#hope that made sense it’s kinda a rambly mess

[nattikay]

ok, so here’s the Avatar addendum @arcadia-trash

So, I can understand why on a very surface level some people think Avatar falls into the “humans are bad” camp: after all, the main antagonists, the RDA, are a human faction. But I disagree. Avatar is absolutely saying that greed and apathetic overconsumption are harmful, and yes the group that representing those ideas happens to be a group of humans, but I don’t think it’s saying that all humans are inherently Like That, and it certainly isn’t advocating for human extinction. Yes, they force the RDA to leave, but emphasis on RDA, not humanity as a whole. The humans who were willing to respect Pandora were allowed to stay.

Speaking of which, if you actually look at all the named human characters, at least half of them…are actually part of the good guys. Jake, Grace, Norm, Max, Trudy, Spider…all humans who disagree with the RDA’s actions (sometimes right off the bat, sometimes after a character arc) and fight back against it. Frontiers of Pandora even gives us a semi-organized human Resistance of RDA defectors who have become disillusioned with the corporate propaganda and are fighting back.

Even among the actual bad guys there’s some variation. Selfridge, for example, certainly doesn’t respect the Na'vi, but also doesn’t seem to want to actively harm them…buuuuut ultimately prioritizes profit above all else. Quaritch, on the other hand…he’s actively itching for a fight, he sees the Na'vi not merely as an obstacle to the operation like Selfridge does, but as The Enemy. Both are bad, don’t get me wrong, but Quaritch’s villainy is more actively malicious, whereas Selfridge’s is more just…apathetic.

Then there’s kinda gray characters like Ian Garvin, the marine biologist. He does go along with the tulkun hunts (because doing so is the only way the RDA allows him to conduct his research), but he absolutely abhors the practice and turns to alcohol to cope with the guilt.

Avatar isn’t saying “humans are bad”, it’s saying “greed/overconsumption is bad” and use a corrupt faceless megacorporation as the vessel to represent those ideas. Not every human is aligned with the RDA, several of them actively hate the RDA and what it stands for.

I think the reason it sometimes feels like “humans bad, Na'vi good” is that while the human characters are a pretty mixed bag of good guys vs. bad guys, so far we’ve only really met good Na'vi (in the films at least), so there’s an imbalance there.

I do think this is something that will change in the future: we know that movie 3 is supposed to introduce us to a darker side of the Na'vi, and some of the non-film canon has shown us more questionable characters already: the comics give us Ateyo and Artsut, who attempt to assassinate Jake and frame their innocent son for it, and FoP gives us Mokasa, who sold out the Sarentu to the RDA, enabling their genocide.

There’s also the factor of that deleted scene from the first movie where Grace talks about how the Na'vi don’t have a word for “lie” and that they had to learn about the concept from us. Personally I’m very glad this scene was deleted because yeah that would definitely push into the boundaries of “humans bad, Na'vi good”…but, again, deleted scene, so it looks like they changed their minds there. plus while it’s true that the Na'vi language has no single noun or verb that directly translates to “lie” the concept is still extremely easy to express, plus they DO have words for steal, kill, betray, etc

and also the idea that the Na'vi would be incapable of even understanding the concept of deceit until the humans came in is lowkey insulting to their intelligence so um yeah deleted scene is deleted moving on

BUT yeah. Just because we haven’t seen much of the Na'vi being bad (in the movies) yet does not necessarily imply that they’re incapable of it or that they’re Just Better Than Humans the way Sweet Tooth treats the hybrids; in the case of Avatar it’s less a difference between species and more a difference between culture. Na'vi culture (at least, the ones we’ve seen thus far) values balance and honor, whereas RDA culture (which, again, not every human agrees with) values only power and money. There’s no special genetic factor that makes the Na'vi especially virtuous, they simply live in that sort of culture with those sort of beliefs—beliefs that any sapient species is capable of adopting.

Lastly, speaking of Na'vi vs humans, you might say, “but several of the Na'vi hate the ‘sky people’ and want them to go away!! Doesn’t that fall under ‘humans bad’?”

Well, not really. Yes, several of the Na'vi do detest the sky people, but can you really blame them given all the crap the RDA has done?

Like, let’s imagine the situation in reverse. Say a hyperadvanced alien civilization, let’s call them the Glorks, came down to Earth one day because they discovered we had a rare resource that they wanted. The main Glork Hypership shows absolutely no respect for this primitive species—I mean, they haven’t even discovered quantum string hyperflux amirite!—and when they discover a particularly rich deposit of their coveted resource under New York City, they bomb the whole place to the ground.

……yeah, I don’t think anyone would blame humans for hating the Glorks and wanting them to get the crap off our planet and go back to their own!!

Does that mean Glorks as a species are inherently evil? No. Maybe there are good Glorks who were horrified by the Hypership’s actions. But it’s still understandable that most humans want the Glorks to buzz the heck off.

…yeah that’s how the Na'vi generally view the “sky people”, and understandably so.

buuuuuut that doesn’t make this a “humans bad” story because just because many of the Na'vi dislike humans doesn’t mean the narrative presents them as universally uniquely evil. We the audience still see both the good and bad side of the humans and root for the good guys, just like in any other story.

of course, there’s still three more movies on the horizon, so it is certainly possible that Avatar might end up pulling a Sweet Tooth and get more nihilistic with the fate of humanity by the end of the saga. And if it does that, I will again be very disappointed.

But so far at least, I don’t think that’s been the message. A human faction happens to be the villains, but the story is not claiming that greed etc. is unique to nor inherent to humans as a species.

I just finished the last season of Sweet Tooth on Netflix, I gotta vent a little, warning that this post probably won't be everyone's cup of tea but I gotta say it somewhere. [there be spoilers for anyone who may care about that]

so I've been pretty invested in this show since the first season; yeah, some of the acting is pretty corny and some of the effects look a tad clunky (hello awkward Bobby puppet), but I still enjoyed the characters well enough and wanted them to succeed and also, hey, I'm a simple woman, show me cute animal-people and I'm hooked.

But....I've gotta admit that I really didn't care for the ending. Within the last three episodes of the show they pivot from "we've gotta find a cure for this virus to save humanity" to "actually on second thought humans are the REAL disease and their extinction is the cure" which........ewwwwwwww, no dude, keep your cringe nihilism to yourself k thx

And yeah, in the end they do stop the virus so the remaining humans can survive for a while longer, but all babies are still born as hybrids meaning "humanity" is going to die off within the next 80 years or so anyways.

and they try to dress this up as a great mercy, and they say oh, yeah humans have some good in them but it always comes with Bad, unlike the hybrids who got all the Good in humanity but also they're Better because they're part animal so all the Bad will die off with the humans and hybrids will live in peace forever and I'm sorry but I call bullcrap

Animals are not these great bastions of altruism and morality. Animals rape. Animals steal. Animals kill. Animals cannibalize. Animals eat prey alive.

