#hk musings

[ruthlesslistener]

Learning that most insects cannot see in the dark has me wondering about how the vessels see. I always thought it interesting how Ghost couldn't really see too far ahead of them in areas like Deepnest and some parts of Crystal Peaks, and before I just chalked it up to normal vs Advanced Darkness (advanced darkness ofc meaning the Abyss/the Void, which is a living, elemental darkness vs mere absense of light), but now I'm wondering if maybe they actually really do have pretty damn good eyes compared to normal bugs, who wouldn't be able to see in such conditions at all. What might be poor lighting to them and us might actually be pitch blackness to someone like Quirrel, who'd need to use secondary sense structures to figure out where they were

(I also wonder how Ghost, as a vessel still in their larval form, might compare one like Hollow, who has reached their adult morph, as many larval bugs have very rudimentary sight organs compared to adults [stemmata vs ocelli]. But then again, by the time they reach godhood they might not even need sight at all and use it as a backup sensory input like smell is to us, which is something I actually imagine Hollow's perspective to work. Something to think about!)

[fly-sky-high-bug-games]

Well. Idk what it is about this tablet but I'm finding myself glued to the drawing while forgetting to take breaks and I end up drawing more than intended for much longer than I ever did before. Which is nice but also very bad, I need to train myself in snapping myself out of it to have breaks or my vision, neck and back are gonna go to heck

Another simple design of another (less important?) character from Iris' and Buck's story, Ronald (AKA Ron AKA Ronnie but only called that by the two lol)

He was just a regular old pillpug in my head and then I saw zebra isopods and pointed hard at the images then drew him as one.

This is him during his day at the Force (bug equivalent of the police lol) and his detective getup. Extremely fascinated by the cases of theft done by Iris and Buck and very keen on catching them himself. Ridiculed by his coworkers since he's generally softhearted but determined and just.

The three have a fun dynamic. Think of Diamond Jack as an inspo?

[featherlouise]

While I'm working on the Hornet Gijinka trend, I figured I'd post this ^-^

I’ve had some new followers since the last time I talked about this guy, so if u don’t recognise him, this is my OC Eóghan!! He grew up in a Radiance cult :D

On the off chance u wanna read more about him, here’s some more info ^-^

I’ve since updated his backstory and personality but most of the stuff in the linked post is still accurate

Based on this panel from Tiger, Tiger

[chipper-smol]

Would it be alright if i wrote a HK fic inspired by your shitlord!au ?

It’s been on my mind for a while but i wanted to know if you were cool with it.

Sure! Go right ahead!

[salted-fox-musings]

Thoughts about Titles

Found myself thinking about some of the titles used in Hollow Knight and I mentioned it once before but I wasn't quite able to get my thoughts out clearly so I'll go ahead and start with the one that caught my eye first. Hornet: The Gendered Child The common and most widely accepted interpretation by the fandom is that it is based upon Hornet "having a gender" and while that could definitely be the case, the cynical part of my brain has my doubts. Keep in mind that I'm not saying that it can't be about gender so keep those pitchforks and torches stowed for now. I wonder if instead a reference to the word "Engender" which means to "Create, Put Forth".

Think of engendered as a fancy, archaic way of saying generated (they share the root generare). I've seen references of "gendered" being more the result of someone's actions ("The tyranny of the count (en)gendered the scorn of the villagers.")

I've seen engender and gender (in this context) swapped a fair bit when folks are trying to speak in Ye Olde Archaic English. It may not even be correct (trying to find it in modern dictionaries is an act of frustration, let me tell you) but it doesn't stop it from making its way into media from time to time.

Part of the reason I've thought about this is to kinda get an idea of how Hornet is viewed by the people who use the title and how they use it. Referring to someone as a child with a gender is one thing, referring to a child as a "created child" is another. You see where I'm going with this?

[mizzle-moths]

happy late valetines day! have some bugs

[astorichan]

soooo like bug romance right?

I have literally never thought of bug game in romantic terms, especially not between the higher beings

It’s always been a lot of…familial bonds, and how they’re messed with/exploited

But

you seem to have bug romance on the brain

and I wanna know

I wanna know how that recontextualizes this game

please

I’m so sorry for bothering you so much your rambles are just so cool

bug romance hehehehe

i kind of went in with the same view: came for the sibling dynamics between Hollow & Ghost (mainly) + Hollow & PK family dynamics. Then I happened upon a single line in another fic that ripped my heart out and sent me into a recontextualisation night-long spiral. (misread the tags on it, oop) The line was "And it felt terribly alone without her." Hollow @ Radi.

