#i actually had a whole paragraph explaining more of that but it was mostly about solei so i scrapped it

[solei-eclipse]

HIII Para, hope you are doing well and staying hydrated!

I wanted to ask if you think that Solei and Onyx would get along? I did draw them talking but that was mostly out of my own desire to draw Solei at the time, and I thought they might interact as they both seem somewhat antisocial and keen to fly under the radar, if you catch my drift? Anyways I'm curious about what you think!

Also your art is so good I love the piece you drew for Aurien's reaction to Solei's return (and also the Unsha and Ivan birthday thing that was so funny) <3

Hello rock !! I'm doing okay !! I hope you are taking care of yourself as well !! :)

I think Onyx and Solei would get along quite well (suprisingly)!

Onyx is a loner, he's not "friendly" but he's definitely not meanspirited. He has a pretty strong will and won't allow himself to be pushed around, which Solei respects. They might've been a little intimidated by him at first (internally noted him on their list of "people I might have to watch out for / be careful with") but once they realize that Onyx won't mess with anyone that doesn't mess with him first, they feel more at ease around him. They especially appreciate how he looks out for Aurien, it brings them comfort. Since Auri is familiar and comfortable with Onyx, this led to Solei developing a good impression of him despite not properly interacting yet.

Once Solei becomes more accustomed to Onyx's presence, they'd start asking him for little things and starting small interactions. Just simple stuff about class lectures, maybe for a group project or just a quick "have you seen Auri around?" Solei is friendly, but they're not too outgoing and tend to be careful around certain people. Because of this they'd try to start off small, hoping not to bore or annoy Onyx too much.

I feel like they'd develop a solidarity of sorts, maybe acknowledge each other with a head nod or something whenever they see each other. Solei makes sure not to push Onyx too hard in terms of interaction and is content to let their familiarity build up overtime. Eventually they'd get to the point where they could talk more at length (and just like the way you drew them, maybe talk shit lol. though Solei would mostly be nodding and listening). Solei is kind of like a sponge that graciously absorbs anything given to them. They're like. mingly? They like to mingle with people and is genuinely very fluid and agreeable, so if the other person wants to talk at length then let's do it! But if the other person prefers to be quiet that's fine also. They're down for anything. Solei enjoys the company of anyone (who isn't unnecessarily cruel) and hangs out with quite a lot of different personalities, so I think they'd really appreciate how grounding and calm people like Onyx and Tov are.

Sorry this got too long!! Feel free to correct me on anything if it seems out of character ^^

ALSO THANK YOU.... YOUR ART IS AMAZING AS WELL !! I adore Onyx's performance outfit !!

[feverdreamjohnny]

"Why There Will Never Be a Peeb Adventures" otherwise known as "The Peeb Adventures Pre-Mortem"

Since 2020, I've made a good chunk of games. Hell, even though I've been doing this for 10 years to date, the majority of my progress as a creative began over the course of this 4 year period.

Out of all the games I've made - or otherwise had a hand in - there is only one that's apparently struck a chord so deeply with people that to this day I still get messages and comments asking when it will come out.

The title of this post already explains the whole deal so I'm not gonna be dramatic about it right here. As per usual, I will instead get heart-clutchingly dramatic about the subject by the end of this story.

I felt the idea of a "Pre-Mortem" might be a fun way to talk about games that will never be finished. Maybe I'll make more of these down the line for other old games, who knows.

"The Incredibly True Origins of Peeb Adventures" or "Wow! I Hate It!"

Peeb Adventures began as a gift game for my long-time friend Aaron. It was simple, mostly functioning as a fun little gag that stemmed from a 3D model I made of a character he doodled during a drawpile session. I gave Peeb a grapple hook just because I wanted to experiment with swinging mechanics and felt the gag gift was a great space to toy around in without having to actually ask myself how on earth I'd want to structure a game around a grappling hook. Foreshadowing!

Eventually, the gag gift did that classic thing all developers have experienced before where your game spirals out of control and grows into a hideous monster, and what started as a fairly abstract grappling toy convergently evolved into that dreaded state we call a "3D Mascot Platformer."

I made a very short demo in the summer of 2020. It went absolutely nowhere, and after an idol of mine caught wind and asked to play it (before sending about 3 paragraphs of feedback suggesting how to improve what was, in my view, a trainwreck of baby blocks stacked on top of eachother), I shelved the project.

"The Absolutely Tremendulous HPS1 Adventure of Peeb" or "My Friend Jam Suggested I Revive the Project and So I Did"

Shortly after Peeb was shelved for the first time, I joined a community of game developers called Haunted PS1. For those not in the know, HPS1 was essentially the nexus point for "retro horror games" in the indie sphere, and a lot of the resulting deluge (non-perjorative) on itch.io can find its roots in this community.

HPS1 was a good place. Lots of nice, talented people willing to tolerate the kind of mindless riffing I often do in voice calls, anyway. I made a decent chunk of friends there, some of which I'm still quite close to, even today.

HPS1 has this tradition called the HPS1 Demo Disc that began in 2020, and with the year coming to its end, there was talk of a new one set to arrive in spring 2021.

Unlike the first demodisc, however, 2021's disc required you to submit a game in-progress to a panel of judges. They'd then give their yay-or-nay, and you were either in or out.

One day, I was musing over the fact that I didn't really have anything to submit so I would likely have to sit out of 2021's disc. My friend, Jam, who you might know as the developer of the Heilwald Loophole (or Beton Brutal) suggested I consider reviving Peeb Adventures as my submission to the demo disc.

Why did I follow through on this? I don't know. It's funny to think a scenario this simple was the launch point for my career.

Over the next 6 months, I worked on turning the absolutely horrendous gag game into... Something still kinda trite but at least playable. I had some help from my longtime teammate drurylain, my longtime friend Aaron (the creator of Peeb's original design), and my longtime spiritual uncle Tim, and with our powers combined... A new kind of demo experience where you don't do anything of particular note besides swinging around was born.

Also quite important: the very same drawpile session that spawned Peeb also spawned Orbo, who would also make his own appearance in Peeb Adventures as a recurring side character (since I felt like Peeb needed a friend).

"Go! Incredible Friendship Unites in the Gameosphere! Peeb and Orbo are Born!" or "Peeb Adventures: Coming Never"

So the demo for Peeb Adventures was finished early March 2021, and the demo disc went live on itch.io on the 25th of the month.

The demo disc then proceeded to do a backflip and pick up a LOT of traction online. Which then meant Peeb itself was catching little bits of the traction in its mouth and smacking its lips.

I went from "guy who makes games for nobody" to "guy who makes games for that one very specific brand of teen on twitter who loves the object head show", and I was riding high.

Fanart poured in. People showed a lot of love. I was dazzled by it all, really.

Despite the love for the game and the potential on hand, progress was stagnant. My group of friends and I all got together in a google doc and wrote an entire planning bible for the game. Game mechanics, story beats, twists and turns, the whole thing. Despite having the structure lined up, I had other ambitions and began working on a multiplayer deathmatch game that quickly overtook my work schedule.