Even the "oh but humans are greedy and want to take everything and upset the balance of nature" spiel. Buddy, contrary to what some environmentalist stories want to tell you, animals do not actually have a concept of "the balance of nature". That's why invasive species are such a big problem. Introduce an invasive predator into a region and several native prey species go extinct. Those predators don't have a concept of "conserving resources", they'll just keep hunting as long as they're hungry.

And it's not a problem unique to predators either. Remember when wolves were hunted to extinction is parts of the US and then the deer populations exploded and ate all the grass and the whole ecosystem kinda fell apart until wolves were re-introduced to the region? The deer didn't give a crap that they were eating all the grass. They weren't even consciously aware of it. They're not capable of conceptualizing abstract ideas like that.

Natural ecosystems have a balance to them because they're intricately designed systems, not because the animals that live in them are actively making Morally Right Choices to preserve them.

One major thing that separates humans from animals is that we have the capacity for morality. We have the ability to comprehend abstract concepts like freedom and conservation and honor and sacrifice etc., and with it the ability to make moral choices. We are capable of great good, and great evil. You cannot have the capacity for one without having the capacity for the other, because good and evil rest on your choices. Even if you go through your whole life doing only "nice" things, if you did those things because you had no other option, no say in the matter, are you really "good"? Good people choose to be so. I love animals and they're super cool and all, and yes some of them are very smart, but they are not really capable of making that choice (no, I don't care how much of an "angel" your dog is). They are amoral, neither morally good nor bad.

And the hybrids? It's clearly shown that they have the same capacity for choice as humans....which in turn means that yes, whether the narrative wants to admit it or not, the hybrids still have the capacity for evil just like the humans did. Giving them some animal ears or special powers doesn't change that.

Not to mention that all but one of the hybrids we've met are children. They haven't even hit puberty yet!! Of course a bunch of innocent kids are gonna look like sweet little angels compared to hardened desperate adults trying to survive an apocalypse holy flip! And just because Gus happens to be a particularly good person who strives to see the best in others does not mean that all other hybrids for the rest of time are gonna be the same! He's not good because he's part deer, he's good because he's Gus! Because he believes in good things and acts on it!

The one adult hybrid we briefly meet isn't a sweet little kid who sees the best in others, he's a grouchy old man who wants human genocide. And while I can totally understand why he as a character feels that way....that's not good dude!!!! That's not any better than the humans who want to kill the hybrids!

You didn't "remove worst of humanity and preserve the best of it" by replacing humans with hybrids. You just gave them a makeover.

Human/animal hybrids as a character concept are totally up my ally, I think they're very cool, but pretending that being part animal makes them inherently morally better than regular humans is just ridiculous imo.

tl;dr I just really hate the nihilistic "humans are uniquely evil, deserve to go extinct as a Punishment, and literally any other sapient species would be better" trope and I'm very disappointed that this show pivoted to that at the last minute.

[alchemiclee]

been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)

[im-smart-i-swear]

Does Jiro has ghost like abilities (possession, ability to levitate things, etc etc) or does she just live in Shiro's head?

when i created this au, i thought the best option would be for her to be unable to interact with the physical world in any way(including possesion), beacuse i really wanted to lean into her isolation and how it affects her....... and while thats something i still want to emphasise here, lately ive been toying with the idea of jiro being able to impact the physical world somehow(though it still being fairly limited). i think letting her have some control could have a lot of potential! buuuut i also have no idea what abilities i want her to have lol

For now i think im not gonna give her any telekinetic abilities, bc i feel like it would be giving her too much power......... if she could throw shit, shed go APESHIT with it. it would made things too easy for her. i'm sorry babygirl but i'm NOT giving you the possibilty to throw knives and other sharp objects, i dont trust you to not kill someone:/

i really like the idea of her being able to temporarily posses her old body in certain circumstances tho- maybe when shiros uncouncious?? or like when hes is very tired or heavily injured she can kind of 'squeeze through' and take control back for a few minutes???? idk. i think this could be a very cool ability to give her- it cant be frequently used but can also be very helpful, and also theres so much potential for ✨shenanigans✨here>:) oh god i could put these fuckers in so many Situations with this..........

uhhh. so basically i think all of her influence on the physical world are through shiro. shes here bc of her connection to her old body, and thus its the only way for her to interact with anyone besides him- and shes NOT HAPPY about this(neither is shiro).

[gayarograce]

god every time i read a post about an american who says or does something just... really fucking stupid when in a foreign country i feel the need to apologize on behalf of the rest of my country like i promise we're not all this stupid😭😭😭

[just-null]

Kokichi, similar to Noritoshi in the sense that they're analytical and kinda tsun, but that's mostly it. This is another Megumi and Noritoshi situation where, on the surface, they appear to be very similar, but you squint and realize they're extremely different.

Whereas Noritoshi isn't as bold because he still holds remnants of pride, Kokichi is just shy about it since it's so new. He won't back down from it, just hesitate.

[Long ass rambles under the cut! + bonus doodles.]

When referring to shyness, Kokichi leans into the awkward and stiff type. There's always confusion and slight fear in his eyes when he's experiencing something new or romantic. He doesn't want to mess up, but if he does, he just hopes it works in his favor.

Being born in a body where he was under constant pain and stress, someone touching him was the last thing he wanted. He'd never known the loving touch of another because the heavens decided he wasn't allowed to.

After meeting you, that yearning to be next to you became too much. To hell with his restrictions. He'd to do whatever it takes to be able to be with you even if he had to sacrifice others to do it.

In retrospect, he feels like he should've done it sooner. Being touched or even grazed doesn't feel like his skin is falling off anymore.. Plus having both arms and working legs is always a good thing. It's new and odd, but not terrible. His mind never once wandered back and regretted those he's thrown under the bus because why would it?

Unfortunately, when his body was being healed, Mahito made him healthy.. and that's all. Knowing Mahito, he'd leave Kokichi to struggle with catching up to the rest of his peers by working for his own stamina, weight, and strength from square one. Though Kokichi isn't complaining much about it. He'd still take this rather than being stuck in that god forsaken tub for a second longer.

He used to hate being fussed over because of his illness. He prefers to do things on his own and now he can. Yet, Kokichi still gets pitiful looks on other's faces when he's too weak to carry something. It makes him want to spit at them, he can use Mechamaru to do his heavy lifting for now. He doesn't need a beefed up body to do it.

Unless you're the "beefed up" one fussing over him.. He doesn't mind it when it's you. In fact, Kokichi feels grateful when it's you, endeared even. He never feels belittled or pitiful when its you.. Only you.

Judging by how he treated panda for having the ability to interact with others in person despite being a cursed corpse, Kokichi has a number of insults and creative verbal abuse he's ready to spew out once someone tries getting a little too close to you. Scratch that, he's rude in general to those he isn't familiar with.

Kokichi has a lot of anger for those he deems ungrateful. What do you expect from someone who thought he was gonna rot in a bathtub for the rest of his life to do? Not harbor resentment? Luckily, he holds just as much, if not more, love for you who he's unbelievably grateful for!

Your affection is so odd to him, a new experience that he never knew he could grow to yearn for. It's not terrible, quite the opposite. It's so wonderful he can't get enough. Every time you're around, he wants to have at least one hand on you at all times. Doesn't matter where, just as long as he feels you're around. Safe to say, he's extremely touch starved.