So yeah, that was the first ship I got into. It resonated with me very hard due to some history, so I was able to really... care about it and the dynamics at play. (my aro ass needs to get very invested to ship characters lol)

BUT enough intro, let me actually ramble:

RadiHollow is the first of my two ships. It's based on several factors, first of them being that those two spent an indefinite (I personally headcanon 300-400 years) amount of time completely isolated from the world. Alone with only each other for company. We know that Radi is horrible at loneliness, her history/the entire thing with Higher Beings requiring worship to live alludes to it a lot: the whole reason the infection broke out was that she'd been forgotten by the moths. Left behind. Left alone. The next factors are my own view of their characters. Radi as I write her is an extremely self-centered person, incapable of ever admitting any fault, incapable of ever being wrong, incapable of ever not being in control. She's manipulative and very emotionally abusive in an... insidious, "you just can't appreciate my love", way. So not "hehe torture fun". Hollow is someone who never viewed themself as a real person. Their feelings, wants, thoughts are not important. They have not experienced kindness for who they were. They also tend to blame themself for anything bad that happens. Couple those two in complete isolation (which, isolation is one of the first steps an abuser will take to gain control over their victim), with Radi showing Hollow genuine kindness despite their failure, despite them being her enemy, despite everything. She has an "I will fix you" mentality; she sees them as a poor, downtrodden person who only needs to be loved enough to fall on her side. To see that she was right all along. They hate each other, of course. They want to watch each other burn. They want to burn together. Radi wants to enter the new dawn together with them. They want to go down in flames together with her. They hate her, but the kindness makes it hard to only hate her. She hates them, but their empathy and responsiveness, their presence and pushback make it hard to only hate them.

Grollow is the second one, and it has direct relation to all the stuff I've said up there. I headcanon Grimm and Radi as siblings (""? as much as beings of pure magic can be siblings. their relationship is definitely familial), which means that Grimm is very intimately familiar with all of Radi's antics: the gaslighting, the manipulation, the blame-everyone-around, the disregard for his feelings, the blindness to what her love does to him. He's someone that understands Hollow, post-Radi. He's someone that knows what they've gone through. He's someone who's had similar experiences and had time to heal from them. He's someone who hates watching them suffer at her hands. And he's someone who sees them for the absolute mess that they are, knows most of what Radi could've done to them mentally and is willing to stay by their side. And somewhere along the way, they fall for each other. Somewhere along the way, Hollow grows comfortable with showing themself, with being themself. They stop clinging to their history with Radi, they grow past their (frankly, awful) learned responses. They realise just how much he's done for them, and they want to be the best version of themself, to be his support - if he will let them. He draws out the best in them. They draw out the best in him. They're mirrors of each other. They're pillars of support for one another. They're both willing to do anything for each other. Even if that anything is growing past spiteful pride and unwillingness to admit to fault. Even if that anything is opening up your heart to a potential knife, dropping a mask of playfulness and detachment, showing the vulnerable skin underneath.

My two ships. Proudly waving them around. There's more stuff to Grollow, namely PVxGrimm pairing (so, pre-Temple). Moon expands on that a bit (I think it's in the already posted chapter, even) and Dreams has it because of shared interests, shared character traits and, again, Grimm's unwillingness to coddle them or evade them for any reason. Means a lot to them.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SORRY don't you sorry me /lh I'm so glad for the opportunities to talk about my stuff. I love sharing my thoughts, headcanons, anything connected to the creative process honestly. It's a special kind of heartwarming. So no sorry, thank you for asking!

[distrxst]

might change my url sometime. feel peculiar abt mine

[thebirdqueen]

I've truly gone full circle with my hyperfixated characters. Hornet back in the day all the way to now with Vincent. Red cloak to red cloak. (I still love Hornet....Hornet supremacy)

[acheronidae]

I will give Star Rail this, "Plague's Author" is such a fucking badass epithet for a god/god-adjacent entity.

[quillheel]

Hornet had been born a thrumming, slashing thing, and this way she would die.

Her feet moved like pinpricks in the sullen, loamy dirt ━ fast and precise and as needle-like as her nail itself. cutting lines like some kind of dance into the gravel-dimpled ground, swinging, forward and back, lunge & retreat & motion ; effort in grace.

A small thing, always. Hornet would never outgrow the worst of them, but she was fast, and sharp, and in this she found pride. Metal, tension of the string like a blade through the stagnant air, her weapon in her hands. the needle circles, circles, stabs like a stinger through carapace and flesh, piercing the shoddy warped scrap-metal of a training dummy she'd maybe had made herself. Reel it in, the thread returns to her, and with it her needle. Jump! Air whistling through her armor as she rises, joints spry as her eyes widen ━ reorient.

━ And catch! tangle the writhing limbs, trip them up, a flailing of precise white cord through the cold air that burned in her. Suffocate, string them up, cut them out!

