past carnation. He was born on October 4, 1996 making him a Libra baby.

• He’s literally a big kid at heart but he’s really chill and down to earth.

• Much like his past life he’s really playful and loves a good thrill. It makes his blood pump lol.

• Loves teasing his brothers (mostly Sekido and Aizetsu) One time he played a prank on Sekido while he was asleep by putting a realistic looking robotic spider on him (poor Seki has arachnophobia 🥲) & when he woke up all hell broke loose and when he finally caught Karaku, he put him in a chokehold and it took Urogi and Aizetsu to get him off of Karaku. 😂😂😂 and you’d think after that he’d learn his lesson (he didn’t)

• He works as a Bartending Manager for a big club and always makes good money in tips because one he loves serving the drinks and seeing people’s reaction to his drinks and they all love him dearly.

• Speaking of, he Is a masttttterrrrr at creating drink recipes and has a miniature bar at his place. He’s also a fairly decent cook but still annoys Sekido because he likes his better 😂.

• Like I’ve said before, mans is a seriously talented dancer & he effortlessly woos people with his moves ever since he went viral online & has a lots of fans (no pun intended).

• He also posts videos of him making drinks on TikTok too and always picks the best songs but people mostly like when he does voice overs of what he puts in drinks.

• He also does Twitch streams from time to time playing games( likes games like FNAF, Dead by Daylight, or any kind of scary games.)

• I also headcanon that he loves Halloween mostly because it’s during his birth month.

• Has one tattoo on his arm of his moms first name. His mom always told him that he reminds her of herself back in her youth.

• Loves all animals but is more so a Dog person.

• HE DOES SMOKE WEED & VAPE!

• Academically he made A’s & B’s in high school so he is quite smart but still goofed off in class though 😂. He has a Bachelors Degree in Communications and is also apart of a Fraternity.

• DEFINITELY A GYM BRO BUT NOT THE TOXIC KIND. Takes his physical health and physique seriously but never ever talks bad about how anyone else chooses to do with their body. If they are happy, he is as well. He’s definitely not a bodyshamer & will put someone in check if they talk bad about someone around him.

• HES A LIGHT SLEEPER. Any little sound will wake him up instantly. One time he came home from work so tired that he forgot that he connected his phone to his big bluetooth speaker while he took a shower & also forgot that he set an alarm to wake him up in the morning for the gym and damn near had a heart attack when his alarm went off. 🥲

• Loves energy drinks and coffee but knows his limits on his intake and that too much caffeine isn’t good. DEFINITELY MEAL PREPS! Has meats, vegetables, and fruits.

• Like I Said, he takes his personal physical seriously. He has a skin care routine and he also smells really good too .. it’s like a Citrusy and warm vanilla type scent mixed with hints of his favorite cologne.

• He’s also fairly tall too standing at about 6’2

• He’s heavily into zodiac signs and reads his horoscope on the daily! Got the rest of his brothers into it. Sekido & Zoha thought it was stupid until they both did some research and it started singling out their individual character traits & that’s what sparked their interests in it.

• He’s a lover at heart so anybody that he loves he has them near and dear to his heart. If he loves you then you’re a 4LIFERRRRR.

AIZETSU

• So he’s the middle child! His Birthday is February 20, 1998 making Zetsy a Pisces baby!

• Much like his past incarnation he’s quiet & monotone if he’s not comfortable around you but once he is comfortable he becomes relaxed and more expressive. Is very introverted.

• He was kind of bullied in school due to his quiet and timid behavior but when asked his opinion on something, much like his older brother Sekido he wouldn’t hold back the truth (it’s always the quiet ones)

• I would like to think that Aizetsu is heavily into meditation because it calms his anxiety and his nerves.

• PLEASE GIVE THIS BABY WORDS OF AFFIRMATION AND REASSURANCE!

• Aizetsu works as a computer tech and is very good with technology. He’s been very tech savvy since he was a kid always learning how it functions and knowing the ins and outs of it. He also works part time as a Lyft driver.

• His hidden talent is singing! Like I said in my last post, Aizetsu is a hellllaaaa talented singer but he only does so in private but if he sings around someone that means he’s comfortable with them.

• He’s into Zodiac signs thanks to Karaku. He’s a water sign (Team waterrrr) so he’s really good at seeing through people and strays away from those who he determines to be not good people.

• Doesn’t really go to the gym. He thinks it’s way too many people. Instead he finds alternatives at home and he was blessed with a high metabolism too so that’s a W for him. But don’t let that fool you, under what he covers up, he’s still buff. He is about 6’2, same height as Karaku.

• Made excellent grades in school. Mostly all As and graduated top of his class like his brother. He is currently in college pursuing software engineering and is still doing excellent academically!

• Is a good cook at best. Only sticks to simple stuff and doesn’t really like to go all out. Not particular about food but in the same breath, he does lean towards savory foods.

• Doesn’t have any tattoos but low key wants a treble clef tattoo on his chest or something small.

• Has a pet Bearded dragon named Toothless.

• Smells really good! I think he would smell like Cinnamon. Skin does get irritated during the summer time but it’s not severe. Does get tips from Karaku about skin care.

• Is much more of a tea kind of person and loves herbal tea (chamomile is his favorite)

• Not really much of a sweets kind of person.

• IS A VERY LIGHT SLEEPER. Imagine Karaku x10!! Will wake up if he hears the smallest sound or if the temperature is not to his liking (he keeps his place on 64 degrees AT ALL TIMES).

• Aizetsu is a very gentle, understanding, sweet, and thoughtful person and he has times where he second guesses himself but he definitely has a good crowd of people around him to keep his head held high.

UROGI

• Like his past incarnation he’s the second to last born. His Birthday is January 4th, 1999 ( he’s only 11 months younger than Aizetsu)

• He is most DEFINITELY a wild child lmao! He’s like Karaku x3000 when it comes to getting a thrill out of doing some shit. As a child he used to like to jump off of crazy shit and oddly would not get hurt 😅

• Has always been hella adventurous since he was a young lad. Always loved being outdoors and being in nature and still does in his adulthood. Likes going hiking & climbing. He feels at peace outdoors.

• He once climbed a whole fucking billboard and sat there for like 10 minutes ( Karaku and one of their cousins has a recording of him climbing it)

• Not only is he super flexible and athletic but he’s also very musically inclined too. His singing voice is on par with Aizetsu and he can read and write music (to an extent).

• Urogi works at the same bar as Karaku (Yes they work together) literally trouble but make it double 😂😂. Much to anyone’s surprise they don’t cause THAT much chaos. If Karaku is thing one then Urogi is thing two!

• He also loves coming up with different type of recipes and they are all a hit. Him and Karaku compete to see whose drinks are the best at work but it’s all brotherly competition and never any hard feelings.

• Heavily into gymnastics too & have been since he was little! So you know he keeps his body in great condition and goes to the gym everyday! He is about 6’1 1/2.

• Academically he made a mixture of A’s, B’s, and some C’s. Never went below a C. Is very smart but is whole ass class clown. It only took one time for his parents to get onto him and he never caused any significant distractions again lmao. Did not want to attend college but chose to follow what he felt was good for him. At first his parents were a little mad but they let Urogi decide what was best for him and supported whatever he decided (WE LOVE GOOD NON TOXIC PARENTING 🥹).

• Can cook but absolutely hates doing it. Prefers takeout instead and only cooks when he is in the mood to do so.

• Very much a HEAVY ASS SLEEPER & SNORES. Can probably sleep through a loud ass storm.

• Smells very earthy but not in a bad way. Like a combination of Pine and Sandalwood. (His favorite body wash is Dove Sandalwood for its earthy tone) Has seasonal breakouts but worst during winter (poor baby)

• He definitely smokes weed but by himself or with Karaku.

• His weakness: HE LOVES SWEETS & JUNK FOOD. Mans can literally eat a XL pizza by himself.

• Urogi is all together a very friendly, eclectic, and outgoing person and everyone can’t help but love him (even though he sometimes drives them crazy) 😂

ZOHAKUTEN

• He’s the last born baby of the brothers! He was born July 21st, 2007 so he is a Cancer baby!

• Like Sekido and Aizetsu, Zohakuten is a rather quiet, reserved person. But he is hellllaaaaa blunt. Zohakuten’s tone may come off a bit direct and blunt and a little harsh but I think he means well. (Sometimes)

• INTROVERTED.

• Also like his brother, he DEFINITELY has a resting bitch face and is his dads literally mini me.

• He is very much into art and loves graphic design. He’s also a very skilled digital artist as well.

• As a matter of fact, he drew the dragon design that Sekido has tattooed on his back for his birthday last year.

• He is still in high school and is very close to his senior year!! He makes excellent grades in school with straight A’s and has always.

• He is also a band student too! He plays the snare drums.