Oh how Kokichi would drop everything for a walk with you. He'd use every Mechamaru he had just to make sure no one disturbs either of you. Murder is just a side effect if they get too persistent. He just wants to spend time with you!

Though he likes walks, he still gets out of breath easily. Walking is nice, but he still needs time to get used to it. Offering to help will only cause him to lean against you, it's not too difficult, he doesn't weigh much for better or worse. He loves when you lend him a hand, it's just another reason to get close to you.

When you part, it's only natural that Kokichi gifts you a little trinket he made. Rejecting it will only reward you with the most devastated frown, so just accept it. If you get rid of it when coming home, it somehow always finds its way back to you? Destroying it will lead to Kokichi giving you another one.

Yes, it follows and watches you, but it's just to keep you safe! Who knows what could happen. Whether or not the little trinkets are subtle, all depends on how you reacted to him asking if it was alright to know your location at all times when he's not around. Kokichi is understanding if you're not okay with it. He'll just make his gifts extra subtle so you wont know he's watching.

He just wants to be by your side constantly, even if he's not able to be there in person. Watching you through a screen gives him a sickly familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it's better than not knowing what you're doing. He can even pick up little things about you this way for when he sees you next time! This is nothing but a win-win in his mind even if others beg to differ.

Kokichi never felt blessed. Not once since the day he was born, not until he found you. You who he feels is truly a gift from the heavens. You who he would give up everything to have. In a way, Kokichi is delusional. He sees you as the reason he got a heavenly restriction. It was as if other worldly forces tried to keep him at bay from pursuing you, but you're also the reason he broke his restrictions. He now has the body he wished for thanks to you, his drive, his motivation, his purpose, his love.

[extra shit]

Kokichi’s so fucking low key about being a chuunibyou. you're telling me he named his mech after an anime he watched. half his attacks have ultimate or ultra in the name.. HE MADE A FUCKING MECH. Your ass can't tell me he didn't watch anime while growing up and got inspired to make it a reality. He probably watched Evangelion or something.. Woah, anime dates with him where he makes your favorite creature and uses it to his advantage.. woah.

[Bonus Kokichi verbal abuse]

[aphroditeinthesea]

I’ll combust if we don’t get a part 2 for that Percy fic 💔💔

“ i don’t like a gold rush ” (the sequel)

percy jackson x daughter of aphrodite!reader 🌊 | pt.1

a/n a lot of rambling idk what i was even saying

tw makeout insinuation, travis stoll x reader, hurt/mild comfort, not proofread

𓆝 𓆟 ౨ৎ 𓆝 𓆟

Getting over the youngest son of Poseidon was a task easier said than done. Especially seeing him with the spirit that was Annabeth Chase. The two had been attached at the hip since they were twelve.

Alas, y/n decided to turn her attention to another pretty boy. The elder of the Stoll brothers. You could say she had a type. He was in a strange sense, similar to Percy.

The dark wavy hair, light eyes. He was cute enough.

Unfortunately when your mother is the goddess of love, you don’t really get to be normal about your crushes. Especially when you have your sister breathing down your neck about “Aphrodite’s Rite of Passage.” No matter what Y/N knew that was something she could never complete. She was a hopeless romantic not a maneater like many believed Aphrodite’s children to be.

When she gathered herself and decided it was time to talk to the son of Hermes, she found herself strolling to cabin 3. She knocked on the door. She heard swearing and things falling before the door opened.

“Hey, y/n,” he sighed. The boy’s hair was messed and he was without a shirt.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Kinda.”

She peered over his shoulder seeing the blonde on his bed, awkwardly playing with the hem of the oversized shirt she was wearing, “I get it.”

“Sorry,” he breathed, “did you need something?”

“I was just gonna ask you something,” she shrugged, “talk to you later though.”

“Bye,” he sheepishly spoke as he closed the door.

She embarrassedly made her way back to her cabin. All while ignoring the pit in her stomach as she told herself she didn't care. She didn't care. She had bigger fish to fry.

Bad analogy.

As slow hours passed she laid in her bed staring at the ceiling. Sure, she had things to do. Training, cleaning, chores. But for now, the ceiling was where her mind wanted to stay. The ceiling was the blank canvas she had spent so much of her painting with visions of Percy Jackson. She imagined if they’d dated what they would do together. The romantic dates, the sneaking into his cabin the way Annabeth does. Her head ached when she tried to picture the new acrylic, when she was so used to watercolor.

She imagined kissing the boy. Test one. She wasn't cringing the way she would have expected to, but as the image of muscular arms that belonged to the wrong came into her mind, she sat up. She finally stretched her legs, trying to clear her mind of all things Poseidon. When she heard the cabin door creak open, she failed her challenge as the boy walked in.

“Y/N,” he grinned as he caught her eyes.

“Hi, hey, hi,” she smiled in return, “what’s up?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he retorted, tilting his head, which reminded her of a puppy in a way. Which trailed her thoughts into picturing him as a husky with bright blue-green eyes. And then she realized that was kinda a weird thought?

She looked down, picking at her cuticles, “sorry, yeah, right, uhm,” she looked back up at him. She tried to focus as she looked into his eyes that were framed by his thick eyelashes that made him almost look like he was wearing mascara. “Remember how I helped you with Annabeth?”

“Yeah,” he lovesickenly smiled as his brain thought of the girl. If Y/N weren't a daughter of love itself, she would be hurling.

She shook her head, “anyway, I was kinda hoping you could repay the favor?”

He raised an eyebrow as he sat on one of her sister’s beds, being the only two people in the cabin. “Me? why?”

“You owe me,” she said, “remember?”

He leaned back, “yeah,” he recollected the memory, not expecting it to be held up, “just, what do I know about love?”

“I see you with,” she took a deep breath, “her. You're a romantic, whether you know it or not.” She sat across from him on another bed, “plus, you know boys.”

“I know boys?”

“You are one, aren't you?”

He laughed, “I think so.” He shifted closer to her, he lowered his voice, “what boy are we talking about?”

“Travis Stoll.”

He cringed, “Travis? Really?”

“What?” she softly mentioned, “he’s cute.”

Before he could speak, the door opened, the pair turned to look at it. A girl with an orange shirt and pink shorts stood with her arms crossed, “what is the fish boy doing on my bed?”

ྀིྀིྀིྀིྀིྀིྀིྀི

“He’s not the smartest guy, y/n,” Percy said as he stood beside y/n, borderline stalking Travis alongside his brother from afar. The sons of Hermes built something possibly illegal in 48 states as they sat together.

She looked at him for a second, “and you are?”

“I’m no Stoll,” he smiled, turning to the girl, “you're gonna have to be straight forward. He wont pick up on any hints.”

She held up her hand, sticking up her thumb and pinky to imitate a phone, “hey, kettle, you're black.”

“Huh?”

She smirked, “you just proved my point, thank you very much.”

He rolled his eyes, “you wanted someone who knows guys, who got one.”

She nudged his shoulder, “thanks, Perce.”

“I owe you.”