Peeb sat on the backburner, but at the time I still wanted to finish it one day. My main excuse was "well, I just need more money! If I'm going to work on this game it's gonna need more than one fulltime person and I can't just ask people to work for free!" That excuse worked on me for a while.

"I Don't Think I Want to Play With You Anymore Peeb!" or "There's Such a Thing as Too Much Love"

A while had passed at this point. My ambitions hadn't just grown, they'd completely shifted. Before long, I found myself working on yet another demo for the 2022 HPS1 Demo Disc, "The Spectral Mall."

Nowhere, MI wasn't just some random toy for me, but the culmination of all my love into one game. Despite its silly demeanor, the game was a product of a lot of pain, and even now I still desperately want to finish it. Except I have to make money to live, so... Oops!

Anyhow, there was a shift in demeanor for me during 2022. You have Peeb, a game that I made on a whim as kind of a joke with friends, and you have Nowhere, MI, a game that meant the world to me during really dark times.

And you know what? There were a lot of people that wanted Peeb. People that never stopped asking me about it.

I realized while working on Nowhere that I didn't really know what I would even do if I ever had the chance to work on the full Peeb Adventures. Not only did I find the nagging kind of annoying, Peeb was also something I couldn't really... Wrap my head around?

It occurred to me that Peeb wasn't really "my" game anymore, it was "his" game. The old Johnny.

I'd changed a lot since the game had come out in early 2021. In a year and a half my world got flipped upside down, and... I don't know, Nowhere was way more reflective of who I was now. Sure the humor was still pretty asinine, but there was a shift. It was hard to picture the "Peeb Adventures" people were actually looking forward to when my own sensibilities had drifted so far.

When the Nowhere demo came out along with Spectral Mall, it did... Alright? People liked it, but it wasn't the same as Peeb's release. Hell, even in Nowhere's release there were people pushing it aside to ask the same question they'd been asking every week leading up to it. "When is Peeb Adventures coming out?"

"Goodbye Peeb!"

It was increasingly harder and harder to not look back at Peeb and kind of hate it. It was rough in every respect, and yet it whenever I met people who'd heard of me online, they always cited Peeb Adventures.

Strangers continue to ask me when it's coming out. On rare occasion I'll get someone asking about Nowhere and I'll feel a bit excited anyone else cares about that game besides me and maybe my friends, but most of the time people just ask about Peeb.

To finally answer this question I've been asked for nearly 4 years: There will probably never be a Peeb Adventures.

"Goodbye Johnny."

I like to believe one of the reasons people are attracted to my body of work is because I make games to reach out to other people. That's probably not the real reason, but it's nice to play pretend and imagine your work has more significance than just "ha ha boner."

I put a lot of myself in my games and I rarely hold back, even if an idea is insanely stupid or strange. The result usually becomes something more like a scrapbook than a game.

It's hard to try and expand on a game like Peeb when the Johnny who made it isn't really with us anymore. If I worked on Peeb now, you'd get some kind of irregular frankenstein that'd never be as exciting as the original vision was.

By the time I get around to Nowhere again, am I still going to be this Johnny? Or will the next Johnny look back at Nowhere the same way I look at Peeb now? Who knows.

Anyway, look forward to more games from me and my friends. Even if it's not Peeb Adventures, it'll still be us.

[dvskf4llz]

HIYYYAAAA DUSK IT'S CLOUDY HERE!!!! I've missed ya! I hope you're doing alright and remember, you don't need to be constantly writing oneshots so that you can post them! Take as much time as you need <3

Anyways! Could I request some Valentines HCs with some of the Hermits? Maybe Ren, Xisuma and Grian again? Or just any Hermits you want and can do! :D

I do apologize for asking for so many Hermits last time- you are allowed to do as many Hermits as you want <3

Much love and always take care of yourself! <3 -☁️ anon

Hiii cloudy!! And hello to everyone else aswell!! I'm actually back this time I swear- I do apologize for not following the uploading schedule I promised, I just didn't feel motivated enough to write anything but now I do!

So have some Valentines HCs! <3

Valentines with the Hermits HCs

𝓜𝓾𝓵𝓽𝓲𝓹𝓵𝓮 𝓗𝓮𝓻𝓶𝓲𝓽𝓼 (𝓢𝓮𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓭) 𝔁 𝓖𝓝!𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓻

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This oneshot contains: A bunch of corny stuff, fluff, kissing, slight suggestiveness (?), cuddling, fluff and overall just some wholesomeness <3

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GoodTimesWithScar

- With Scar, he either tends to forget about Valentines or he does remember Valentines

- This year, he remembered. By the time you were awake, you bet he made you your favorite breakfast. He had woken up a few hours before you did just to do that for you for Valentines, not that he doesn't sometimes do that on regular days aswell

- Scar's the type of guy to prefer more simple stuff, he wouldn't go all out on Valentines but he would still do his best to make it special.

- He'd get you your favorite chocolates and just a simple Valentines card he made for you, the card had a very sweet paragraph that explained how much Scar loved you

- If you wanted to go out on a date, Scar would surprise you with a simple yet cute picnic date on a spot he figured you liked. He had also picked up some flowers to give to you, the flowers just so happened to be your favorites aswell!

- If you wanted to just stay at home, Scar wouldn't mind at all. He'd still get you flowers though, he couldn't just not get you anything for Valentines. For the rest of the day, you two just mostly spent time together in bed cuddling.

Docm77

- When I say this man will spoil you, he will go ALL out.

- You would wake up to a whole feast of all the different foods you like, it was practically enough to be considered as three meals.

- He'd definitely also have made a whole build just for you, most likely a huge build of a teddy bear that held a heart that had the words: "I love you!"

- You think that's all Doc got you? Oh hell no. He got you a whole bouquet of flowers, your favorite chocolates, a small version of the teddy bear he made but it's actually a stuffed teddy bear and much more.

- This man takes Valentines as an excuse to spoil you even more than he usually does, but he still makes sure tone it down a bit if you tell him it's too much already

- If you were fine with going out on a date outside, you bet Doc would bring you to a place you've always wanted to go to or would you bring you to a fancy restaurant

- If you just wanted to stay at home, Doc would try to persuade you first but would soon give up as he respected your decision. That didn't mean though that he wasn't going to still try his best to spoil you, but at the end of the day you both just cuddled together in bed after a long day of Doc spoiling you <3

Rendog

- Ren would be a mix of both Scar and Doc honestly, he'd try his best to make Valentines both extravagant while still trying to make it simple enough to your liking

- Just like Scar, Ren would wake up earlier to make you your favorite food for breakfast. He'd try to make a cute little design with the food, but would fail a bit but it's not like you minded.

- Like Doc, Ren would also spoil you with gifts such as, your favorite flowers, favorite chocolates, a stuffed animal that just so happened to be your favorite animal and a lot more things

- Ren wouldn't mind at all whether or not you wanted to go out or just stay at home, he respects your decisions.