• After Highschool he does hope to help his dad out at the studio and work to save up for college. He wants to pursue a career in art.

• Since he still lives at home of course he gets spoiled by his parents but I don’t see him being the petty type like rubbing it in his brothers faces. Hell they be spoiling him too.

• He hits the gym with his brothers when they go. It’s like part of a bonding experience.

• He is about 5’9 ( his mom thinks that he’s on the brink of a major growth spurt.) For more context, their mom is 5’11 (momma a stallionnnn) and their dad is 6’7.

• HE HATES SWEETS! Prefers spicy foods though! Literally will go through a family sized bag of hot chips in 30 minutes and nobody knows how. (Not even me.) 😂😂😂.

• HEAVY ASS SLEEPER! That’s it that’s the post.

• Is willing to learn how to cook but only trusts his mother or Sekido to teach him.

• Karaku got him into zodiac signs too. He didn’t understand the concept at first until he read further and started seeing his attitude traits in what he read on Cancers.

• Not a people person but it is not as bad as his past incarnation where he bathed in hatred. Is willing to make some changes to his attitude and approach especially pursuing a career that deals with customers commissioning him for his arts but PLEASE do not piss him off or rush his work.

• He may not show it but he lovvvveesssss and adores his family!

I genuinely hope you all enjoyed my headcanons. I had been putting it off and putting it off and making revisions but I think that I love my headcanons for them. There are of course some more to come though so keep your eyes peeled. I will eventually start writing for more fandoms but I gotta let this Hantengu clone brainrot out somehow lmao.

I tag: @i-karaku-swear-i-dont-smoke-weed @ch3rriiii-bunn @hakujisstuff @bbkook @its-freaking-jordan @yunaarts

[cannibalhellhound]

Hello :3 To continue @thatmexisaurusrex's new ask game: please recommend at least three of your favorite BuckTommy or BuddieTommy fic authors, artists, meta writers, gif makers, or edit makers. Maybe sing their praises a bit if you'd like. And if you want to, send this to a few other people and spread the good vibes 🥰

AIGHT SO I DIDN'T FORGET ABOUT THIS

I just needed time to actually think about people and remember their usernames shhhh👍🏼

Fistly calling you @screaming-universe and @buffaluff out because it doesn't matter if it's BuckTommy or BET you are just amazing with it like

The Art!!! The Writing!!!!!! Just 🤌🏼✨

We are crazy au buddies and I love that to the core, besides you deal with me throwing my WIPs at you like a proud toddler :D

@bigfootsmom SAPPHIC POLYFIRE!!! Molly I love your art so much I could cry looking at it. It's that nice. Go look at their stuff (づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡

@inawickedlittletown hehehe werewolf au my beloved. Also DRAGONS and so much more I'm just losing it reading your stuff on ao3 rn. You are also responsible for making me go back to my wolf drawing roots, take responsibility smh (affectionate)

@bucksbignaturals beloved mutual your BuddieTommy meme is in my gallery to this day just so you know (top tier writing too go check it out👌🏼)

@kinardsboy PUMKIN!!!! Talking to you about wild animal dad tommy is a delight and your BuckTommy art is funny and amazing

Btw I love how we just end up sharing lfj titty pics, possums and otters because that's just how my brain works at this point. ALSO Punisher au because that's a thing I needed apparently

Now the BET trifecta because they're open in a separate google tab to locate them when they update

@prettyboybuckley I am hitting you with a pillow full of love because your writing has me cackling and screaming while reading "This can't be love" like, probably the first BET fic I started reading and I can't sing enough praises about it (づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡

@xunandran again sharing with anyone that asks for recs because You're the two has me kicking my feet and wanting to throttle those three with love 👍🏼

@callofthecurlew This love is ours had me screaming at the screen but I love it and I'm hugging you too

^ this is to say go read their stuff because it's great 😌

Last but not least @sunglassesmish you are the lfj content mastermind and THIS post specifically lives rent free in my brain, I'd play it at my funeral 👍🏼 thank you for doing all that hard work (and giving me so many references for drawings) you're amazing ( ◕◡◕)っ ♡

Anyway this is the max amount of love and kindness I can spread in a single word vomit idk how coherent it is lmao but seriously ily keep being great

[physalian]

List of “I need to calm the fuck down” music

(please reblog your own)

Most Trance Music if this list is intimidating- Usually not something you dance to, doesn’t have a lot of percussion and erratic noise. It’s supposed to entrance you.

This list spans the following genres: Pop, folk, grunge, cinematic, and rock.

Maybe I’ll make a Spotify playlist or something with all of them, idk. These are not in alphabetical order but I tried to keep multiple artist entries grouped.

I had the whole thing color-coded but Tumblr didn't like that so here's it in boring text (I still have the colored one if anyone wants it)

WITH LYRICS

Good for Me - Above & Beyond

On a Good Day - Above & Beyond

Blue Sky Action - Above & Beyond

The Hollywood Bowl Show - Above & Beyond

I Love You Always Forever - Donna Lewis

I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie

Through the Eyes of a Child - AURORA

Retrograde - Pearl Jam

Run Boy Run - Woodkid

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

Would That I - Hozier

After All These Years- Journey

Let it All Go - Birdy

Holocene - Bon Iver

Home I/II - Dotan

Outro - M83

Flares - The Script

O - Coldplay

Fly On - Coldplay

Strawberry Swing - Coldplay

Midnight - Coldplay

Lovers in Japan (Acoustic) - Coldplay

Clocks - Coldplay

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall - Coldplay

Up & Up - Coldplay

Fix You - Coldplay

Oceans - Seafret

Dice - Finley Quaye

Medicine - Daughter

Wash Away - Joe Purdy

Upside Down - Jack Johnson

Heartbeats - Jose Gonzales

Teardrop - Massive Attack

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For - U2

Where the Streets Have No Name - U2

Beyond the Sea - Bobby Darin

Life is a Highway - Rascal Flatts

Something I Need - OneRepublic

Dead in the Water - Ellie Goulding

Mr. Brightside - The Killers

Morning Elvis - Florence + The Machine

End of Love - Florence + The Machine

What the Water Gave Me - Florence + The Machine

Sky Full of Song - Florence + The Machine

Free - Florence + The Machine

Choreomania - Florence + The Machine

Walls - Kings of Leon

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Tom Petty/Prince

Silver Spring - Fleetwood Mac

Big Love - Fleetwood Mac

Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac

Don’t Look Back in Anger - Oasis

The Albatross - Taylor Swift

The Archer - Taylor Swift

You’re On Your Own Kid - Taylor Swift

Clean - Taylor Swift

On My Way - Phil Collins

Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros

I Shall Not Walk Alone - The Blind Boys of Alabama

Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root

Manic - Cloves

Dorian - Agnes Obel

Down to Earth - Peter Gabriel

Shine On You Crazy Diamond I-IV - Pink Floyd

On the Turning Away - Pink Floyd

High Hopes - Pink Floyd

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

Take it Back - Pink Floyd

November Rain - Guns n’ Roses

Breathe Me - Sia

They’ll Soon Discover - The Shins

Just a Kid - Wilco

Evenstar - Howard Shore

Just Like Heaven - The Cure

Angela - The Lumineers

Scotland - The Lumineers

Nobody Knows - The Lumineers

Sleep on the Floor - The Lumineers

The Ink from Books - Sleeping at Last

Lightning Crashes - Live

Disarm - The Smashing Pumpkins

Glitter in the Air - P!nk

Silhouette - Aquilo

Water Under the Bridge - Adele

Golden Hour Album - Kygo

Stole the Show - Kygo

Wake Me Up - Avicii

Heaven - Avicii

Hope There’s Someone - Avicii

Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

WITHOUT LYRICS

Flow State (Continuous Mix) - Above & Beyond

Memory Gospel - Moby

Immanuel - Tony Anderson

Define Dancing - Thomas Newman

Haiku/Nemo Egg - Thomas Newman

American Beauty - Thomas Newman

Chasing Ice - J. Ralph

One Day - Hans Zimmer

Thunderbird/The Decision - Hans Zimmer

1917 - Thomas Newman

The Mighty Rio Grande - This Will Destroy You

The Minecraft OST - C418

The World of Goo OST - Kyle Gabler

Tessa - Imagine Dragons

Forbidden Friendship - John Powell

Experience - Ludovico Einaudi

The Aviators - Helen Jane Long

Once There Was A Hush Puppy - Benh Zeitlin

On the Nature of Daylight - Max Richter

The Beginning - Factor 8

End of An Era - Zach Hemsey

I Walk With Ghosts - Scott Buckley

The Chasing Coral OST - Dan Romer

The Luca OST - Dan Romer

Arrival to Earth - Steve Jablonsky

Tower of Joy - Ramin Djawadi

Light of the Seven - Ramin Djawadi

Into a Nighttime Sky - Jeremy Zuckerman

Greatest Change - Jeremy Zuckerman

Your Hand in Mine/Home - Explosions in the Sky

Ori, Lost in the Storm - Gareth Coker

Arrival of the Birds - Cinematic Orchestra

Fireflies - Mychael & Jeff Danna

Across the Stars - John Williams

The Soul OST - Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

The Queen’s Gambit OST - Carlos Rafael Rivera

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 7: Egg

The burden of being a person is that you can look around at the situation of the world at large, your own circumstances, and the instincts and drives that push you toward certain reactions to that situation, and you know that as a person you have the willpower and agency to make a choice. So you feel the responsibility of trying to figure out the right choice and to push yourself through to do it, even if it's against those instincts and drives. And then you watch yourself follow those instincts and drives anyway.