“You do.”

Silence fell over the two until a loud “hey!” was called from the direction of the brothers.

“We’ve blown our cover,” she muttered before grabbing Percy’s arm tightly. They ran away with laughter overhead as the other two chased after them. They both came to a stop, clutching their stomachs to catch their breaths.

“What were you guys doing?” Travis stood tall.

She bit her lip, “sorry, we were just,” she looked at Percy for a quick glance, “we weren't doing anything.”

“Yeah, we were just on a walk, you guys are the suspicious ones,” Percy added.

The daughter of Aphrodite moved some hair that had gotten stuck on her lip gloss, “Travis, actually, I kinda wanted to talk to you.”

He raised an eyebrow, “why?”

“Come on,” she grinned, beckoning him to follow her to a secluded area. When they stopped, she finally just took a deep breath and spilled her guts to the boy. As she realized just how easy it was, she wondered why she couldn't have just done all this before? It sure would have saved her the pain she had put herself through, time and time again.

“You like me?” He repeated back to her.

She looked a away, “thats pretty much the gist of things, yep.”

“Oh,” he responded.

“I needed to tell you, that’s all.”

“Hey, wait, I,” he sighed, “I like you, too.”

She smiled, “really?”

“Totally.”

So, that night, as she sat by the campfire hand in hand with Travis Stoll, she watched Percy and Annabeth connected at the hip nearby. She looked back at the boy next to her, letting a smile come across her face. But she wondered why she still felt that stabbing pain in her heart.

[dizzyisdizzy]

:0 very cool art!!!

I really enjoy the colors you pick in your outlines/line art. Any particular considerations made when you pick out colors? You have a great eye for saturation in general tho

Colors is always really hard to answer; I'm going off vibes!

Besides high brightness/saturation, I focus on a few hues that look nice together in abstract, and every chosen color falls into those categories. Everything about Miku must fall into Pink or Blue. The black in her outfit leans blue; with white being the only truly neutral color I'm using (and you'll never find me using grays).

In that sense I don't necessarily hand pick the colors; rather I limit my options to force me to adjust saturation or the placement of colors to define the subject. That's what creates those pink strands in Miku's hair; an attempt to add more depth without making the hair a busy sea of blue. And when the colors are placed together like that they usually stay close in saturation (the difference in hue alone is enough, a big jump in value or saturation will be too much).

Otherwise saturation is a tier system. Base color has lowest sat, then shaded, and a big jump in sat/darkness for lineart (since it creates contrast, adding a new element to mess with).

Lineart color changes according to lighting and foreground/background. Against light it becomes brighter or even vanishes altogether, or becomes a cooler hue in shadow. Accessories are often lineless since the extra contrast makes the smaller objects too busy. Skin lineart also becomes brighter when skin overlaps skin (that's just a sorta trick I enjoy tho).

I pretty much can only ramble but I hope this gives some some kinda insight.

[bipbopdepmop]

(click for slightly better quality :] )

fanart for solving counting sheep by @theminecraftbee! super super proud of this one :D i absolutely loved this fic! did not stop thinking about it for days. spectacular job.

timelapse here! tw: flashing. please watch it I had such a hard time getting it to upload :(

fun info/rambling about the piece below the cut!

a few little details i wanted to point out:

in case it was hard to tell what was going on, grian is in the top center, watcher three is in the middle, as well as at the bottom, but it is unmasked and a little feathery.

i have intentionally placed the yarn, the sheep and mumbo on the left hand side. they represent the things that help three begin to solidify its identity. oppositely, on the right hand side we have pearl holding the album, the photograph and candles, grian's gravestone, and the main building of the grian empire. they represent parts of three's old identity as grian.

the red is of course, three/grian's favourite colours, but also there to symbolise the sort of duality between the two? (hopefully that makes sense.) as well as the symbolism of the unmasked three being red is that its kinda like? trying to reconcile its old identity with its new one. it is holding its masquarade mask - it is three, it is grian, it is three. the red three is also slightly feathery to show that it looks like grian, but is not anymore, it is something else now.

also, pearl, martyn and jimmy all have some sort of red accent, which is to show their ties to grian.

i know jimmy's scarf is red and green, however, it wouldve messed the colour palette up :( so it's all red! martyn's headband probably wasn't red either, but shh, i took some ahh creative liberties

there's no particular reason for jimmy's wings other than that i needed to fill space and i love drawing butterfly/bug wings.

i was gonna try to tie in something about the listeners (like a symbol or something) but didn't bother to look too hard.

the album might not have said 'evo' on it, but i'm too lazy to go and dig that back up right now. it may get edited later to be more accurate.

the dragon pillars/purple background in the top are there to represent the dragon fight in which grian was taken from and 'killed.' the watcher eyes placed within the purple burst is to show how they were there.

similarly, there are watcher wings along the top edge of the piece. a certain set of them are 'watching' the grian empire, as a nod to how they had their eyes on grian and evo from the start.

there are also three dragon pillars, as a nod to three the person, and also because it was nice and symmetrical that way.

i initially had the middle three wearing the masquarade mask (as you'll see in the timelapse) but realised it made way more sense symbolically to have the lower three holding the mask, and for the middle three to have the watcher mask.

iiii don't know how to draw sheep. (<- too lazy to look it up) i hope that sheep looks somewhat sheeplike.

minor changes may be made if i notice any mistakes / small things i want to fix

overall, very, very happy with this! i hope i did the fic enough justice :D go read it if you haven't!!

[ponds-of-ink]

Very Quick Springtrap & Y/N One-Shot: “A Dumbfounding Comparison”

Is it still considered a Y/N thing if it’s not written in second person? ..Regardless..

I got inspired by a post by @alexthesillybilly talking about Springtrap being compared to a childhood teddy bear, so here this is. The prompt sort of changed mid-writing, but I hope this is still good.

–

Springtrap hid behind the open door. If it weren’t for the fact that the newest guard was chattering on the phone, he would’ve given ‘em a proper scare.

…Not because he was scared of being seen or anything. Such a feeling couldn’t register even if it wanted to.

Rather, it was this looming sense of being ignored that was the issue. On and on this guard rambled, even as he peeked his head into the office. Topics like “You’ve got to see this place!” or “The computers are so slow here..” was all the newbie could talk about. Nothing about him nor the fact that he was right next to the office. Just… standard conversations one could have on a first night at some new job. Like it was a mere nine-to-five desk affair.

Honestly, all this chatter left him feeling hollow. Bereft, even.. Though what exactly prompted the feeling was unknown.

Yet, not being one to leave a “job” unfinished, he continued to linger. All he could do was silently beg for the sweet sound of those three rapid beeps. At least the guard was quieter now. That seemed promising.

“Hey, before I go,” the newbie piped up, “I gotta tell you about something I found tonight.”

Springtrap’s ear raised. Oh?

“it was the prettiest! So velvety and soft, it made my heart race.”

His ear lowered right back down. Ah. Never mind. It must have been some fluffy pillow at some nearby store. Thirty years had not been kind to his animatronic body— Let alone being considerate enough to not mess with the quality of the fabric.