- If you wanted to go out, Ren would be all for it. He'd take you out on a nice dinner date at a place where it just has the most wonderful view. And of course, the food was but your favorite.

- If you wanted to just stay at home, Ren would be fine with that too! He'd happily bring you to you two's shared bed and cuddle you the whole time, he would also definitely be all up for just a simple conversation. He loves you and will always respect what you want <3

Bdubs

- This man will not let you get out of bed, like at ALL.

- As soon as you woke up and tried to stand up, Bdubs was there to stop you by pouncing onto you with his full body. You may or may not have hit your head as this happened, which Bdubs apologized profusely for and made it up with kisses

- After that happened, he still would not let you get up. He was not going to budge, not even if you give him puppy eyes or try to persuade him with.. Ways...

- You wanna eat? Bdubs will bring a bed tray with your favorite food, it also had some of your favorite flowers in a vase as it was one of Bdubs' gifts for you today.

- You wanna go out? Too bad, Bdubs will stay laying ontop of you so that you can't move. You don't exactly have a choice since Bdubs was ontop of you, so you just had to give in.

- You wanna have a date? Consider a bed date that's filled with cuddling and kisses, probably some other things aswell but we'll not get on that subject yet

- Where's your gifts? Don't worry, Bdubs would hand you all the gifts he got for you for Valentines. It consisted a bunch of your favorite stuff, he even went out of his way to learn how to create an origami version of your favorite animal!

- You two ended the day with cuddling of course, it's just a necessary to do every night!

Grian

- Grian doesn't try to go too eccentric on Valentines, but you bet he's not going to stop his mischievous nature.

- You two would be doing something sweet as making Valentines cookies, which would end up getting a bunch of flour on the kitchen and on both you and Grian. Both of you would be giggling your butts off as an accidental flour spill on Grian turned into a whole flour war, it looked liked winter in the Kitchen afterwards. You both agreed to just leave it for tomorrow as you both continued on with Valentines!

- Grian probably would prefer to just stay at home, but he wouldn't mind taking you out on a cute date. Maybe a stroll around the server, holding hands and happily talking while the other listens

- Meanwhile if you didn't mind also staying at home, then you bet you both would be playing with Maui and Pearl. You two would be sitting down on the ground as both cats got equal attention from the both of you, both you and Grian definitely would end up having to chase after the cats soon enough

- If you wanted to just sit down and chat with Grian, he'd be good with that! He'd willingly listen to you talk with admiration in his eyes, he just loves you so much ahhsbshdhb

- By the end of the day, Grian would have his wings wrapped around you while you two cuddled on the couch with both Maui and Pearl on both of your guys' laps. Just a sweet wholesome moment <3

Xisuma

- While yes, Xisuma does remember about Valentines. He struggles to find enough time to spend time with you on this day of love, he would feel so bad because he couldn't spend all that much time with you. He would apologize profusely everytime he would have to get pulled into something important, you of course would re-assure him to calm him down.

- Xisuma would always be trying to make it quick so that he can spend time with you, he would also make sure to grab you some gifts when he just so happens to pass by a store that had some things you liked

- Once Xisuma finally had the chance to spend time with you, he would rush home as fast as he could. He would be at the door with him panting like crazy as he ran as fast as he could back home, he could've flown back home with his elytra but he kind of forgot about that..

- After catching his breath, he'd give you the gifts he got for you looking slightly bashful. You were surprised to say the least, but you weren't ungrateful. Xisuma was definitely getting some sweet kisses, and a lot of them.

- If you told Xisuma you wanted to go out on a date, he'd bring you out to a slightly high hill and would sit down with you to watch the sunset. After, you both would then stargaze in peace, chatting from time to time as you both started up at the sky. Xisuma would definitely start naming different stars off of you, even using some of your nicknames just to be a bit funny

- If you wanted to stay in though, Xisuma was fine with that! You both would do some sweet yet simple couple stuff like learning how to do different things, Xisuma would definitely try to teach you how to play the guitar.

- And of course, ending the day with cuddles and sweet kisses in bed. Xisuma would have his armour off so that you could actually feel the warmth from his body and just actually feel his touch from his skin, overall it was just a sweet and simple day <3

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You reached the end, congrats! :D

I'm a little late to post this but I still got it! I hope you all enjoyed it, I do want to thank rubi for helping me get this ideas so shoutout to them!

Oh and, if you're wondering what you got for the Hermits.. That's up to your imagination ;) (Go wild.)

Anyways, have a good day/night! Always take care of yourself lovelies! Get all the rest you need and don't feel pressured to do anything! Love you all! /p <3

[sockeye-station]

Wait is your four the captain? How did that happen?

YES! YES!! I GOT SOMEONE TO ASK ABOUT IT! I WIN!!!!

CLEARS THROAT. OKAY OKAY OKAY IVE HAD THIS ROTATING IN MY HEAD FOR A HOT FUCKN MINUTE AND ILL TRY MY BEST TO EXPLAIN IT IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE

OKAY. LETS REWIND ALL THE WAY BACK TO OCTO EXPANSION!!!

so! octo expansion goes all normally, we have our agent 8 fighting through the entire structure to escape, agent 3 gets brainwashed, they have to fight, yadda yadda. you probably know how it goes by now. But here's the thing.

what if i went ahead and changed a tiny thing. just the teensiest detail.

what if instead of spamming splashdowns, tartar decides to use one big fuck off booyah bomb.

"but, didn't booyah bomb come out after octo expansion?"

yes. yes it did. and that's why i chose booyah bomb specifically.

tartar whipped out the idea to use a booyah bomb from some prototypes it found out about after abducting god-knows-who, and used it despite its unstable build. No one, at that moment, knew whatever that was, what it did, how dangerous it was, or anything of the sort. This was some sort of last hurrah, as it knew that this was its last shot at stopping this failure from escaping the facility. And so it exerted Agent 3 into giving it everything he's got. Quite literally, even! It pushed him so hard, he too became unstable while trying to mantain and boost the energy ball.

The Booyah Bomb is thrown with as much power as Tartar could muster out of that creature, pretty much covering most of the arena. Once the ink settles, and Agent 8 gathers his senses, he looks around. Agent 3 is nowhere to be seen.

at no point in canon is sanitized agent 3 properly splatted throughout the fight — you only break their shield, they superjump back to their platform, and you eventually knock them out. you never splat them. so who's to say that, just like agent 8 during the ascent, they don't have a respawn anchor?

That's what I decided to play with here. Agent 3 is splatted with no respawn anchor. Agent 3 is dead.

The rest of octo expansion plays as normal, only that there's no passed out Agent 3 waiting at the helicopter.

Starting from here, Agent 8 becomes affiliated with the NSS through Cuttlefish after breaking the news, feeling like he needs to make it up for the loss they suffered as he feels responsible for it. He grows closer with Agent 4, and eventually they become closer friends, even staying at her place after she invited him once their friendship was more developed. This paragraph is mostly to explain how they know each other and how their friendship started, also explaining why my Agent 8 gives OtH Agent 4's number instead of Cuttlefish.