It's how humanity got here.

I was born in 1974. I was conscious and building memories before Reagan was elected, and I remember one of his debates with Carter. I don't remember it well, but I remember it was important to people. And after that, things got dark and scary.

I was raised during the end of the Cold War, during a time when no one who took it seriously thought it could or would end in any way but nuclear holocaust. And on top of that, I was educated by my teachers and parents about just how imminent and deadly global warming would be.

And then I watched as seemingly everyone forgot about all of that.

But, there are still way too many nuclear weapons on the planet, and way too many close calls with them. And, oh, look, there's that climate change. And the predicted conflicts and genocides as a result of that climate stress have been ramping up for the past several decades, becoming a backdrop a lot of us take for granted. The world's forests burn while militaries bomb the shit out of civilians and cut off their routes of escape.

And, lo and behold, the sixth global mass extinction has begun, and we dragons are, according to the Artists I've spoken to, the final confirmation of it. Never mind that seventy or so species of life form go extinct every day. Gone. No more. Something weird and alarming has happened as a result of the chaos and now the world has us dragons.

Except that we might turn it all around.

When I look back on my life, before dracomorphosis, I don't remember ever thinking that I would have children. I figured I'd die single and unmated. And that if I ever did find a partner, I'd never be able to support a child. I couldn't support myself. And, I had this weird unfounded suspicion I was sterile or something, which I think was an emotion rooted in fatalism and self loathing, really. But, you know, it's hard to have any sort of hope or sense of self worth when you're raised in a world that's obviously been doomed from before the start of your own life and nothing you ever do measures up.

I also certainly didn't see bringing a child into this world as any sort of ethical thing. I resented being alive, myself, and I saw all birth as a profound cruelty.

Though I mostly kept that to myself, because I didn't want to make anyone else feel more miserable for any reason.

I think that when I was freed from my prison of a previous body, my personality did change pretty fundamentally, though. I'm way more aggressive and fearless than I have ever been in my life. Impulsive beyond my own belief. And despite having fewer words, I talk to way more people way more often. I'm outgoing, and I'm enjoying life, and I recognize myself.

And now I'm proud to be having a child.

I feel like I'm making the world a better place by doing it. And I don't believe my child is going to suffer. I think they are going to thoroughly enjoy whatever life they have, in a way I don't think other lifeforms can ever be sure of.

It isn't fair at all. But, it's what I'm doing.

And I may not have even had a choice in the matter, except to eat my own egg after laying it, effectively aborting it. That is an option that did briefly occur to me and repulse me. But, if I hadn't bred with anyone, I'd very likely have produced a parthenogenic clone. Which would have been sort of a disappointment, but I'd still have been so proud and protective of her.

Instead, I got to experience a whole variety of sex this Spring, and then lay this precious, wonderful egg.

An egg with a surprise in it!

And laying that egg was a trip and a half.

It's about the size of my head, and almost oblong. It's nearly cylindrical, with straight but tapered sides, capped with rounded ends. Clearly shaped to roll in a circle, and to have as much interior space as possible while still being able to pass out of my cloaca without tearing anything.

I woke up in the middle of the night to contractions that felt an awful lot like an urgent shit, and I knew I couldn't make it to the outdoors fast enough. It felt like shapeshifting would have just squeezed it out faster. But, then, what started coming out wasn't soft feeling in any way, so I knew exactly what it was.

I stood up and arched my back, lowering my haunches to the ground and looking back between my legs with my head upside-down. And I got to watch it come out!

And seeing my own cloaca stretch like that was weird. Humans who give live birth can sometimes see that kind of thing when viewing it in video afterward. Or, their partners get to watch sometimes. But seeing your own body do that in real time feels like it's extra alarming. The egg came out big end first, and it is quite a bit bigger than a human baby's head. So, there was this red and yellow smeared mottled green surface in the middle of my stretching vent, and it just kept getting wider and wider, and I had no idea how wide it would have to get.

But, what you have to understand is that my haunches are much, much wider than any human's hips now, and my body is bizarrely, magically malleable.

It didn't hurt much.

It felt, at most, like being badly constipated with explosive diarrhea behind it. My gut was cramping and burbling and roiling, and I realized I also hadn't really had the sense of being pregnant before this. I'd just thought the mass was all part of my growth, and was worried I didn't even have an egg to lay. But now that it was moving, I had a sense of where it was and what it had been displacing.

Arching my back like I was doing then felt like it was helping to keep the rotated egg from pressing against my stomach and diaphragm. Which, I'm not sure makes sense compared to other vertebrates, but that's how it felt. And resting my head against the floor made it feel like I had something to push against during a contraction.

And then my cloaca got as wide as it needed to be and slipped around the bulkiest curve of the egg, and my butt went up in the air as the rest of it fell out and rolled to the floor in less than a second.

What followed was that feeling of needing to push more of something out of my gut very urgently, but having nothing there for the muscles to work on. And I felt so much lighter.

And then I really wanted that little sucker and my own ass to be as clean as possible, and I made that happen.

No need to tell you how. Though, it settled my gut to do it.

And now the egg sits on the least used cushioned chair in our living room. Green against green, at least to my eyes.

I put it there, carrying it slowly and carefully in foreclaws, before shrinking myself down enough to go wake Rhoda up and tell her what happened, to drag her out and show her our greatest prize.

That was about a month ago.

I'm not a mother quite yet, but I sure do feel like one.

—

It's a summer evening. I'm digesting three seagulls with the help of some rocks while I watch Joel snooze in the middle of his park. A family is eating takeout dinner at a picnic table near him and the kids keep trying to get up to go over and bother him, but their parents keep telling them to finish their food first. I can't hear them, of course, but their body language says everything.

I'm wondering if Joel would let our child play on him, too.

I also idly wonder if Astraia will teach them how to play D2R and other computer games.

And will Anurak go flying with them and teach them about the spawning habits of salmon?

I have this weird mix of draconic and human child rearing ideals in my head, and I don't know which ones are relevant. And, in part, that's because so much of it gets to be cultural, apparently. The dragons in the Southern hemisphere are each having their own experiences, and it's different by region as well as culture. And really, truly different dragon by dragon.

The draconologists who've started compiling the data have identified a few trends, similar to with human children. Like I said before, dragon whelps mature faster in some ways. But whether they stay with their parents or strike out for their own territories, or mingle with humans or other dragons really varies a lot.

I just don't know what my own whelp will be like until they hatch, so all I can do is daydream and make contingency plans.

And the way that Joel tolerates strange human children really makes me hope he'll do the same for a little dragon.

I know I would. But the more dragons that can socialize with my child, the better for everyone, I think.

And then I hear a familiar voice. One I haven't heard for several years, accompanied by the sound of a couple of children, and two other, deeper sounding familiar voices.

Familial voices.

They're right below me, where car doors are now slamming.

My body shudders and rumbles. And I pull myself closer to the edge of the building, so that I can hang my head over it and look down. My claws sink into the stone trim.

I can't clearly identify my emotions.

I'm maybe startled, excited, scared, anxious, and eager. I feel like when I'm hungry and I see a particularly doofy and vulnerable seagull below me.

But what I see is my sister, her husband, their two kids, and our parents walking toward my coffee shop from their cars.

For a very silly moment, I imagine bullseye targets on the tops of their heads, like that Farside comic with the caption, "How bird's view the world." And my rumbling stutters like a laugh.

I feel a sudden growing affection and a hope that I don't trust is well placed. But they're here!

Why are they here?

Do they even know who and what I am, now? I haven't messaged any of them. I've been too scared.

I can't go down there and appear to them as I used to be. It's the one shape I absolutely cannot bring myself to take. It's not even that I can't stand the dysphoria of it. I just can't do it.

But I know that shouldn't actually matter.

People who know me will always recognize me. It's like a little weakness. A flaw that sometimes comes in handy. Bewildering and strange, but reassuring.

I've gotta go down there.

They're here for me. They have to be. There's no other reason they'd come all the way up to Fairport and my coffee shop. And they look happy, and I need to see them, even if it goes badly.