“…Well, I mean, it was pretty to me,” the newbie corrected sheepishly, snapping him out of self-introspection. “Kinda like how your old teddy bear gets all grody with age. The memories are still there if you look past the muck and stuff.”

A staticky counterpoint pierced through the air. Springtrap finally peered into the room again. There was the guard, all bundled up in Autumn attire. That modern phone still buzzed with some unseen voice explained how “something that tall” couldn’t be compared to a teddy bear. Whatever that something was didn’t matter. This was his chance.

He trudged up to the desk. His posture slowly readied itself for an attack. The countdown in his head staggered just in case the mere pain in moving spiked. 

Three… Two… One—

“Oh, there you are!” the guard cried out, finally making eye contact with him. “We were just talking about you!”

Springtrap faltered mid-pounce.

All that “soft and velvety” nonsense was about him?

“I forgot to tell him that you were able to move too,” the newbie added, cupping the one side of their scarf-covered cheek. “Thanks for reminding me!”

The voice on the phone bounded back to life. Many questions were raised, but Springtrap was too stunned to pay attention. It took him even longer to realize that the phone had now morphed into a miniature camera of some sort. His own gruesome features were, thankfully, jarring enough to bring him back to reality.

Except now that long-lost fear came along with him.

All he could do was just go through the motions of a typical introduction: Wave “Hello”, attempt to look hospitable, then don’t panic if you catch yourself being filmed. Easy said, a-little-less easily done.

Fortunately for him, this only lasted a minute or two.. Merely because the person on the other side was desperate to not hurl on “camera”. The guard, strangely enough, was not in the least bit repulsed by this towering mess of a rabbit. “Thanks for stopping by, Springs,” the newbie said cheerfully, returning to work as if nothing happened. “I really appreciate the company.”

Springtrap loomed beside the poor soul. He watched for a look of dread, but nothing came. Battling the pain, he turned the chair to face him.

“What’s the matter, Springs?” the newbie asked, finally sounding concerned. “Am I doing this job all wrong?”

Springtrap leaned towards the guard. He stared them down to the best of his ability. Why… did this one think… he was “pretty”?? He was supposed to terrifying! Absolutely nauseating, given the “friend’s” reaction! Oh, yes, he heard the excuse all right. Loud and clear. But was it a lie to tell oneself or was it a genuine delusion? Even if it was the honest truth, then what could possibly—?

“I know this is a bad time to ask,” the guard said, interrupting the furious tension, “but where’d you get such haunting eyes? I don’t think any of the old Freddy’s animatronics had that kind of glow to them.”

Springtrap blinked. Well… That.. was better. An absolute shame he had no idea how to answer that.

[gren-arlio]

Rewriting this sucks, but we ball. Welcome to Episode 13 of Waku Puyo Extras.

(...If you saw the post before I deleted it, no you didn't. I hate my internet.)

Heya everyone, Gren here, rewriting this for a second time because I accidently clicked post and lost everything because my internet decided to be a dickhead. Welcome to Episode 13 of this wonderful show I've made, where I discuss random Puyo things and hope they make sense to an audience. They usually do.

Today we'll be focusing on our favorite idiot out there, Ms. Draco Centauros. It's wild how she's been with us since day one and we haven't made anything for and about her. This one might seem more summarized and less "Gren's rambling again," because man. Retyping sucks.

Uploads have been scarce due to school, we're hitting the toughest parts by far, I plan to change it sometime.

Let's begin, shall we? I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and please play Persona 3 Reload. Amazing game.

----

So Who IS Draco in Puyo?

I have to specify Puyo so we can mention Madou stuff later, since it's how I wanna roll this time around.

She's been with us with a personality since what, 1992? And she's had two wonderful traits.

She loves beauty contests.

And she may be stupid.

We'll come to love and hate those traits later on down the line. Believe me on that. That's how she began in Tsu, after all.

However, everything changed when it came to Puyo SUN, where something very unique happened. She's now a protagonist, and I believe the first one to do so, a massive accomplishment. She's the protagonist of the Easy Mode Course, the shortest one, but that's fine.

She finds Skeleton-T heating up tea while she basically dying of heat, and she burns the tea, making the man (skeleton?) PISSED, and a fight happens, classic Puyo. After that, Draco encounters Harpy, who collapsed on the ground due to dehydration, so Draco saves her life via a water bottle. Sadly, it results in Harpy singing, and Draco to slowly die inside because...it's Harpy's singing for God's sake.

And finally, she runs into Choppun (remember that guy?) He's land surfing on a rock... before he gets properly swept away by the water, thankfully. With that, Draco tries to relax, and uh, that doesn't end well. The sun's too hot, and she goes flying, not by her free will, of course, but because sunburn does that to someone...leading to her being the first fight of Arle's story, basically in severe pain due to that.

The fact that she got a protagonist role is something to behold, and it's very interesting to know that a common Mook like her was able to secure such a spot. Later on, other side characters like Witch and Lagnus would get the role in other games (Comet Summoner, Madou Saturn, etc,) but no, Draco is the first one to do that, a very big accomplishment in of itself. Nice one Draco.

And hey, she returns in Puyo~N too, being one of the first fights in the game.

(Just want an excuse to show the artstyle. MAN, it's so good.)

Here, Arle asks if she knows who stole Carbuncle, as that's basically the plot of the entire game, but Draco has reverted back into her good old "Is she stupid?" personality, assumes she's there for a beauty contest and fights her, and loses, go figure. After that, she actually joins Arle for the search for her missing Carbuncle, alongside Witch, Serilly, and Chico.

She even says Gao. It's perfect.

But after that, it kinda went all over the place. It was her last real major/semi-prevelent role for a good bit. She's there in Minna, but she doesn't exactly do a ton. She's part of a long fetch quest where mail has been messed up, and her mail got lost 3 years ago because Witch accidently got it instead, but that's really about it. And then, like everyone in Compile besides Arle, she vanishes for The Fever Era. She doesn't even appear in 15th, when Nasu Grave and Zoh Daimoh made it. But hey, jokes on them, they haven't appeared since.

But after so long, Draco makes her grand return in Puyo 7.

(Wonder who you saw first in this image. For me it was Raffine.)

Here, she's in the Bermuda Triangle because Dark Arle told her that there's a beauty contest there, and she just believes it. Ringo and Amitie go there for plot reasons, and Draco assumes they're there for the same reasons as her. Sadly, they're not, and Draco has been HOODWINKED. And as we know, if you play as Amitie, Witch and Harpy make their cameo appearance, new designs as all... just to not use them ever again. Makes me sad every time.

Draco reappears in 20th Anniversary, where Witch also makes her real debut back. Harpy died sadly. She got smacked to the Land of Chronicles instead. Back to Draco, she wants to find a really cool swimsuit Arle mentioned, but it's Draco, life hates her. After a slew of mishaps and ruining people's day, she finally finds it... and finds out it's from Suketoudara. Rip.

And hey, she reappears in Chronicle, where she's just minding her own business until she gets yoinked by the book that took everyone else to Ally's world. And in Draco Fashion... she assumes Ally and crew are there for a beauty pageant and won't be usurped. Wonder how many times I've mentioned her and beauty pageants, gotta keep count sometime.