Okay! Now, back to the point of this ask. I actually had a bit of this typed out in a server I'm in!

[Agent 4] didn't really have a choice when it came to becoming Captain, being the fifth longest-standing member of the NSS after craig, the squisters and agent 3. craig was retiring, the squid sisters were still busy with their inkopolis celebrity scene, and [Agent 3] was dead. so she was the next best option.

she didnt really ask for this in the first place, and yet she accepted out of hopes of being acknowledged. When she was just an agent, the rest of the team didn't keep in touch with her much (except for Agent 8) after the events of OE, and at one point even stopped being called for whenever Callie got the shades on again. Whenever she patrolled, she did it without any previous call, and was rarely acknowledged by the others. She still kept visiting the canyon whenever she could after everyone else had moved on.

even after becoming the "captain", the others didnt usually reach out to her for assistance, and instead tended to act on their own. they never really took her as captain, rarely listening to her. so obviously this whole mess made her feel like absolute dogshit, questioning why she even decided to go through with this.

that title was meant for [Agent 3]. not for her. he was the one that came before her, and was better than her in so many ways. at least that's what the others kept repeating around her.

as much of a punch in the gut being constantly compared to someone else was, she kept pushing to try and make herself known, separate from the other's achievements. which is why she ended up accepting marina's request.

[skitskatdacat63]

Happy One Year Anniversary to Boy King AU!!!! 🎉

Okay wait before I start talking, look at these close ups and the process!! Aren't they so beautiful aaaahhhh

Wow, can you believe it’s really been a whole entire year since my very first post about this AU? Well technically I first started talking about the statuette a day earlier, but the very first sketch was exactly a year ago!! Let us not forget the incredibly prophetic tag on that post: “also in the sense of this au i think the only ship that would work(historically accurate wise) is Vettonso.” Who knew that after that my entire life would devolve into vettonso, this specific period of history, and the lovely combo which is Boy King AU. Also wow this means it’s taken me almost a whole entire year to actually draw a joint portrait of them hahaha. I drew this sketch around the beginning of the AU, but never finished it. It’s fine though because this one is a lot better, and I’m in love with it. Took me a year to draw a couple portrait, and took me almost a whole entire month to finish said piece. 

Okay let me explain this piece, which I am very obsessed with!!! I dragged the process out more than I usually would, but I’m glad, because it was so enjoyable. But also look at that fucking crown, no wonder this took almost a month. Usually I’d write like 50 paragraphs detailing the characterization. HOWEVER! I’ve spent over a month writing little bits of characterization, mostly for fun, but also in preparation for this very post. A lot of the earlier ones, I had this drawing in mind, thinking on how I could expand on the ideas I was drawing. Though there’s definitely some things I could still write about. I’ll probably continue to write more Lore a Days, but yeah, they basically amounted to this drawing where you can actually see the characterization I was talking about displayed. Anyways, here are the explanations of bits in the drawing:

First of all, this is some part of the long process of their wedding. Look at the married couple!! Look at their rings!!!

Okay, but why are there two, almost identical looking pieces?? Because look at their hands!! I talked a lot about how Fernando is the one to give out affection more easily, especially in public, where he knows he can easily fluster Seb. He’s acting all grumpy and out of it, I mean to be fair, it’s probably been such a long ceremony across weeks. But he notices Seb is out of it too, just better at keeping his smile (let’s be honest, even if he’s distracted, he’s super smug.) So Fernando catches him off guard by squeezing his hand. Before that, as you can see, Fernando is just resting his hand on Seb’s outstretched palm, like that one scene from Succession. Very: yes I’m getting married, but I’m not happy about it. The combination of Fernando refusing to even touch him more than lightly beforehand but now going full force, them being in public, and Seb already being distracted catches Seb so off guard he has to try to cover his blush with his fan. He thought Fernando was being super impolite, but now he’s the impolite one!! Getting all blushy and giggly over a simple display of affection, perhaps even ha-

So. Their crowns. Seb’s wearing the crown of Austria, because he is in fact only a king still! Also, because I really wanted to try drawing it after I wimped out of it before in this drawing. Fernando’s a king as well by the point, but the fact he’s wearing only a tiara-like hairpiece is to represent how much of an outsider he still is. At this moment, he’s just Seb’s wi- ,I mean husband, to all these guests. Of course this bitch wears a black veil instead of a white one, to signal that he’s mourning the loss of his autonomy and personhood. Don’t worry too much about his mental state though, considering he’s not depressed enough to be able to resist teasing Seb. 

The fan, oh my god. Back in this era, people would gift/make fans for basically any occasion. To symbolize an event, to celebrate something, to show a story, etc etc. I wish I could have drawn something more narrative, but I think the bull vs. horse is good enough. Also you can see those same symbols on the pendants they’re wearing!! I’m so happy when I can fit irl, modern stuff like that into these drawings, it feels so clever!!

It’s so funny, I wrote a lore a day from a prompt about what they’d be like when doing a joint portrait, while I was already almost through painting a dual portrait of my own! So I got to explain some stuff like their clothing colors and poses before I even posted this. I feel very coy about that still honestly. 

Hmmm what else? It feels so weird to not expand on the characterization, considering I already did it for myself weeks in advance. I can’t imagine what it’s like opening this read more, and seeing more than 10 in-text citations. Happy reading!!!

 Happy anniversary to  this wonderful, crazy AU that makes me download 500pg German papers about 18th century etiquette. I drew a couple pieces of fanart before this AU, but I definitely think it jumpstarted my insanity about drawing/making AUs, and literally is what made me insane about Vettonso in the first place. Remember, if I hadn’t learned about Joseph I/Charles VI, most of my blog probably wouldn’t exist in it's current form. Thank you if you’ve stuck around since the beginning, or if you’re even just learning about it now!! It’s so incredibly niche but I’ve had so much fun researching and building this world and these characterizations, and I hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve made in the process. I hope I can draw/write many more things in the future. I think next, I’m gonna maybe open up requests. I’d like to try to either write ficlets or draw chibi comics about specific Lore a Day posts on request. I think that’d be a lot of fun, but also will probably kill me. We’ll see!! Anyways. PPlease enjoy this absolute labor of love, which is a result of a year’s worth of work.

[aro-culture-is]

I've been questioning if I am aro or not for the past year, previously I identified myself as a lesbian because I dont have an interest in men, and I usually feel more comfortable on women. However when I try to imaginr myself in the future I dont see myself being in a relationship in the future, like I am wondeeng "how the hell does one manage a relationship"

But I dont know if I am really aro because when I was in middle school I had a sort of "crush" on a person but I was mostly thinking "Hey this girl is really nice and the only person that understands me maybe I have a crush on her" and I really love the idea of romance and shipping characters and seeing other aromantic people being repulsed by the idea made me question even more.

hi! thanks for reaching out. since it's been a while since I've answered stuff like this, reminder that all asks of this nature are filed under the tag 'am i aro'

Your first paragraph is such a common experience in a-spec communities - initially, most folks start from "well, i'm not attracted to x gender, so I must be attracted to y?" or "well, I'm equally attracted to all genders, so I must be bi/pan?" when the problem is, 0 attraction to one gender is not related at all to how you feel about others, and 0 = 0. You're in very, very good company among a-spec folks, including yours truly - who rotated through the whole of LGBTQ before realizing aromanticism was an option that actually fit very well.