I push myself away from the edge and pull myself up into princess form to quickly message Rhoda, "My family are here! At the shop! You can meet them!"

Then I message Chapman, too, realizing sie might like to see them as well.

And then I slip into my smaller natural self and leap off the building.

—

Sometimes, as a person, you've got to grapple with your instincts and drives, even as you watch yourself following them, and steer them in a new direction.

Like, making the decision between hunting a living scavenger or eating grass fed beef.

And sometimes, you can call a halt to them. Like, after a long, lovely dinner with the Artist of Being A Dragon where nothing went wrong, you might still be able to decide, "Nope. My child is going to have only the people I love to draw their traits from."

And sometimes when you've made a choice like that, it helps you face the harder things.

Like telling your seventy-six year old parents that you still think of them, even though you haven't said anything to them for years.

You hold the pride of having stuck to your principals in your gizzard, and you digest it along with your seagulls, and it nourishes you as you do the hardest thing you've done since October.

—

As I cross the street toward the shop from where I landed, I can see my family clustered around two of the big rectangular tables pushed together in the dining area. There's six of them, and maybe they're expecting me, so that makes sense. The audacity of them to rearrange the furniture pricks my secondhand embarrassment a little, but I ignore it. Nobody's bothering them about it.

The shop isn't terribly crowded, either.

Nathan is working alone, but I see Bri and Miriam hanging out doing the books on another table near my family and talking to my Dad and Mom.

It's my nibling, Rika, who sees me first, pulling on my sister's sleeve to point me out to her. Emelie lights up and smiles.

Everyone else looks and I get a mix of half viewed expressions through the windows from them, and feel myself under scrutiny. It's too much for me to tell how each person seems to be feeling, and I've never been great at that anyway. But I definitely feel put on the spot in a way I haven't felt since my first interview with the Mayor.

I feel my body stiffen up and start to strut, and I try to make it stop. I want to be relaxed, like this is normal.

I can't really manage it directly, and I feel like various parts of my body are the wrong size or misshapen or something. But I'm not shapeshifting, thankfully. I do almost balloon out to my full size, but I manage to focus on the door handle as my goal well enough to calm down and get there without doing so.

But just before I press the door latch with my nose to open it, I remember something.

I haven't even come out to any of my family as trans.

My hatching and transition was just all so sudden, and then followed by so much stress, I never messaged any of them. At least, I don't recall doing so.

I've daydreamt about doing so. I've made lots of different tentative plans that I've never followed through on.

And I know that, because of Rika, they're probably cool with trans people. Apparently. Now, at least.

But, I didn't communicate. And I should have.

And if they're looking at me now, because of the way the dracomorphosis worked, the way it resonates in the minds of the people who know us, they can already see.

That might explain some of the expressions.

I push down on the latch. And then I push against the door with the top of my head. And I walk inside.

And before I look up, I can already see that my Mom is coming into the lobby, arms out for a hug, looking sideways and the other way to figure out how to do so, and saying something about hoping to see her new grandchild.

I'll need to get my tablet out to tell her that it's too early for that, but that they can all see my egg if Rhoda invites them up.

I do briefly wonder how she knows that much.

—

It turns out that I've been memed.

There've been a few news sites, some of them garbage AI clickbate sites, that have run copycat articles on me, taking words from the Weekly's and Daily's articles. And screenshots of those have gotten around the social media sights I don't frequent. But that Rika does.

One of those articles deadnamed me, because the police did, and a bunch of trans people jumped on that to write corrections, and that got spread around. And that all happened nearly overnight, so it was one of those little corrective memes that Rika first saw. And it still had my deadname on it, so they knew it was me. Then, when they dug a little further, they found a photo of me that the Weekly's photographer had taken and that clinched it for them, and they got excited.

The first thing they told my sister was, "Your sister is trans!"

Not that I'm a dragon, but that I'm trans.

It turns out that being near a billionaire when he gets swallowed by a nightmare, and being the last person seen flying around the sky with him, kind of makes you an icon, apparently.

Weirdly, my Tumblr blog has not yet received the fallout from that. No one's found it yet, except the handful of followers I already had. So I didn't know.

I think, maybe, Rhoda's no bullshit field is still at work, since I also have yet to experience any legal trouble from any of this, either.

Is that also having an effect on the mood of my parents?

I don't know.

Possibly.

They are being way more understanding than I feared they'd be.

—

The hallway in front of our apartment is really crowded with us, and soon, the apartment will obviously be too small. I've been subtly shrinking myself to fit better.

At first, I was deluged with so many questions that I couldn't answer them even if I had taken princess form for the thumbs. Dragon's blood boon of universal language would have helped, but I still don't want it. And I don't want to shapeshift in front of my family yet. I want them to get used to me being truly me, even if I'm now smaller than I was when I first walked in the door of the coffee shop.

Shapeshifting would spur so many more questions, too. So many more.

Nathan had had to intervene, with his strong voice, and remind everyone that I use AAC to talk, and to slow down for me.

Then Rhoda showed up, and then Chapman, and it got a little easier, because both of them could talk for me.

But they both inspired even more questions.

I settled a lot of them by finally remembering this blog, and pulling it up and shoving it in front of Rika, who smirked because they've already been reading it. Natty leaned in to get an eager look, too. And then when everyone else saw my pinned post with the table of contents they realized just how much I'd already written.

And shortly after that, it was decided and agreed upon by everyone, including Rhoda, that they needed to see the egg.

So here we are.

I like to visualize the egg sitting in that quiet, empty apartment in silence just before the flood of humanity about to hit starts filtering in through the opening front door.

As Rhoda unlocks and opens it, the noise of a couple of excited children and their equally excited but hushed parents washes over the space and finds the egg. And maybe the fetus that's inside is already complex enough to recognize a few words. Maybe it knows, somehow, instinctively, that it's about to be surrounded by family.

And then Rhoda pushes the door wide, walks inside just far enough that there's room, and Rika and Natty jostle their way around her and start rushing to the living room. But Emelie calls out to slow them down, reminding them that this is Rhoda's apartment, not theirs. Justin, her husband, apologizes, and Rhoda dismisses it.

"I am so glad to be in the presence of children," she says. "With my cane, I'm not as unstable as I look. And I don't get enough of it. Please, come in."

"It should be safe to touch the egg, if you don't jostle it," Chapman says. "If Meghan and Rhoda are OK with that."

"Yes," I say, feeling apprehensive but wanting that contact to happen anyway.

"I'm OK with it, since Meghan is," Rhoda says.

That quiets the kids down significantly, as they start whispering instructions to each other while crouching down to look at and touch the egg before the rest of us can even see it.

I'm taking up the rear, because I've already seen the hell out of that egg. I shoved it out of my ass. I know what it looks, smells, tastes, and feels like.

And, also, being at the door allows me to guard the entrance, to make sure no rival dragons are coming through it to eat my egg. Not that that would happen here, or in that way. My brain just insists this is a reason, so I let it think it's a good one.

Rhoda stays in the kitchen as she watches my family file by, one eye on the too small tea kettle.

"Don't worry about it," Chapman says to Rhoda. "We've all had drinks downstairs anyway."

"I know," she replies.

And, I make it into the apartment and turn to close the door by the time my parents make it into the living room to see the egg.

There's a pause of quiet. It makes me wonder what they're all thinking. I listen carefully to see if I can catch anyone whispering or something.

I feel a little tense.

Then my Mom exclaims, "It's so small!"

And I turn to face the wall and bonk it with my head. Maybe a little too loud for the neighbors.

[theoriginalladya]

Will & Might: The Test of Time

Title: Will & Might: The Test of Time

Fandom: Dragon Age

Word Count: about 12,000

Rating: T and Up

Summary:

William Trevelyan and Cullen Rutherford spent ten years together as Templar recruits at the Chantry monastery in Jader. Closer than brothers, until a revelation forced William to leave the Templar life behind. Reunited fifteen years later, their friendship is put to the test a second time by the same choice that drove William from the monastery. The world may be falling apart around them, but perhaps a reforged friendship is just what these two old soldiers need.

Characters: William Trevelyan, Cullen Rutherford, Varric Tethras, Solas

Pairings: William Trevelyan & Cullen Rutherford, William Trevelyan/Dorian Pavus

Tags: Friendship, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Drinking, Drunkenness, Mentions of addiction (lyrium), mentions of withdrawal (lyrium) Chess, get by with a little help from my friends

Snippet:

He should have gone the other way. “You look like you’ve got your hands full there, Inquisitor. Let me get that door for you.” In all his days, back in the Free Marches or even during his years at the monastery for training, William Trevelyan had always maintained a fine sense of humor. Puns, witty one-liners, word play of any kind – “It’s knight errant, not knight errand, you arse!” – Will savored and appreciated it all. He’d built a reputation for himself of being quick witted and, when necessary, as vicious with his words as he was with his blade.  Until tonight. Maker, but he’d forgotten that the easier route to his destination would bring him right past the dwarf currently sitting at the table in the Great Hall in front of the hearth, an inkwell, quill, and bare pages open before him. Right in front of the door Will needed to get through, and almost as if expecting he would come by. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I decided to go back to my roots in Dragon Age to try to get my writing mojo back and participated in the Dragon Age Big Bang this year with a (not so) simple story about friendship, separation, and the reforging of that friendship fifteen years later.