She's in Tetris 1 and uh. She tries to eat O.

And uh...she does a talent show with Witch in the DLC. That's it.

TETRIS 2 TIME

She's one of the many people who got corrupted by Marle, but had Ringo fooled for a good bit on accident, and apologized for her odd behavior. Not her fault Marle is uh... quite the character.

And in side story stuff, she's just playing around with Mini Puyos since she finds them interesting. Unfortunately, Witch also finds them interesting and makes Draco her test subject for studying Mini Puyos, saying it'd at least be a good workout for her. And since we're playing as Draco, she does just that...for science, we swear. After that, Witch notes that due to their smaller size, much higher chains and such, before Draco says she's just there for a good time, much to Witch's annoyance.

So That's Puyo. How About Madou?

(One guy out there just decided to make the coolest Draco art out there. Thanks man.)

Draco began in the series like many other characters, a Mook, a random encounter, a person Arle ran into during dungeon crawling adventures, the sort. It's simple enough, it's her beginnings.

However, I won't exactly be going in chronological order for this, rather, I want to mention some things here and there as I go.

Draco began to get fairly popular due to her design and appearances in Puyo, ala Witch, so she began to make a lot of appearances in side stuff, such as Disc Station games. She appears in a few off memory:

Tower of the Magician, where she's a random encounter Schezo can fight. Here though, she has a little more personality since it's been more established.

PuyoLympics, where she makes a cameo appearance in the swimming section of the game. She's not playable, like Rulue and Schezo, but she makes an appearance.

Rulue's Spring Break of Fists, where like many other characters, she talks a lot... because it's a visual novel. She only appears in one story route, like almost every other character in the game.

Arle Man'Yuki, where she's uh. There.

Madou Saturn, where she's a playable ally, but a temporary one.

Waku Puyo Dungeon and it's manga, where in the manga, she fights against and alongside Rulue.

So let's talk about her role in Saturn first. She's been chained up alongside Witch due to Incubus being Incubus, and you're given a choice to save her or Witch first. Today, it's Draco.

Arle and Rulue save Draco, and Draco's first thing to do is go to a beauty pageant...to find out that she's late and it's already over.

And it leads to this. She's gone, bros. To the point where she doesn't help fight Schezo 3 minutes later. However, after said fight, she regains her senses and enters a whole other contest since the reward is a key that opens literally anything. You know, so they can save Witch.

Unfortunately, Yog Smoke is appearing, and it's not looking so good for our heroes, but we skim some smaller details, some fights later, it's honestly quite similar to Witch's route, down to the Schezo Refight and Jaan appearance, I guess to give players similar experiences. It's honestly a very nice role Draco has at least, where she's able to kinda bounce off Arle and Rulue decently well, and she's no slouch in combat either.

After saving Witch, she does leave you, but reappears at the end of the game at the very least. And that's mostly her role, she has her own quirks and her personality, while a little one dimensional as always, still leaves room up for some unique conversations with Arle and Rulue.

And even then, her role in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon and its manga are at least more than that, to an extent. It depends on the Route.

In Arle's Route (yeah, sorry for not translating in a hot minute. School work over that, sorry.) she relies more on her stupid self and assumes Arle is there for a beauty- basically the usual. However, at the very least, she does canonically say she can make 5 chains, before realizing they her and Arle are gonna PROPERLY fight rather than Puyo battle, which is neat. And even after defeat, she just trains to become even better, which is honestly a nice change of pace.

And in Schezo's route, it relies on Schezo also being partially a Grade A dunce, since the boss dialog is him misunderstanding Draco completely about "Something," before she says it's a Battle, leaving him to feel stupid for not thinking that. And after defeat and near the end of the game, Schezo runs into her again, and he says that he's not really interested in appealing to women or anyone, leading to Draco assuming he's gay, much to his annoyance. And on another talk, Draco mentions if he was more in touch with how people feel and watched his wording, Schezo would be even more popular with the ladies, before he's shocked that he's popular in general.

Notice how I haven't spoken about Rulue yet, and it's because...I dunno how she acts there. But I do somewhat know how she acts in the manga.

(This requires context. Believe me.)

Like in the game, Draco is the boss of Fire Mountain, and since Rulue and Minotauros are there...to put it bluntly, the three fight. Draco's no slouch though, as she's able to actually fight Rulue competently and WIN round one, so to speak, which is the top image of the entire post.

When knocked out, Rulue begins to dream about Arle...and Satan. The rest is history. Round two happens, and it's a real back and forth, honestly. Draco lands good hits, Rulue gets good hits, before out of nowhere, steals the Naruto Handbook and Shadow Clone Justu's, shocking Draco and ending the fight there.

It's worth noting that it appears Draco might (or definitely does,) like or even crush on Rulue herself. Since this stupid 10 image limit it kicking my ass, you can probably find many pages online of those moments. Draco even tags along in fighting... these guys, who are basically traumatized from fighting Rulue.

(They're in Saturn, that's for sure.)

And as such, ends our talk about Draco. She's a very fascinating character, since she hasn't changed a whole lot throughout the decades.

She's been fairly two-note for years now, but it doesn't really stop her from being a good and fun character, especially when Compile/SEGA decide to give her a little more than "Is she stupid?" and beauty pageants.

That'd be all from me. Adios.

[slytherindisaster]

Characters Retrospective & a whole lotta ramblings vol. 2

A continuation of my previous rant. Again, if you're interested I invite you under the cut.

In my previous post, I left out Frederick, and unfortunately, it wasn't intentional. I just blatantly forgot about the poor guy. It is a perfect representation, though, of where I stand with him. Don't get me wrong, I love that bastard, but ultimately, I think I lost purpose with him a long time ago. He's kinda similar to Lottie, that I had an idea of what I wanted him to be, but he just didn't want that for himself. A lot of his first intended character traits were given to Laurent. I am not mad about it though, this changes allowed me to explore a completely different side of him and led to my favourite mess of a web love triangle. I'm very grateful for that.

I think that he still has the potential in him, again, not sure if this particular universe is still the right one for him. His case is similar to Josie, though. If I never come back for him, he'll be at peace with that.

Ah, yes, the Hogwarts Mystery adjacent crew. It took me a while, but ultimately, I found a perfect place for them, in some ways close to their current environment in others, completely different. That is a universe of my original novel. No clue when or if it will happen for sure, but I had a rough idea for a certain story in mind for a long time, my biggest trouble was to pick the right cast of characters for it. Well, why not use something you already know, right?

They all will get major makeovers for sure. That might include name changes, face changes, maybe even scrapping or merging some of them, but that's natural. I'm obviously still figuring this out, and I will be for quite some time. There's still some magic happening, Julian's seer abilities and Ira's healing magic are something I will very much like to keep. So is Marceline, even though she's, of course, not part of the original crew, and I'd probably still keep her as a daughter of one of them. Can't say much more, I will probably keep all the previous content for them on this blog, so not to worry, but there is an exciting journey ahead of us.