With regards to the second paragraph - first of all, mood! Personally, that "crush" was something we'd later identify as a squish, or friendship crush. Hilariously, we no longer like this particular person at all, as becoming friends led to us discovering our specific neurodivergent flavors interacted to constantly frustrate us. Enjoying - or not enjoying - romance and shipping is not at all something inherent to your attraction.

Plenty of outwardly aro folks talk more about our experiences with romantic repulsion and frustrations with shipping culture because we are in aromantic spaces and talking about the sociological implications, but - personally? I adore shipping, dislike seeing irl romance, and think it's mostly interesting to talk about how romance interacts with expectations and laws in society. I don't like to call myself romance repulsed, romance favorable, any of that - I think those are personally limiting to my identity and how I interact with those subjects. Other folks find it useful as a shorthand to explain how they feel, and that's great too!

I can't tell you what your identity is, but I think it's useful to say this: you've described to me a very, very common story to many a-spec folks. You're seeking advice from me, which tells me it probably matters a lot to you, and I wouldn't be surprised if, in some ways, you feel like you need permission, or verification, or any of those sorts of things.

I think, rather than relying on that - what would happen if, privately, you give yourself permission to explore what it feels like to say "I am aromantic", or "I think I'm aromantic"? How do you feel? Nervous, anxious, bubbly, weighed down, vulnerable - those are all common. But the thing is, if I think of an identity I am 100% sure I do not belong to in that way - I certainly don't feel a little flutter of hope. I don't feel like I might be onto a scary new journey. I just feel like I've said that the world is shaped like a rabbit - nonsensical and wrong. If you feel like there's a possibility - does it hurt you to say, "I might be, and what does that change?" The worst that happens is, quite literally, you learned something about yourself.

-- mod axel

[ottoslab]

(Shakes you) otto you've GOTTA tell me more about the freelance mystery solvers I GOTTA KNOW ABOUT EM WHAT ARE THEY DOIN !!! I love your designs sm btw your SO REAL FOR THIS AHH

HEEHEE ohhh ok cracks my knuckles. Im gonna be writing this right before passing Out for the night so apologies in advance if this isn’t very comprehensible but i will GLADLY explain the funny freelance mystery solvers o7

EDIT HI This got so long im putting it under a readmore KGJFNGKJSGK.

Also! I didn’t draw anything to go with this ask because i told myself id give my hand a break, but I do actually have some recent doodles of Vern and Kitty i was doing in between the lineup so I’ll put them here for a little display ^_^ theyre not in context of anything im about to mention, just some dynamic exploration stuff that are their own whole other rambles

Ok! Readmore time! Paragraphs of nonsense! For your viewing pleasure!

So!! Vernon and Kitty are both employed by True Psychic Tales independently of each other when theyre older. Vernon is an illustrator/interviewer for the graphic novel division and Kitty works in special effects makeup for the more-recent live action film division! They don’t end up crossing paths for a while until being assigned to work together to research stuff for an up-and-coming TPT film project or smth. They become work buddies after reconnecting (though they choose to mostly ignore the fact that they knew each other as kids due to How They Were back then. They’re both very embarrassed about it for numerous reasons)

It becomes commonplace for them to help each other out with projects, and eventually through their research (fact-checking and digging through old psychonauts mission archives) they start to come across old psychonauts files of unfinished or ‘suspicious’ looking missions, ones that normally didnt get the green light to be told in graphic novel form due to the fact that they were inconclusive and, as a result, don’t make for good stories.

Kitty and Vernon end up sort of… picking up on these old missions in their spare time. It’s not psychonauts work but its also not not psychonauts work, you know? They team up to try and work out what lead to dead ends in missions and cross-referencing possibly related stories with other stories, and go out into the field to try and get answers. I picture it a lot in my brain as an episodic mystery series vis a vis scooby doo. They pick their archived mission log of the week to check out, go out, get some answers, and get a conclusion to bring back to TPT and a new graphic novel is made of the story they were able to uncover! With some more overarching plots where they get a little in over their heads here and there.

Franke’s got a bit less of a fleshed out role in all of this atm, mostly because i havent thought of him as much as the other two? My current vague-idea i have is that she and kitty had a falling out during their teen years, and Franke calls Kitty and Vernon falsely claiming to have a lead on a mystery theyve been working on, in order to try and reconnect with Kitty after she stopped talking to him. He has to come clean when whatever she leads them to actually ends up being a real psychic issue, and she has to explain that she doesn’t know what’s going on because she hadn’t actually called in about anything legit.

Franke does end up being a good help despite technically being the reason they got into deep shit in the first place, and Vernon’s probably the one who asks her to stick around (Kitty isn’t against it, but definitely isn’t really all too welcoming about it either.) They definitely have a whole thing where they all get closer and Kitty and Franke get to mend fences (a character arc along the lines of franke realizing he was kind of a hardass who wanted to make up without actually accepting any faults, and some other super impressive character arcs along the way im sure.) And all three of them continue to go on mystery deep-dives and uncover unfinished psychonauts missions!! Wahoo yahoo!!

Mystery incorporated asses! They’re fun, i enjoy them a lot! Hopefully this is some good tidbits of detail for u thank u for asking about them :]

[never-not-ever]

The Last Hour

I'm scrolling on Tik Tok and I land on a clip from Girl Interrupted. It's not triggering or anything so I search "girl interrupted" and just scroll through there. Even a clip of Daisy's suicide didn't bother me.

What got to me was a clip of Lisa in the beginning being dragged out of a room about to be restrained and IM'd. That just brought me right back to the unit. How traumatizing it was, hearing restraints, seeing my close friends in the chair. Lisa in the clip begging "no" echoing what I heard on the unit.

So I went in my kitchen and sat down on the table. There's no chairs and it's not even used as a table it's just against the wall. This table has become a new place for me when things get too much. As I'm typing these words I'm realizing that this table is the corner at the end of the unit, in between a shower room and the QR. I'd sit in that corner because not a lot of people walked down that hall. That corner was my place to go on the unit when things got too much and now this table in my kitchen has become my place. Sad.

Back to the last hour. So I sit on the table and I start recording a video just to get the thoughts out of my head. I don't know why I didn't just type out a note, I guess it's easier to just talk. It was a short video just explaining what had happened (second paragraph up top). And then I was hit with this realization. You see I am my worst critic, I invalidate myself, I worry how things will look if x, y, and z happens. I tell myself you're just playing out these "would be" conversations because you want them to happen. You keep thinking you're going to end up back in the hospital because you want to go back...