I was fortunate enough to get paired up with @blasteddoodles as my artist, and oh man, did she bring my Inquisitor, William, to life! Thank you, my friend! Also huge thanks to @shadoedseptmbr and @happychica for betaing for me!

Enjoy!

[blinddreams24]

Guys, I need help.

(TL:DR? Important information is in bold!)

(If you are embarrassed to say what you want, I left anon on just for you!)

I have art block. I’ve had it for several months now and I want out.

So!

I decided to go back to my roots.

Dragons!

But I still need ideas

That’s where y’all come in!

Send me 1 to 3 things you’d like to see turned into a dragon!

This may include but is not limited to;

-animals(mammals, reptiles, avians, etc)

-insects/arachnids

-plants(trees, flowers, fungi, etc.)

-stones/crystals/gems

-household appliances or utensils(I’ll even turn a couch into a dragon if you want)

-elements(I don’t know the table of elements so please be forgiving with me)

-characters from fandoms or franchises*

Things I won’t draw;

-nsfw(I personally don’t like it so you’ll have to ask a different artist, sorry)

-*I will not draw a non-fiction character. It has to be fictional

My preferences;

-if you do choose a fictional character, please choose one that’s properly dressed or I will immediately give up

-I choose body types from what I feel best suits my options, if you want a specific body type please specify

I love drawing dragons and would love for y’all to have some of your ideas drawn out. I hope y’all will join me!

Now I’m gonna go look at pretty rocks!

C’ya in a minute!

[tarnishedinquirer]

The Two Fingers

I left Irina Hyetta and Boc and headed back to the Roundtable Hold. It was time to finally meet with the Two Fingers. Over time, my antipathy towards them had only grown. The Confessors. Whatever happened to Hyetta. The fact their "Finger Reader Crone" near Stormveil gave completely useless advice.

Time to find out who these guys are.

Well...can't say I expected that.

I was expecting either two old men (or maybe two creepy little girls), but not actual literal fingers. This world constantly finds new ways to surprise and unnerve me.

On closer examination, they were not truly fingers, though the resemblance was uncanny. They didn't have fingernails, for one. They also seemed to be made out of wood. Wood that had become old and rotten. The crone beside them introduced herself as Enia, and offered to translate their movements.

Sure you will. I know a con when I see one. Of course, this one old biddy is the only person in the entire world who can interpret what this half-rotted abomination really meant when it twitched. I'll play the mark if it means getting some info out of her.

The things barely moved and she launched into a whole freaking speech, clearly rehearsed.

Great Elden Ring, root of the Golden Order. Anchor of all lands, giver of grace, wellspring of all joy. Until it was shattered. The tragic corruption of the Order has taken its toll. Across the realm, life lies in ruin. Fallen to pieces. Foul curses and misery spread, unabating. But the Greater Will has not abandoned the realm, nor the life that inhabits it. So it is that the Tarnished are guided by grace. Called to act. Brave Tarnished, your Great Rune is a handsome shard of the Elden Ring. Seek another of its kind. To become Elden Lord, and restore the Golden Order.

Nothing I haven't heard before or been able to figure out myself. So much for divine wisdom.

She also also offered to turn my Remembrance into something connected to Godrick.

Axe of Godrick Greataxe wielded by Godrick the Grafted. This golden battleaxe is emblazoned with the figure of a beast, representing the strength of Godfrey, First Elden Lord and patriarch of the golden lineage.

Again. Godfrey founded the golden lineage, but it never says anything about Marika. It's a glaring omission.

The voice didn't have anything interesting to say about the grafted dragon head, but I noticed that the vision Enia showed me was very different from the one on Godrick's arm. It had little legs, and was lacking the grotesque boils that appeared on the other one.

After she showed me the visions, and the Voice had said its piece, I decided I didn't really want either of them right now and simply consuming the runes would be the more pragmatic approach. Should I change my mind, I'll try the Wandering Mausoleum, now that I know what a Remembrance is.

She also explained Great Runes to me, but again, nothing I hadn't heard before. If the taint of runes drove the demigods mad, why would I even want one? Why does she assume I'd be any different? She siipped into talking for the fingers when she told me to kill the demigods without mercy. Guess she didn't want her own words to sounds so bloodthirsty.

All in all? I wasn't impressed by any of this. I had assumed the Fingers to be some sort of masterminds but no, it's just a decrepit monster that can't even speak for itself. A con artist fortune teller pretends to translate for it while really just telling me what she thinks I want to hear.

I'll have to talk to Gideon Ofnir about this. The others might buy into this, but for his faults, he's no mark.

Before I left, I took note of the throne behind the fingers. Identical to Godfrey's Throne in Stormveil. File that away for later.

Were the Two Fingers ever able to make themselves understood without a "translator"?

How long has this con been going on?

Why do they sit on a copy of Godfrey's throne?

[explodingchantry]

After a few hours into my Dao replay I think I'm starting to really warm up to the gameplay trailer for dav, and indeed its more action oriented combat.

Something I think a lot of us, especially those of us who are a bit apprehensive, are struggling with is that we haven't replayed dragon age in... A while. We have this idea of what it was like but personally my last playthrough was soon after trespasser released. I think we ourselves, unless you're one of the people whose replayed all three games very recently, aren't the best place to decide what dragon age should 'feel' like

Dao is absolutely brilliant and it's combat system is so in depth, the fact that me and a lot of people always complain about how difficult it is just means that it was a system directed towards more strategy oriented people. The little strategy options for the companions, you know the menu not a lot of us use in Dao and da2, where you can tell a companion "if this happens, do that" is a fucking marvel, it's so smart, it's so efficient, it offers so much control it genuinely is amazing. But the thing is that I don't think the core player base of dragon age ended up being the players who used that a ton.

Something you feel a lot especially replaying Dao with modern sensibilities, is sluggishness. You have to remember that it IS a real time action rpg - this means that reactivity is pretty important and even though the other Dao systems make you feel like you're wholly in control, the animations themselves as well as hit boxes and general... Feel of combat doesn't bring that across. It feels like playing an old mmo. It's absolutely fine and expected for its time, but expecting something similar in our modern era is foolish.

If bioware was going to keep the real time fighting, which, I would've been shocked and disappointed if they didn't, they had to make it more snappy and reactive. Furthermore as a bunch of people have pointed out the trailer specifically shows rogue which is THE most snappy bouncy class there is, at least with the double dagger. But we still have our pause. We still get to tell our companions what to do. And with so much work put everywhere else to "get back to their roots" it would be strange of bioware to completely abandon it just for the combat system

Something that did bother me in the trailer is how few abilities seemed available at one time and also the fact you couldn't see your companions' health bar: it seems they confirmed you can see the health bars on discord, and as for the abilities and the hud... I think it might just be a product of them showing console gameplay, because I saw some Dao console gameplay earlier today and was like. Oh. That looks similar. And there isn't necessarily any worries to have about them choosing to show console gameplay - statistically speaking I'm positive the majority of gamers these days are console gamers, and with how beautiful the game seems I imagine it'll put most computers to their fucking knees, and the amount of people who have access to up to date gaming computers is lower than you think. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint to use console gameplay. Keep hold of your knickers

I've personally no problem with a more stylised approach to the graphics either because I've always been of the opinion that inquisition looks like garbage and it aged even worse than I expected. It's so fucking ugly bro I hate how frostbite engine looked back then it's disgusting LMFAO.

I've even seen people critiquing the look of minrathous even though it's fairly consistent with what we'd seen of tevinter so far... I think people forget that in Dao, dragon age really didn't have as much of an artistic identity as it has now - really Dao in many ways looks like usual your dark fantasy game. So many elements that would become emblematic of dragon age only came in later games. Do I really need to bring up flemeth or the qunari lol, or the many looks elves and their vallaslins have had over the years.

Like dragon age's visual and artistic identity has always shifted with every game. There's literally nothing wrong with that. It's just par for the course course. You can't have a long running series of fantasy games with lore as complex as dragon age without stumbling here and there over such a large amt of year, mediums and teams.