Lily Anne is still here, kicking , and she is here to stay. I never fully explored her or her lore here, but she's been with me for so long, and I know I'm not quite ready to let her go without getting her a chance to speak. She changed so much over the years, behind the scenes, from a typical self-insert (down to her name even) made just to ship with Fred Weasley, to a full fledged character with her own motivations, ambitions and family drama. Oh, the family drama, you have no idea.

Sadly, she's too deep rooted in the HP universe to take her out of it and her story to still make sense, but maybe in some ways, it's a good thing. I hope one day I will have all the time and motivation to finally get her story out there and hopefully make you fall in love with her just like I did. Both her and Dancing with the Demons in general have been such a huge part of my life now that I can't imagine what it's like without them. They are still evolving and reaching their final form, and even if they never fully see the light of day, they are still important to me.

[i-drop-level-one-loot]

Oof, how to train your pet human part 2 hurt. Your writing is really great, and the way you are portraying such an incomprehensible thing as a more advanced alien life and the differences in the emotional capabilities between them and their pet human is stunning. Be it from their cultural background or just the way their species has always viewed love (kinda like how some birds are Whores and others mate for life /lh) the contrast in gestures that would seem to mean a deep love to humans meaning potentially less to them is just. Chefs kiss. This is a rambly mess but yeah.

Thank you so much! I was really worried that people be too bummed out by part two, but it made sense in my mind, especially if darling can start to fall in love with Kirtch and have a happy life. The differences in how their species expresses love is something I felt needed to be understood by darling. There will be a part three that will be (possibly) the conclusion to their story, and while I can't promise no feelings, I hope it's at least a complete and satisfying story ❤️❤️❤️

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

So I'm sure you've noticed I've been stalking ur blog lol

When I saw this post it actually kinda resonated with me.

https://www.tumblr.com/gabrielsbubblegumbitch/747324251353300992/i-saw-so-many-alastor-ruined-vox-takes-but-how?source=share

I'm Asexual aromatic but Flirting, touching, and other things that can be taken as romantic are purely natural to me. For me it's never serious just another way for me to show interest and have fun with friends. This has actually lead to issues with a few friends in the past. Unknowingly my blind ass would have people genuinely romantically and sexually interested in me and I wouldn't know. It honestly does feel confusing, and in the strangest way violating when you find out. (Can't think of a better word than violating but I don't think that quite gets the feeling across.)

With the way you phrased it actually made me more understanding of how Alastor can just push Vox away, and resonated with me lol.

Put in the same situation I would likely do the same. I'm not just going to change how I talk or act around this person because they have feelings for me, but I can't ignore/forget that they do.

Unlike Alastor though I am a people pleaser so I did try to enter into those relationships and I safely say it would've ended up so much worse for both Vox and Alastor.

Acting flirtatious/romantic is so very different than actually being interested.

At first you follow the classical steps of romance, dates, flowers, I love yous, you do that with friends too, but physically touch suddenly becomes more uncomfortable. Which could explain why Alastor has a "I touch you, you don't touch me" policy, unless your Nifty/Rosie of course!

Everything that person who 'loves' you does however begins to feel annoying, suffocating.

Alastor feeling claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and confused suddenly because this person who was a good friend suddenly wants to get together would instantly push him away. FORCE Alastor either looks at his own actions or views Vox as some perverse person. Therefore any ideas he might have like new technology come from a perverted place.

Obviously I'm not saying that Vox being interested in Alastor from a romantic angle is automatically perverse or wrong but with how much he values his autonomy it definitely feels weird for someone to WANT to be tied down.

I have a lot of thoughts but it is late so I'm just rambling and have way too many thoughts! I do hope you could more or less make sense of this mess! Thank you!

I'm sorry it took me ages to reply but unfortunately I'm mentally ill and for the las few weeks, putting together a coherent response was too demanding :c But I don't like leaving asks unanswered.

I could make sense of this rambling! Actually it's more or less what I had in mind while writing the original post. I'm autistic so I often miss the fact that people are attracted to me + sometimes things have different meanings for me than for most of people (e.g. lately I said something that made someone think that I want to be romantically involved with them, they rejected me, things got extremely weird and I did my best to explain to them my true feelings but I'm still anxious that they might think that I lied to save face) and I'm aromantic. So I get what you mean with that unreasonable feeling of being violated. It is completely unjustified and I hate feeling that way because I recognize it as utterly unfair toward the other person, who is not hurting me in any way but I can't help it.

So, I can imagine that Alastor - who hasn't been though years of therapy and may not be the most self aware and emotionally open person - could feel very bad with Vox's feelings. Especially when Vox is not above manipulation and gaslightning, and probably doesn't take rejection well so thing could get nasty pretty quickly.

[teddypickerry]

Could you write something angsty for Alex?

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐋 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄.

pairing! alex turner x fem reader

summary! in which alex’s lack of songs leads to him writing something he shouldn’t

word count! 1k

warnings! none

a/n! this fucking sucks. i don’t know why i hate this so much. one of my friends read it and loved it but i cannot get into it. BUT I LOVE ALEX SO I AM POSTING IT. probs cause it’s 4am and i’m tired (never). also i left the the ending kinda up to you. if you want him to apologize then you can imagine that or if you want her to dump his sorry ass then slay!

PARALLEL UNIVERSE. the exact words your boyfriend had jotted down on a notepad left in the sitting room. you'd got home from work, noticing a mess of things on the coffee table and chair where you could assume your boyfriend alex had sat all afternoon. he was currently in between tours and albums meaning, he was drawing inspiration from everything. for some reason he was in dire need of lyrics as if he didn't just release an album a year ago.

alex's process, that he'd explained to you the evening prior, consisted of needing lyrics by the end of the next year after the album. which made no sense to you but apparently to him it was all worked out in his brain. so he'd spent the past few months jotting down every word that interested him. sure it got frustrating, he left dinner with your sister the other day because he had a writing epiphany. only to have you come home two hours later to a rather pissed off version of him. him going on about messing up the beat and locking himself in his office for the rest of the evening.

alex was irritable and frustrated with his lack of inspiration and you honestly party blamed yourself. with his exes, he'd had several love songs that could have been mistaken for poems lined up. the thoughts of you possibly being at fault for this version of your boyfriend woke you up during the early hours of the morning. there was a part of you that worried you weren't enough for the romantic man. and your biggest fears seemed to shine the moment your eyes crossed over the notepad. the title scribbled 'parallel universe' in alex's sloppy handwriting. below were crossed out messy lines of writing. all hurting you more than the next.