I owe a lot more of an update than just the past hour but for the past 3 weeks yes it's been a worry. I've said "I'm surprised I'm not back yet" and "it's probably going to happen soon". But the past few days it's becoming more of a legit fear and I really want to have the conversation with my therapist tomorrow about it. She's a new therapist and I've said those two things above but like it's not actually talked about like reasons to go back, how I would feel, etc.. and for the first time I'm actually going into therapy knowing how I want the session to go.

And my point of this whole post is that I'm finally validating myself that no I do not want to go back to the hospital. My inner critic tells me all the time that I just miss the safety there and being cared for, that I want to go back and I don't need to go back. But after tonight why on earth would I want to go back to a place that has given me so many traumatic memories? Sure there was "safety" although in my case there was only so much they could do to keep me safe and I still found ways around it. Sure it was a "comfort" at times. The staff would listen and I could tell they cared.

But none of that outweighed how much the acuity of the unit affected me. For months all I wanted was to leave, was actually playing a role in my discharge and actively trying to make it happen. All I wanted was to leave, even the day I left when I was filled with so much anxiety and fear, I still wanted to leave. So why on earth would I want to return to that?

go out for a drive whenever I want

cooking

cuddling with my cats

spending time in the bathroom with privacy

walking around my apartment in shorts and a tank top

being able to take my time doing my nails

being able to use my laptop and phone while they're charging

sleeping in total darkness

It's a sad, short list that mostly involves being at home.. *spoiler alert* I'm not in PHP anymore and don't have a job nor do I have a social life. But we'll save all that for an actual update at some point? It's funny all I have is downtime, you'd think I'd be on here live blogging my pathetic excuse of a life.

But for real.. I've grown used to my comforts here and I know for a fact I'm not going back inpatient unless it's needed for my safety.

I guess this post was basically just me proving a point to myself.

[dire-vulture]

🍇 🍋 🥝 my evil questions

🍇Share the “villain” or main antagonist of your clan and talk about them!

honestly that's a tough one..i definitely have some morally dubious dragons here and there, but they're generally either staying out of other's ways so as to avoid trouble, or they just have very specific rivalries. (looking at you, Warglobe.) for dragons that could be said to antagonize the community as a whole though...

Paragon's probably the strongest contender, he's a pompous tundra and a con artist lying about his fortune telling abilities, but he's also Tarragon's younger brother and he's more than happy to use Tarragon's innate protectiveness over him to his advantage, pushing around other dragons and facing relatively few consequences. I think he has somewhat chilled out since his earlier years in Florabrisa though. Like, other dragons definitely got sick of his shit and usually he'd just flee when things start to go south, but he already sort of came to Florabrisa as a last resort specifically for Tarragon's protection so dfgsdf with few other options he's mostly laying low now and is just a regular at the clan tavern. Other dragons at the tavern probably have lots of opinions on him though fdgsfd

i also just wanna give an honorable mention to my Pearlcacther Millisievert! She considers herself a pillar of the community, and in many ways she really is, but she's also a busybody and overly concerned with appearances, so bascially she tries to act like a self-appointed HoA for Florabrisa dfgsfd if you're doing something she disapproves of, she is going to let you know and has lots of words to say about it. dfgfd still, she's hardly evil. she's just not fun to rub shoulders with.

🍋What’s the most dramatic/emotional moment in your lore? Explain it, or write one short paragraph of prose set during that moment

ooohh..the most dramatic has gotta be Tamarind and Zaffre's divorce, which i 'summarized' here. Not great when two of your clan's four leaders have a serious falling out and one of their kids go missing dfsfdgfd Zaffre left the clan for half a year after that, before returning to her duties as leader.

and i don't talk about this all that much, but honestly i should and it is related to the above..Florabrisa's biggest victim (and really the only one thankfully) is Clash and I feel so bad for her fdgsfd She's Zaffre's eldest daughter, from her relationship with Kyurem years before meeting the other future Florabrisa leaders. Zaffre was a hardcore survivalist plague dragon who liked living on her own in the wilderness, far away from society, and Kyurem thought that was exciting and loved the adventure and the two fell in love. But then once they had Clash, Kyurem realized they didn't want their daughter to be isolated from everything and grow up with no friends or outside resources. Zaffre vehemently disagreed, believing Clash would have everything she needed in the Wilderness..so due to these different beliefs they split up (no divorce because they never married) and took turns raising Clash. The arrangement seemed to go well at first, young Clash learning lots of useful survival skills with Zaffre and getting more social benefits with Kyurem, but as Clash started getting older (like..6 or 7 at this point) it was becoming clear she wasn't really enjoying her time in isolated wilderness with Zaffre, and even in town with Kyurem where she enjoyed her favorite luxuries like candy, musicals, and indoor plumbing, she wasn't fitting in well with dragons her own age. Zaffre begrudgingly started letting Clash stay with Kyurem for longer periods, and then Zaffre herself decided she would start slowly reconnecting with society, starting by getting in touch with an old coworker/friend named Moraine, who introduced her to Tarragon and Tamarind too.

Honestly Tarragon tends to get the credit since he picked out the location and name, but in many ways, Florabrisa was actually Zaffre's baby. She had been burned by civilization and other dragons many times, but she always saw herself as a leader and she secretly wished she could start her own community. And she was really missing spending time with Clash too...basically after giving tons of pep talks to her friends who were all struggling with Dragon Capitalism in their own ways, she convinced them to start Florabrisa, in large part because she hoped this would finally be the right environment to raise Clash, and of course enjoy her new marriage with Tamarind and have a family with him too.

But then, once they all started getting Florabrisa set up and having to deal with leaderly duties and actually managing a community, Zaffre really didn't have all that much time to raise Clash, and in having a nest of eggs with Tamarind, then Moraine and Tarragon having their own kids too (including taking in Keiji when his parents suddenly died), they kind of ended up shouldering Clash with babysitting duties when she was barely a preteen fdsdgf Clash loves hatchlings, and wanted to be a responsible older sister, but it really wasn't fair to her. I like to think Tarragon, Moraine, and Kyurem did their best to make sure Clash wasn't having too many responsibilities put on her, but Clash tends to be very closed off and great at hiding her feelings, so they still missed a lot of things dfgsfd and there was still the problem of Clash not fitting in with her peers, given her odd fashion sense, stilted speech, and apparent lack of emotions, all of which other kids would mock her for. This unfortunately did not go away in Florabrisa. In fact, Millie up there in the first question is only two years older than Clash and for most of their teenage years was her biggest bully, since Millie (who of course cares so much about Florabrisa's well-being) saw the marital problems between Zaffre and Tamarind, and as a concerned citizen she loved throwing fuel into the rumor mill that Zaffre was cheating on Tamarind with her old flame Kyurem, with Clash right at the center at that,,, Clash had it very very rough growing up fgfdh

So yeah. Florabrisa's cruelest irony is that it was founded in part to be the ideal place to raise Clash, but then they all just. completely flubbed that part. i am so sorry Clash :(

sometimes i have to wonder if she should have even stayed in Florabrisa, but I think as an adult she's found peace and she's much better supported now. She has her wife Antikyra and they have a child who is going to get the dream childhood that Clash deserved!

omg. well, so much for one short paragraph dfgsfdg it's been years and i just finally needed to talk about Clash i guess xD;

🥝If you were to start over on your lore and remake it entirely, what would you change?