As for the fucking idiots complaining about the game not being dark enough idk replay any of the games for like 5 minutes and then come back. Well maybe not dai that game is boring as hell most of the time but either way dragon age was always silly as hell y'all are so fucking stupid. Go watch game of thrones or something instead

I think I'm saying all that because I've seen a lot of negativity for the sake of being negative. A lot of people went into this expecting to be upset, so obviously they ended up upset. And I know it's so fucking hard: inquisition was already a mess in many ways, most of the original dragon age staff left, there were major layoffs which we should not forget about, the game was restarted I think twice or something, and in general it's had a bit of a messy development. That and the horrors that were me:a and anthem, and of course people wouldn't have faith in bioware. But it's not the first time a game studio went a dangerous path only to have a moment of clarity and come back. I've personally seen it when a few years back devil may cry 5 came out and was the best game in the franchise, going back to its roots and bettering what was already there with bold steps towards modernizing its gameplay, when all fans thought the franchise dead and buried. I want to believe bioware is able to have such a comeback as well.

What is transpiring from many of the articles, from the little tidbits of the staff on twitter, from interviews - it's that there's heart in this. It's that they're trying. They've listened. And maybe I'm just falling for the marketing machine, but I'd rather believe and be disappointed than live with no hope in my heart man. Dragon age is a series that means so much to me. We've waited so long for this. I want this to be something I can love.

[musithical]

Songbird's Voyage

Those of you following me over on YouTube or Twitter may have noticed a new character appearing as the face of my most recent song. I didn't have all the details worked out yet so I wanted to hold off on going too in depth about them, but I am happy to say that I finally have some more info ready to share with you all!

First of all, I would like to once again thank @aziebites for designing this character for me to use, it did an amazing job. Originally, the character was meant to just be for the one song, but Azie did such an amazing job that it inspired me to elaborate on the character and their story.

What is this project?

Well, after my last album, I wanted to go back to my roots and try to come up with a concept album. However, that's going to take a LOT longer than a normal album of mine would, and I don't want to just stop releasing music in the meantime. As such, this new project is going to be released episodically with each song acting as a fraction of the total story. Then, all the songs will be compiled into an album for streaming after they've all released on YouTube.

The reason for this is to allow me to take my time with the project and deliver a level of quality beyond what I normally would, forcing myself to make sure every song can stand on it's own. But even beyond that, it allows me to still release individual songs without having to also be working on an album at the same time. I do all of this in addition to my day job, so it can be a lot of energy to try to make so much all the time.

The reason I chose to release it like this goes beyond just logistics, too. Those of you who have been following me for a while know I hold a special place in my heart for cartoons and the culture surrounding the early 2000s. As such, I like to think of this staggered release schedule as similar to waiting for a new episode of your favorite show to come out.

Who is Songbird?

I won't share too much as a lot of Songbird's journey is abstract and the beginning of their story is suppose to be a mystery, but I'll share this blurb from the album description: "As we know it, existence is composed of different lands that sort of float in an endless void that we call Nothingness. Because of this isolation, each land has grown and evolved in very different ways. You know others solely like us, but we have friends from all kinds of different lands. Like Marina in the land of water spirits, or the old innkeeper at the edge of time.

So now, you wonder how we get to the other lands, right? Well that's where the River Dragons come in. The rivers that run through each land are so strong, they cut right through the Nothingness. People like you and I are too weak to swim through the rivers, as they would simply toss us into the void. But the dragons' scales protect them from the water, and if you are kind like them, they let you ride on their backs and take you to other lands."

When can I expect the next song?

That's the fun part; you can't!

Joking aside, I do have an outline of how to story will go, but actually getting each song written and produced for something of this caliber is going to take time, and I can't predict how long will be between each installment. Additionally, I want to try to get art made for each song which will take time for the artists as well. Luckily, I have a reliable circle of people now who I know I can go to for the art, so it's just a matter of money really.

However, if you do want to try to help speed things up, I have a few options. I recently paused my Patreon after a series of events that left me unable to keep up with it, but I will be resuming that sometime soon. I also have a Ko-Fi where you can donate if you want. I will probably keep up with that much more actively:

That's all for now! I hope you guys are looking forwards to the rest of this project! Thanks for your support and if you haven't already, go listen to "FREAK"!

[silversiren1101]

roots for moro!

OH FOR MORO! YES

roots: Is your OC's look inspired by any specific style of clothing or fashion trend? What are the roots and/or inspiration for their look?

Morolai has quite a FEW different looks and themes that go with them, and each can be charted with different points of her story. So I'm going to talk about her key/core designs first!

HAIR: The big, 80s-style XMen hair was the very first thing I put down to paper for her. I wanted BIG. PURPLE. HAIR. I can't remember the initial inspiration for it even, but I know I've loved Storm's older designs for so so long and LOVE THE HAIR. A lot of times when I make characters they already spring out of my head mostly formed, like Athena with Zeus lol.

CLAWS: Came immediately after the hair. Gradient claws/fingers/hands is SUCH a favorite design element of mine. I'd been looking for a character to do it with for a little while and my draconic bloodrager was the perfect choice.

EARS: Came later! I was looking for more ways to show off her draconic heritage that wasn't explicitly scales. Mino has scales, and as much as I love love love scales, I didn't want TWO heavily scaled characters (out of consideration for the artists I commission lmao). So, modifying her half-elf ears to be serrated and blackened like a dragon was the key here! I ultimately really like how they've come out.

WINGS: Also came way later! I didn't want her to always have wings. I wanted them to be a body-horror type event for her, representing how weird it is to spontaneously grow wings at like level 12 or whatever it is. I also wanted to lean more on her claw fighting-ness and one immediately thing loomed in my mind: Nero's deviltrigger form from DMC.

They come out the back and instead of a single talon are hands with claws, AND! They cling to his shoulders like a cape. I shamelessly borrowed this design for Moro but made them look more draconic to fit with her aesthetic.

Okay now for

OUTFIT:

First, Moro is a half-elf bastard in the literal sense: her elven mother had an affair with a mysterious man she thought was a fellow elf in Greengold. Unknown to her, he was a half-elf with a powerful latent draconic bloodline that skipped right over him, but still presented in mostly elven features. Her mother's husband put together that the child was not his after Moro was born in Kyonin, and to hide the great embarrassment to their family name [quite well-known and powerful politicians] they raised her as a servant. Moro was raised forced to clean up after her mother and half-siblings, knowing all the lavishness was just as rightfully hers--and something in her very being told her she deserved it.

As a young teen, that thing in her awoke, that black dragon who had been coveting that which was denied to her since her birth. In a moment of rage towards her not-father, she grew her claws and tore off his face. This was not a moment of horror for her, but of actualization and euphoria. She WAS powerful. She WAS deserving. She WAS RIGHT.

She was also a criminal, so she fled, but happily! lol

Her early look from the start of Kingmaker is very much that of a woman who is escaping repression: it's revealing and slutty and has so many design elements of all the things she's wanted and was never able to take for herself! A little hippy, a little boho, a little goth, a little refined, a little of a Varisian slant here or Ustalavic there as she starts experimenting with looks that are distinctly NOT Kyonin. It's out there and a little tacky and overdone in places! But this is a young woman who has been dressed in rags her whole life that has a DRAGON in her heart that wants more and more and more. She's got to make up for lost time with everything at once.

Her tastes are mercurial through the years as she becomes Baroness and then Queen of the Stolen Lands, though begin to take on spite and pettiness as her main themes. She will specifically commission and wear outfits tailored for her enemies as she meets them to get under their skin.

By https://twitter.com/eliskimm

Meeting Irovetti and Rushlight Tournament:

VERY slutty, very reminiscent of the pirate troubles and such throughout Pitax! Especially revealing to drive him absolutely insane.

Going after Nyrissa

Plants. Plants plants plants. "I'm going to wear you like a fucking ribbon after I'm done with you." Very purposefully selected to earn the nymph's rage and ire... I imagine she wore something similar when meeting with the Kyonin hunting parting for Jaethal, too!

Both above by https://twitter.com/bluepigart

QUEEN:

It's been years at this point. Moro is older and more mature. She's settled comfortably into colors like deep red and purple and black, but there's one major thing that lives through her design motifs: thorns and roses and flowers. Triumphing over Nyrissa, she's taken the dark floral motif as an aesthetic of her rule. Even her crown is made from the remains of Briar, and still contains motes of the nymph's sorrow and despair in it.

She revels in it.

By https://twitter.com/kitnkamoodle

One last thing - headband!

The main thing that doesn't change is her headband/hair-covering! When I made Moro's initial design, the big hair was the first thing followed by the ears and claws. I leaned on the lolita fashion for this, a little lacey bonnet type of deal, and decided to incorporate it into her story: it's like a cleaner's hair covering. She'd wear them all the time as a servant for the household and wearing a very similar but fashionable article there instead as a deliberate choice is like a personal fuck-you and reminder to herself where she came from.

(by https://twitter.com/korethefey)

Question from this post!