This was her name. ━ Names like titles, she was Hornet; a buzzing, fast, terrible thing : with a body like a blade, body from the beast and practice from the bee and mind from the pale, she would stab, slash, spike them through! She is more, she is greater, she is-

━wait, 'them'? it was supposed to be an it. ( how single-minded, to forget just whom she'd been fighting. an internal battle, as much as a physical one... )

[fly-sky-high-bug-games]

A conversation

[grollow]

Having a very normal response to the fact that I've been posting Red Sky since December, and on average only get 1-2 kudos per chapter (and this is fine, it's a niche passion project for me, I didn't expect popularity) but of course I unleash Priestess on the world and get six for one chapter for the first time.

The hyena noises I'm making.

[nompunhere]

Heya! I jus wanted to say how much I adore and appreciate your blog, especially your HK content. It was definitely a unexpected discovery a year or two ago when I first found your fics. Pillbug's Protection was my first, and will always be my absolute fav. God, I dunno what it is about Quirrel and Ghost's dynamic, especially Quirrel dotin and fussin over Ghost, actin overprotective/protective, bein somewhat fatherly/parental towards them, and taking note to make sure they're alright. I know everyone writes Ghost differently, but I lovelovelovelove it when peeps characterize them as not so stoic and brave, like, fleshin' them out, and givin 'em a range of emotions and thoughts despite the fact that all Vessels died before hatchin' and the child inside was "carved out/hollowed/corrupted/tainted" with Void, and thus gave them a directive to ascend up towards the Pale King's light. Oooo, I know you ain't too heavy on the darker themes, but imagine a fic explorin Ghost's headspace, how they process trauma they might not even realize they've had, how they really percieve themself (hollow? vessel? duty-bound? a thing and not a bug? supposed to be pure and hollow despite bein' the opposite? internalizing self-doubt, self-loathin?), what they think of their relation to the Pale King, White Lady, and Hornet, how their existence affects others' perception of them, how normal bug culture had to be taught to them and how they were stilted on how to show affection and emotion at first, how they feel knowin they lack organs because they're pretty much primordial ooze personified into a child-like bug-root-god-thing shell and cloak?, how they think they hafta go through with freein the Hollow Knight and purgin the Radiance, how that's their only true purpose (even if it kills them), how they believe they won't be missed or mourned, how Hornet and Quirrel feel towards them havin' to end the Dreamers' lives jus to break the Seals… things like that.

Oop. My brain spilled. Sorry, sorry!

But yeah, any content between Quirrel and Ghost, especially hurt/comfort, protective/safe/soft vore, how their dynamic of bein pred and prey is handled, the sticky situations they get themselves into… I eat that up (no pun intended).

Again, thank you so much! These fics are a comfort for me, and Quirrel is a comfort character (and I sorta project onto Ghost?? Idk, I'm weird and they have so much character/narrative potential).

whghwhsahahhgevhghwwaegguhwhhhhhhhhh where are my crying screaming love reaction images I can't- euhwaewhhhhhh

this may be a vore blog but that doesn't mean I can't ramble about my fandom interests and dive deeper into character building mmmmm *clapclapclap* lessgo

so! I haven't thought tooo much about my Traveler and Tiny Ghost AU recently, but I still have some leftover thoughts from last year. I do love writing Ghost and Q/uirrel's dynamic, and as for Ghost's personality, I just write them how I see em, which was influenced by how I played them in game and by how I see them written in others' fics. Which is generally "curious and playful highly-skilled gremlin who has lived too long and been through too much to really be a child but at the same time is lacking some crucial development/worldly experience and deserves to regain at least some of the childhood they missed out on." I think I was supposed to switch out of quotes and back into rambling like a quarter of the way through that. eh, anyway. are they a child? are they an adult? both, kinda! probably! but anyway-

Me? Getting inspiration to try and go back and work on that TATG fic I started a year and a half or so ago? It's more likely than you think!

it continues the character and relationship development while also covering, y'know, plot (cough cough Archives), and how it relates more directly to this ask is that it acknowledges that "hey. you're not pure, are you? ...plan A probably isn't gonna work." not too much coverage on all the other stuff, but merhaps I could throw some more introspection in there! I seem to have a tendency for that these days anyway,,,;; and I did recently jot down an outline for a fic(let?) that's almost entirely just introspection on how O/ro is simultaneously touch averse and touch starved by the time present day rolls around, so. it's possible! man if only I could get my head out of K/ingdom's E/dge for two goshdarn seconds-

but! yes!! thank you!!! please feel free to brain spill if you feel so inclined!!!! asks like this make me hapbee (maybe someday I'll even get around to the other ones sitting in my askbox! *stares blankly at askbox* s. someday.)

[acheronidae-origins]

Nothing like repurposing characters from one story into another because shit changes and I need a Pantheon of god's for the Dust Haven homebrew campaign I'm worldbuilding for, and I just so happen to have a group of people in Shadows of the Abandoned who no longer have much of a role in the narrative(not since I decided to make that story an anthology series).

I just picked them up, gave them some spice, and plopped them into Dust Haven as the place's dieties.

[serabellyms]