'in some parallel universe, i know you

held me tighter. i tried harder. you spoke,

"look my love, i will look for you in every

lifetime." i didn't have you in this one so,

i'll have to wait for the next'

that was enough to have your heart beating out of your chest. there was more written at the bottom, but you couldn't bother. you'd felt betrayed. it didn't matter who it was about but he did at least owe you that. not that you ever wanted to hear it. hear who he was thinking about this way, dreaming about being in the arms of while actually in yours. the feeling was indescribable.

the hum of the tv was the only thing beside your heavy breaths that you'd heard. not acknowledging the sound of footsteps down the hallway into the living room, where you stood. your back towards him as he stopped in the doorway. "thought that was you. thought i heard the door. look- i think i finally have something figured out so maybe we can go out to that place you like in a bit. the one with the blue drink that you always get and have a proper night out. it's been awhile..." his warm voice trailed off at your silence, and lack of acknowledgment of him.

you let out a deep breath before turning your head, noticing the man with a white towel wrapped around his waist. his hair was dripping wet besides one strand over his eyes. he looked so fucking good, and that fucking hurt.

the expression on your face told him something not that it was correct in anyway. "we don't have to go there, i mean.." he licked his lips. "we could always stay here tonight, order in... stay in bed."

you didn't know why you let him ramble on. maybe because there was a part of you that hoped the paper in your hand was a lyric nick wrote, or maybe jamie, or probably matt... married matt. "alex?"

"hm?" he hummed uncomfortably as he stepped closer to you, securing the towel in the process. his eyes finally caught the prize. the notepad still in your hand visible for all to see. he could have sworn he shit himself. "y/n-"

"why-" you huffed as you stepped back from him. "i'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is miles' words, not yours." the silence on the other end answered your question as you felt something sharp in your soul. like you were being cut in half, your heart at least. "alex," you whined as pure pain took over. p

"angel," alex called out as you only shook your head. he tried to step closer once more as you backed up, now against the wall. he sighed and stepped back assuring his defeat. "it's just words. just some lyrics, i needed something to write so-"

"so you decided to declare your love for your ex? dream about her holding onto you?" you scoffed as his body stiffened and he turned his head slightly. "no-"

"then what the fuck is this then?" you held up the paper as your eyes began to sting. alex gulped at the sight of your pain. "angel, i had nothing okay? so i tapped into a place i haven't been in forever- years, haven't felt that in years. but i needed something dramatic and devotional."

"then write about your goddamn girlfriend! or make something up, what the hell, alex?" your voice threatened a yell as he sighed and attempted to step closer to you. "this is my job, baby. this is what i do for a living. i don't-"

"just," you started before biting your lip and crossing your arms. "i can't do this right now. i can't be with you right now," you mumbled as you grabbed your purse and jacket. all sat on the chair where you'd left them not even five minutes ago. alex's breathing got heavier as he watched you slip on your jacket. he tried to stop you. he tried to tell you that his words meant nothing. but maybe you'd listen, maybe in a parallel universe.

[kozykricket]

The concept behind the false son goes hard. A mortal made idol to a dead god given life and mind by two others respectively. A broken divinity without purpose. Designed to be a simulacrum of a dead holy warriors and instead coming out a misshapen angerufen mess.

ABSOLUTELY !!! like, SOTS maybe isnt perfect, but its concepts are so amazing, and i think the false son was a really great way to expand on the lore in a plausible way and... like the more i look into him, its like. okay yes, the logbooks are a bit disappointing that they didnt explain a bit more, but also? his dialogue and stuff... ive really done a lot of looking into it, and i've pieced together some quite interesting stuff about him i really think FS is a very interesting character. great use of aurelionite. aureli was always one of the coolest "sidenote" lore pieces of ROR2, and like

god it makes so much SENSE that after their Saviour dies, the denizens of petrichor ... desperately crave the feeling of safety and security, of having a saviour again. but then... mithrix' followers still very much exist, and the fuckin imagine, imagine. imagine that you're created in the image of a saviour, given life by a being that believes itself to have been sealed for being too perfect. and yet... despite being built to be a beacon of hope, you immediately lose the compassion you were built to hold. i honestly kinda think that false son is up on the colossus statue just to try and like, isolate himself away from hurting anyone. because he WANTS to hurt things, but he also... prob has a very big internal conflict on the whole thing! he knows he was to be a protector, a bulwarks successor! oh also, shoutouts to vultures being depicted as mithrix' followers a lot. i only recently really pieced together but like, it makes a lot of sense that the 2 creatures most represented as having some of their species be on mithrix' side... are the crafty ones. the smart ones. scavengers and alloy vultures. alloy vultures have innate senses that let them operate machinery EXTREMELY well. and mithrix' whole deal is DESIGN and like.... it makes a lotta sense that the crafty and clever vultures would be perhaps the one Vermin that mithrix can appreciate a bit, or see value in them anyways and yeah im kinda just rambling at this point. but anyways, he has some interesting death lines, and to me they definitely imply that he was trying to purify himself. "a gift out of reach" to me says that like. what he wanted was a life of freedom from dark influence. or perhaps just to give freedom to aureli and when he dies in a run of purification via aureli? he says... he can hear... Himself. hes finally able to have the voice inside be Him, instead of... a fucked up version of himself maybe the gift is aurelionites freedom. maybe its his own free will. maybe it is simply purity. maybe the gift was just kicking mithrix' butt! maybe it was something greater that we cant know but considering his survivor vanish message? i think the gift hes referring to is ... his mere life!

also fun lil fact hopoo games referred internally to aureli as "goldboy" so congrats on aureli for her transition

i may make a followup post talking about more specific like. false son or mithrix follower related stuff but. yea i just wanted to get this out there, some ramblings.

[jelloia]

// tot cn server spoilers

hi guys i'm late but um have yall seen the 3rd anniv sss (!) cards-

WHOA huh how'd the artem + vyn shirtless pics get in there cough that was supposed to only be pre-evolution my bad !! we're pg here guys right ahahahahahah

(jk luke + marius' post evo illustrations are under the cut cause they're more provocative than the other two >:)

(also more ramblings from me below i am overwhelmed)

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i have never been so happy about the rating change.

LIKE WHOA HUH I THOUGHT 2ND ANNIV WAS SPICY?? THEN THESE ARE GHOST CHILI PEPPER LEVEL HJAHBHAJF (censoring the rest of my thoughts)

also here are the artem + vyn pre evols!

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ok now time for me to ramble and hope you can make sense of it all hehe

in terms of art, i love vyn's card the most as well as artem's pre-evol illustration! that juicy lighting <333

i also find it really funny how vyn stans were just begging for a piano card after artem's cello ssr and then BAM the entire 3rd piano card is centered around the piano!

i'm seriously wondering how vyn got on top of the piano in his post evol though... like it looks like he's sitting on the keys which must've made a HORRENDOUS noise. is rosa standing on a chair or smth...?

WHOA AHEM I just noticed in artem's post evol art... there's some kinda fluid on his chest... *wheezes*

OH MY GOD and in luke's post evol, i see polaroids scattered on the floor (they look to be past luke sr/ssrs!) so like does that mean there's going to be some camera play or smth....

FINALLY marius's card excites me the most cause it looks like they're both dressed and styled for some kinda fancy event!! i've waited for this to happen for forever omg... rosa and marius trying to get thru fancy functions asap so that they can later mess up each other's perfectly styled hair and designer clothes WHAHFJSKL

cough if anyone asks i'm talking about how marirosa are cuddling and sharing a shirt cough

oml i'm late to a meeting cause i was typing this clearly i have my priorities straight hehe