[borreloadsavagedragon]

Give Kaito essay (for the character meme)

Oh god, I’ll read more this because it’s gonna be a journey and that's also why it took so long gjdaslgk-

And the standard zexal and arc v spoilers warning message-

1. how long have i known about them A LONG time though it didn’t get to like he’s my whole world status until pandemic era-- MalindaChan did her cosplay for him back when I was still a certified Yugiboomer who entertained GX and 5DS because "lol abridged series jokes" and that’s when I first remember seeing his design? I tried watching Zexal briefly when it was actively airing but just couldn’t get far bc Boomer Brain ™, but I remember him being cool but the "Kaiba-likeness but not being Kaiba" Yugiboomer wall couldn't be overcome right away, I had to train my skills Then 2020 happened, I watched Vrains to understand Link Summoning, got SUCKED into it, and was like wow past me was dumb, ALL of the spinoffs are GREAT Zexal reached a hand back out to me when I was kinda struggling with the Vrains community and I'd decided to start writing more spinoff muses with some mutual friends and that's also when I realized I’d be subconsciously collecting Galaxy and Photon monsters since they’re pretty + space themed but also because they were inside of ALL of the Kaiba support sets(because DUH) so it was like,,, well, let’s try that again

Now I’m In Hell And It’s All His Fault Do you think I ENJOY playing Photon competitively? Well yes, but also NO. It means learning new decks is HARD because I can't look at dragons and knights in SPACE.

2. whether or not they’ve ever made me cry Moon duel? W,, what Moon duel,,, I don’t,,, remember any space dueling, ahaha, isn’t that another yugioh, the rush of the go,,,,,,, In all serious though, yes lmao The duel against Zexal when he tells you his reasoning for why he’s the Number Hunter and he looks so broken, that got a solid few tears The flashback of him trying to break Haruto out of the city got some tears  The duel with Chris is also really good show of his character at the root, the thing that gets him back to his feet is the moment Chris even considers Haruto as part of his suffering, g o d The moon duel of course. That’s. That one was brutal. Yeah. 

3. whether or not i have any merchandise/objects with them uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

There’s a wall scroll behind my work desk that sneaks into my Zoom calls, there’s a canvas print he’s on that sits at my work desk, my ita bag has a handful of charms, pins, and buttons for him(still hunting for artists who draw him with merch wink wink)

I guess my Photon tcg deck counts? The tcg is just one big merch machine if you squint enough-

My Book of Moon themed binder is literally just all of my collector Photon and Galaxy/references to Kaito cards + a small page for Miza since Tachyon is a Galaxy Eyes

Do cosplays count? Because I’ve got all but his space suit basically done + his duel disk 

4. what about their personality i like How seriously he takes himself despite literally everything else about his character 

He’s often off to the side with his arms crossed, pouting or frowning, having the cool guy edge lord behavior But also he’s screaming in the rain, jumping through a window on a kite glider he made himself that also doubles as his robo-butler, flying to the whole ass moon because a rock told him to, and beefing 14 yr olds, he’s just a legend 

I also love that he's like... very clear about himself and on how you should treat him. He straight up says he's going to hell for what he's done and just continues to be there because that's how he'll atone because atonement isn't forgiveness, like he's not ours to forgive. Love him so much.

5. what about their backstory makes me emotional Honestly, most of it

Watching Kaito slowly lose his autonomy (his brother whose been his responsibility for what could be read as since birth, his father just becoming a figure head in his life versus an actual parent, Chris walking out on him with no closure until they duel, being watched by and trained under brutal conditions by the government, failed escape attempts, getting lied to and used, etc) and then knowing one of the people who he attributes half of that loss and suffering to is someone he never gets closure against is very hard to watch

Even in Arc V, he loses his entire family in a way that makes him cut ties with every single person left in a desolate city and hunt his enemies down one by one to pay them back for his suffering, and it happened before we finally actually get to see him or hear of him for the first time so god knows the details

He really just gets put through it time and time again, yugioh be nice to that onion challenge

6. the moment of theirs that made me the saddest there was no duel on the moon in yugioh zexal

But actually, Kaito dying is tragic for a few reasons

THEY JUST LET HIS BROTHER WATCH IT HAPPEN? FAKER??? HELLO?

He was... ok with it happening-

He was killed off before the final duel and before he could reunite with Yuma and Ryouga again, and even though he came back as a spirit, it felt like a such a cop out

7. the moment of theirs that made me the happiest The pure look of joy on his face reuniting with his brother after they defeat Vector the first time, it’s so good The first time Prime Photon is summoned, goated, perfect, all boss monsters should be willed into existence like that But also Arc V, Kaito watching Dennis duel Yuya after everything with Zarc and clapping for him is so sweet omg

8. something about them that made me laugh HIS ONE LINERS, yugioh really gives the rivals the best solo lines I swear to god

Ok listen, dub and sun debate aside, I watched both because I’m a mess and need as much Kaito as I can get, but the dub has some heaters and Kaito’s got a few good ones, ESPECIALLY when he's talking to Mizael

The one to Shark, “You’re quite the romanticist”, who the fuck says that out loud to another person Kaito talking to Dennis is also a fever dream, the dub especially is so jarring, I love them

9. my favorite canon outfit of theirs White coat with the gazer tattoo, you can never go wrong with the Photon coat Numeral Hunter is also based, I know that's not like HIS look in any show, but... I HC that would be his Vrains Avatar, he could go to Vrains very easily, Solflare is an exploitable card in his deck

10. my favorite moment with them in canon UUUUGGHHHH CHOOSING ONE IS HARD

Uhhh, episode wise Shark Hunter is prooobably my favorite(for obvious reason but besides those LOL) because it’s such a tone setter for who Kaito is and also I could listen to these two bicker all day long, we really didn’t get nearly enough of their side rivalry as opposed to like Kaiba and Joey or Takeru and Ryoken

And then the Moon Duel is like my second favorite duel in the whole franchise, only outclassed by Soba and Revo in Vrains, you really get to see just how strong he is because he's half blind, still actively dying by dueling, and gets his helmet cracked in the vacuum of space, and he's still able to win

Character moment, the duel against Chris comes to mind again because it shows a lot of Kaito to his core, but also Kaito hauling ASS to get Yuma to Astral world to reunite with Astral is iconic, Kaito's always ready to take the plunge when everyone else says not to because he just KNOWS he's right

11. my favorite relationship they have with another character sweats profusely, I said it above somewhere I think- removing shipping from the equation entirely, I REALLY like all of the bff / rival dynamics across all of the shows, I love how well done they are and I fully find them more interesting than the standard protag/rival ones, even with KaiRyo having like the least amount of time dedicated to theirs comparatively. Ryouga and Kaito being treated so similarly by the hands dealt to them to where they'd understand the other one like looking in a mirror and yet they cannot stand each other, I eat that shit up. But also knowing the other person so well that they don't even have to talk and also realizing that person is their one of their only option to success? Give me MORE of that I also really love the foil between Mizael and Kaito a lot, I REALLY wish it got the time it was rumored to get, guess I gotta do everything myself In Arc V, Kaito and Shun's dynamic is really good for the little bit we're allowed the time to see it, Shun being one of the only characters who actually goes back for him after leaving so abruptly between Arc V and Zexal... tugs on the heart strings I also love that Kaito took ONE look at Edo in the safe house and decided to speed run the enemies part of the enemies to lovers arc they were going to have, I wish they could have spoken in canon more, hell GX Edo and Zexal Kaito would also be such an interesting dymamic

12. what i like about the way the fandom portrays them Everyone drawing him like >:D all of the time, keep doing that The white lab coat look too? Like not the Photon one, like a standard white lab coat? Perfect, DO NOT change that

nsfw next but also just how everyone knows he's a bottom no matter which ship it is lmao

13. what i dont like about the way the fandom portrays them that no one talks about him except in “WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE RIVAL” polls fndhxjshxbs

I’m going insane in my thoughts alone over here, I need to convert everyone to watch Zexal

14. what i liked about the way canon portrayed them Ok here we can get heated for a bit because I’ve seen an argument somewhere that Kaito didn’t develop at all from season 1 to 2 of Zexal but he 100000% did and I honestly like how it's done

Season 1 Kaito was purposefully talking to the air Astral could be in to avoid even looking at Yuma because he thought so little of him despite how much clawing to get on the same level as him Yuma did

Season 2 Kaito is jumping in to keep Mizael from killing Yuma without a second thought, he's going to the arctic despite ALL of the protests to build the bridge to Astral