Kiwi time dfgsfdgfds. ummm lets see. give Clash a better childhood for starters sfdgsfd

For years I thought to myself if i restarted my lair, I would make it a swamp instead. but then i made my swamp tab and pretty much gave myself everything i wanted so dfgsfd i really don't know! I have thought before that if i had a chance to do something new with my progens, I would make them an M snapper and f bogsneak who are just friends instead of the typical married-progens-thing, but honestly i would never change Moraine and Tarragon and married progens are still fun regardless dsfgsfd having a snapper progen would rule though.

thank you!! and i am sorry for the length of this dfgsdfgdfg

[hellonerf]

OHH same anon as lasg time!!! now rhat we have confirmation of relationships can we maybe get a list of em?

OK... i will try my best... keep in your mind i am ame guy i always think about ame its a torturous existence but i will use this opportune to explain my 2ptalia. i wont make a list cz thats hard so i'll just write as much as i can. long paragraphs here we go

2p fra and 2p eng live in the manor and he's the head of the household there (of like two people lol). 2p eng plays the role of a stay at home mother and 2p fra the father. years back meri and nada lived there as the kids. 2p eng likes playing house but he wants full control of the house so its suffocating for the others. meri especially had always needed particular kinds of help and rejected alot of 2p england's ways. but 2p eng was also very particular about things so they clashed really badly. 2p eng fed him shit like human meat idk how to fit this in but this old 2p thing is so funny to me i have to keep it anyways that was a thing meri was kind of the problem child there. 2p eng did not like meri lol but it was under layers of strange lying and false affections

nada was like... a lying kid he'd just go with what was told of him quietly and kind of halfassedly to get things done. but he also would try to cool down situations to keep himself and meri safe. he fed meri wild berries or whatever other foods that meri wouldn't get sick from and puke out so he didn't end up seriously malnourished... a good older brother. if not a little aloof. (and meri could be difficult sometimes because. you know. obviously. and nada didnt always know how to respond to him properly). he is all annoyed by meri Now bcz of how clingy and needy he is and how meri seems to want him to prioritize his needs over nada's own. meri doesn't intend this but nada to him is someone who'd never drop him anyways and meri wants to feel whatever counts as happy at the moment (does whatever he wants lol).

2p fra is useless husband lol ok but he is a sad sad guy and he doesnt gaf anymore and just stays in the manor and during the brothers childhood mostly turned the other way. he can garden tho theres that! also 2p eng can actually cook he just does shit but he can cook well. hes demanding of his husband and purposefully difficult sometimes... likes testing him.

nada and 2p eng's relationship is a lot better but nada holds his tongue a lot anyways. they get along pretty okay and meri is like im really chill about that (not really)(but well nada likes me more than him anyways... he'll always take my side no matter what he tells england...). meri thinks 2p fra hates him too but 2p fra doesnt he just doesnt gaf about those damn kids. after meri and nada ran away 2p fra was like well i guess this family doesnt really have kids anymore. and 2p eng waslike no they just left for college. (2p fra: college doesnt exis.t.. okay). now meri and nada adventures the small deserted world they live in on a shitty motorcycle doing errands and jobs for people.

now for other guys. 2p ita is an asshole to like everyone but he gets things done. he keeps things in line in most of the area though some people dont listen to him even if he threatens them. he's pretty aware of whats his strengths and what isnt so hes calculating about who and how he exerts control... hes the one who figured out the very faraway portal door to 1p world. he lives in a long asymmetric tower that looks like a radio tower... 2p ger works here for him and basically lives there too. 2p ger is a kind of mechanic thats weirdly clumsy but also really good at his work. (2p ger gives us gratuitous fanservice from tripping over lines that werent there previously and 2p ita pops three whole blood vessels at once!) 2p jp is the bodyguard ish. but he kind of hates being under people so he doesnt always listen to his bosses. (2p ita knows how to get him to listen tho even if its a hassle). 2p ita hires meri and nada to do shit sometimes (mostly nada cz meri is worse at listening than him. but meri shows up there anyways so they get to know each other's working styles). they dont like each other but due to a job now 2p ger, meri, and nada all know about the door so he has to figure out to keep them in check about it

2p pru is 2p ger's older brother that was a major deal but lost his whole arm!!! and is now weak and sad. so 2p ger mostly takes care of him and his mechanical arm. 2p ger has little loyalty to people, but he takes care of his brother anyways. he'd probably sell him out lol but then take care of him after anyways.

2p roma is on the radio Oh i forgot to mention everyone has a little walkie talkie or radio that connects to the radio tower and this is like their only source of entertainment (unless germy lets them borrow his shitty laptop) and well communication of sorts. anyways hes on the radio always and has to keep coming up with material and sometimes has to pretend like hes 2p ita when giving announcements... 2p ita thinks hes annoying and thinks whatever "entertainment" he gives on the radio sucks ass but they got each others backs anyways.

2p japan as i said is a kind of bodyguard but he's very protective of his work and also not friendly like at all. 2p chi is not rly his mentor but they keep running into each other anyways. 2p chi is kind of true idgaf guy he lives in one of the houses closer to the radio tower because its convenient and he couldnt care less about the other people around. he keeps a lot of old things in his house like old jewelry old trinkets just old old things of their world. he might've been the one who found the laptop and just gave to it to 2p ger just cz he asked. 2p ger gets his mechanical materials from him because nobody else keeps shit they find cause they suck and are lazy. so germys always like man that guys the best! and 2p japan grits his teeth and stars come out from him gritting his teeth cz of how hard he grit his teeth. 2p chi does not gaf abt 2p japan of course its like a weird beef... he keeps the old trinkets because its useful and he might find a thing or two that makes his life more convenient... if not he'll sell or give them away. he listens to the radio and thinks it sucks but not much else to do.

2p spain is a little further away from the radio tower but he's there. he lives in someplace that looks like a church but if you walk in its basic house interior. he is a shit guy but knows and keeps and sells information around here. 2p ita has beef with him for that(but its fine... he's a patient guy... kgh...) and instead of talking directly for managing stuff he just sends 2p roma to do it.(romas like i dont rly wanna... but fine.. cz im just rly charitable...) 2p spain likes throwing glass at people thats just a thing he does. meri and nada doesnt like doing jobs for him but he pays a lot so they do it anyways. 2p ger wouldnt mind working for him but 2p spain doesnt trust his weird mechanics and technology... he does things manually. of course he doesnt know but many things of his house runs on the same mechanics...