His development is subtle, but it's very there, not to mention he can now stomach being in the same room as Faker, gave Chris a second chance, his dying words to Yuma are all the more apparent how important Yuma became to him Like the ONLY person we should have seen an actual conversation touching on Kaito's actions with WAS Ryouga but... be honest, Ryouga's not accepting that from Kaito, they're both very much people of action and they established their bond through the snark and bickering, that's how they communicate Plus Kaito's also outward about not being a good person, telling Yuma he sold his soul to the devil, telling the gang in the first episodes of Zexal II he's already going to hell because that's what his guilty soul deserves Ryoken and Kaito would be SUCH an interesting duo, I'm just saying

15. what i dont like about the way canon portrayed them Oh boy now here we go LOL

The duel against Mr Heartland. - This one's unbelievably bad for so many reasons, mostly because there’s no universe where Kaito struggles against Heartland of all people in a duel, but also this is the person who’s been THE symbol for most of his trauma and trials up until that point. There is no chance in hell he struggles, gets crippled by him, and has to have Yuma take over. That was and always should have been his duel to win, but Yugioh has the unfortunate "this is a story through the protag's eyes" shonen protag bug at its core (Yuma sweetie you’re lovely and wonderful, it’s literally not your fault) 

Arc V giving him literally no time for their version of Kaito to have a more satisfactory character arc because of how long and bad the Synchro Dimension/Friendship Cup arc was. Just another victim of the Synchro Arc, sighs. The dub also puts this weird and bad attempted joking line about how Kaito doesn't do family and like have you literally watched any of Zexal, you're the whole ass studio Kaito just doesn't feel very Kaito the same way in Arc V, it's very sad, lots of shit you know og Kaito wouldn't let fly that just goes by in Arc V, but different versions, dimensions, stories, etc etc, it's just such a whiplash coming from Zexal where he's just so much more

OCG Structures was a coward and didn’t want to play with dimensional physics because Kaito 110% could find a way into that timeline I haven't read the Zexal manga in full just yet because I wanna collect them all physically so that'll be later- And a little bit for the games since Konami wanted at least one of those to be canon thanks to Vrains world-

Cross Duel literally had you consider killing kids for him but honestly this one is more funny than infuriating, everyone's a worst version of themselves in Cross Duel agjdaslkgj Duel Links is usually pretty good, but since Kaito’s first launch event where he's hunting you down, he’s been very much more like an NPC for the Zexal world events, just seems weird to me, I'm sure that'll get thrown out once Chris' unlock event actually happens coming up here and when Miza gets added... then that digital world won't know WHAT to do

[talsgarthewanderer]

Hello, followers! If I started posting more about my ESO adventures, would you be interested in them?

Like, I play ESO a lot. I play on my own account with 10 characters AND my sibling's account with their 6 characters AND occasionally on our parent's account with THEIR 6 characters. (I'm keeping my family gender neutral here because I dont know whether they'd want me putting them on blast to all of you)

I mostly just think that it would be fun to talk about the lore and environment and stuff as though Talsgar himself is traveling around Tamriel. There's so much content in ESO and very little of it conflicts with what we're familiar with from the main elder scrolls games (in that, there is definitely stuff that conflicts, but when you compare it to everything else that is lore-compliant, it's really quite a small amount), so I think it would be fun.

Plus, maybe I could convince some of you who are on the fence about playing to make an account next time they have a free-to-play event where you don't have to buy the game or any of the DLCs just to bop around and see the sights. I've put the story of how I, personally, got into playing ESO under the cut, so you dont have to read it if you dont want to lol

What got me into ESO was seeing a post on here with gifs of the city Shimmerene on Summerset, the biggest island of the Summerset Isles. Those gifs made it look gorgeous--the colors were vibrant, the water looked realistic as heck, the plants also looked realistic as heck, and the architecture was compelling to me as someone who studies classical antiquity.

Then, when I was getting a tattoo a few weeks later, I was able to chat with my tattoo artist about ESO and its pros and cons. He had recognized me as an elder scrolls fan several months earlier when I had gotten the Oblivion mages guild seal as a tattoo, so I figured he was a good person to talk to and thus I made an appointment specifically with him for another tattoo. And during my actual appointment, man was tattooing my spine and gushing about how fun the game was, how intuitive the gameplay is for someone who was used to playing Dragon Age games and could never really get hooked on Skyrim, and how ESO actually motivated him to go back and give Skyrim and Oblivion a try. It was super fun talking with him and I realized that if ESO can attract non-Skyrim folks, then it must be at least a decent game. Of course, it then took 2 more years of me researching the game to figure out if it was still a subscription-based model to play the base game.

Luckily, by the time I was doing this research, they'd actually switched from a subscription for the game itself to a subscription for a thing called ESO+, and the base game was actually available for just a single purchase of the game. I brought the idea up to my parent, who was almost 60 at the time and needed something other than skyrim or fallout 4 to play, and they were like, "we'll just get ESO plus because you want to see Shimmerene and it's part of a DLC that's included in ESO+ that we would have to buy separately without it."

And I gotta say, in person, Shimmerene is better than those gifs. My parent and I ended up going all over Tamriel in the first hour of playing, going to random places just to look at them, new and familiar alike. We went to Anvil and I was mad that Benirus Manor was a BANK, and not a house for sale. We went to Windhelm and I was like, "damn, everything's made of wood and the citizens are so much nicer to my dark elf." We went to Vivec City and I was like, "hold on there are only 3 cantons, wtf," and then we went to Balmora and it looked almost exactly the same.

And then we went to Elden Root and were like, "holy shit, thats the biggest tree I've ever seen in my life," which, we live in california and have seen the actual real life redwoods. The devs of ESO somehow made the elden root tree absolutely towering and evoke that same majesty that the redwoods evoke.

We went to the city of Daggerfall and it was delightfully medieval european, and then we went to Wayrest, and it was essentially just a bigger Daggerfall. We went to Rivenspire and immediately left because it was a blasted hellscape of dead trees and vampires.

We saw the swamps of Shadowfen, the jungles of Valenwood, the Alik'r Desert of Hammerfell, the snowy tundras of Eastmarch and Wrothgar. And ash-covered Vvardenfell and southern Morrowind.

Going to Mournhold and seeing the tribunal temple again was WILD. And Almalexia NOT in a murderous rage chasing me through the place.

Going to Vivec City and seeing them floating serenely above their throne.

Seeing Sotha Sil in the Clockwork City alive!! and talking!!!!

Seeing the cherry blossoms of summerset and auridon, the stuck-up high eleven nobles turning up their noses at my little dark elf not for being a dark elf but for not being a high elf, which was weirdly refreshing after skyrim.

Seeing several different kinds of Khajiit furstock! Big senche-rahts! Tiny alfiqs! Towering pahmers! Absolutely mind-blowing.

Also having to walk everywhere? because you gotta discover places to fast travel back to them, like in skyrim? Arduous as heck, because the land is so big and you are so small, and there are so many places to visit, and you have to explore them all. You just have to.

Anyway, thats my propaganda for playing ESO.

[twinsimming]

Music Meme

Thanks for the tag @pudding-parade @puffkins2000 @enable--llamas and @joojconverts! Sorry if I’m a little late 💙💙💙

▶ Rules:

🎶✨ When u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, and publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool)✨🎶

Tagging @heldhram @olomayasims @jamiegirlposts @carversims @desiree-uk @omedapixel @simsdeogloria @hurricanesims @martassimsbook @bietjie​ and anyone else who sees this and wants to share! No pressure 🤗

1. The entirety of RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé!! I can’t just pick one song! Every track is a hit in its own right, her vocals are INSANE, and the album has had me in a vice grip since it came out. Easily my album of the year, album of the decade, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrMYyHmLhGA9MJNeIMOPrciPVTbnk48M

2. Sharks by Imagine Dragons - I’ve been listening to Imagine Dragons since their first album (11 years ago 😵) and they’re still surprising me! The guitar is truly the star of the show on this track and the opening notes remind me a bit of MySims Agents music (my simmer brain at work!). It’s dethroned my longtime favorite song of theirs Roots as my favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j7twuejxvU

3. Fun At The Alley by Labrinth - Hands down my favorite male artist and my favorite song by my favorite male artist! Definitely an electronic song (there is a theme 👀) but it also feels stripped back with its percussion. It reminds me of going roller skating and bowling as a teenager. Every track he makes always feels fresh and innovative and this one is no different. Not sure how he managed to capture the essence of a bowling alley in a song, but I won’t question his methods!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPlM7AxhUjw

4. Sweet Melody by Little Mix - Another song from another group I’ve followed since their debut! This is from their sixth album Confetti and has a huge electronic dance vibe to it. Gosh there’s so much I could say about Little Mix and their music and their evolution as a group over the last decade, can you tell I’m a fan? Lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4P-WOOUPk4

5. How You Like That by BLACKPINK - My introduction to the world of K-Pop girl groups! This song gives huge girl power vibes and the beat is punchy in a way the reminds me of my era of listening to bass boosted versions of songs on YouTube. 10/10. No notes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioNng23DkIM