2p russia is closer to the radio tower than 2p spain is but relatively not close. he likes keeping the plants and ecosystem in this world alive because nobody else is managing it. (2p fra would but he's in that fuckass manor all the time... this pisses 2p rus alot cz instead of being useful to the environment hes just There). meri has no idea but the only reason there was wild berries all around and various non-meat food is cz of 2p rus. 2p rus barely knows of him tho he just hears abt them like oh those two who would do anything for a little piece of money. 2p russia always has the radio on because information is valuable even if right now its just a shitty improvised soap opera on the radio... he doesnt like other people and only interacts if he must.

aaand i forgot to mention but 2p eng's manor has one singular radio connected to the radio tower but its like always turned off and hidden. 2p eng doesnt like 2p ita and doesnt agree with how he runs things at all and is the one who is most uncooperative with him. thats why 2p eng is really secluded living in the manor... he's the furthest away from the radio tower. 2p ita thinks hes a freak but hes mostly not causing trouble for him so he lets him do whatever that shit is.

[thefirstknife]

wanted to share some post Lighfall thoughts in my head with you (im sure most if this has been said or i got key concepts wrong but still)

I personally believe the Witness either is the First Knife or somehow has tricked itself into believing it is. (if the later then that's then it already had the desire to end universe and is using this to justify as an allegory for fascism)

my thoughts are summed up as this:

The Winnower wants to finish this round of the garden game. and wants to keep playing it over and over and over. It didn't seem to care about the Gardener wanting another round until she put herself into the game

The Witness is the Knife or somehow has vague spiritual metaphysical memories of the Knife and took its purpose the the most logical extreme:

It grew sick of round after round of the Game.

It is the Knife it wants to cut and cull all

The Winnower wants to play the game eternally which means restarting the game

The Knife wants to do it purpose and end the Game.

Permanently

To do this it must also end the Players so it can never restart again.

The Witness wants so somehow end the Game, end the Gardener, end the Winnower.

So that

The First Knife

becomes

The Final Shape

That's a really good summary of some of my thoughts as well!!

Obviously, a lot of this is very abstract and we might be looking at the Unveiling too much for hints, but ALSO. I think this would be super cool and would definitely explain a lot of stuff. And I would absolutely adore to see the Unveiling stuff be directly relevant in this way, and not just a metaphorical retelling of how the universe began.

An interesting lore tab from the raid lore book, page 9, that was available to unlock this week (the remaining 2 pages are tied to the red border chest, crisis averted. The chest was just bugged last week. Final raid lore book page next week!). Page 9 was... very peculiar. I'll copy it fully:

No clue who is the author. The first paragraph usually hints at the author, but this time I can't tell. Mention of "dream" and later suffering might suggest Nezarec talking to the Witness... or to something else. Or something else talking about the philosophy in general. This lore tab has Unveiling vibes to me, tbh. Mostly, the part about this data fragment coming from something "warped, barely-real" gives me massive Winnower vibes. It's a metaphor, an allegory, like the Unveiling.

I love the metaphor for the Light and Darkness philosophies, here presented with the story of a man coming upon a crossroads. The man asks the sky where to go, and there's no answer because that is for the man to choose. The Light doesn't direct anyone to anything, it lets you make your own choices. That is the essential part of the philosophy; freedom to choose.

The whole next bit with a wanderer that shows up to tell the man which path to take and even suggests brandishing a knife to exert a threat and force the man to pick is essential to the Darkness philosophy. Darkness wants to funnel you into a specific path and it will do everything in its power to make you go down that road.

But the author also muses about the knife. Is threatening violence a better way to make people obedient or is that actually ceding power? Once you show the knife, you can never sheathe it or else the threat goes away and so does your power. And even if you never sheathe it, someone might still risk fleeing. If you force someone to follow you, you are never allowed to stop threatening them, but the more you threaten, the more chance there is that the person being threatened will take the risk to flee once they're fed up. Which is what happened with several Darkness-aligned characters, most notably Savathun. She was coerced and lied to and threatened, and the longer that went on, the more she contemplated taking the risk to leave. And she succeeded.

The final sentence is also super important because it really explains why a lot of characters fall to Darkness in the first place. Because it makes the choice for them, and many are afraid of the unknown. They are too afraid to take the risk and make a choice for themselves and find it easier and safer to follow what is being told to them. Ergo, Darkness being "salvation."

And if we're on the right track, in this analogy, the wanderer telling the man which road to pick would be the Winnower, the Darkness. And the knife it pulls to make the threat? The Witness. It doesn't need to use the knife, but maybe at some point it considered it and now it's doubting its efficacy. Wouldn't it be easier if the man just listened instead of introducing the knife which complicates the interaction and possible outcomes?

We're in hardcore speculative territory here but it's one of the mos interesting thing to me right now, especially with all the new stuff we learned from Lightfall and the raid.

[alaydabug2]

I'm going pre preface this rant by saying:

I love my memaw I really do and a lot of our bonding is insulting and making fun of each other

I also get she grew up in a different time period and different family dynamic

However

There's just some things that... really gets on my nerves when she does it

Best example I have of what I mean by this

My memaw often gets onto me when I accidentally interrupt people saying that I need to learn respect

And I admit

I do have a problem with that

But it's not out of disrespect

When I do it I don't cut someone off in the middle of a sentence they're saying and keep going

It's at the first couple words and it's more of my brain not catching up with someone else is speaking before I talk

I have been trying to get better at that

I'll stop what I was saying apologize and let them continue

Now if that's all that there was to it it wouldn't really be much of an issue for me

But it's not

My memaw dies the exact same thing

But worse

She will cut me and others off while speaking in the middle of paragraphs or a thing I have been explaining for a couple minutes with something totally unrelated

And keeps talking with no regard of the other person

I try to be patient

And I never really say anything cause I don't want to argue

But it makes me feel like I don't want to be heard

And sometimes.... I know I don't

And that hurts

Then when I'm debating something with her and I'm winning (with proof) she likes to pull out the

"Children should be seen and not heard"

And when I try to argue that she'll go

"Children don't have rights"

Then when I Google up the rights minors have (proving that I do have some sort of rights)

She'll say she doesn't have to listen to what I have tj say

And I get that it started out in a mostly lighthearted conversation

But.... she'll pull that constantly

She'll do it when she doesn't want to hear me talk or if I'm making good points against what she's saying

Then she does the "respect your elders"

And i counter "do I not deserve respect either"

I did that in the car one time while it was me my memaw and my daddy

My mama had run into the gas station

And memaw was having an issue with a response to that

My daddy goes "yeah... does she" (he wad on my side of the argument)

Memaw starts going "well... not really"

I'm about to start an argument about mutual respect because she really does have an issue with that

But mama comes into the car before I can do that and asks what was going on because when the door opened we all went dead silent

I just said nothing and got really quiet (that's a good indicator I'm upset)

Well a few days later it was me memaw and mama back in the car

And that whole thing got brought back up when she was giving me another respect people while they're talking speech

And so I brought up hiw the night before she cut me off while I was talking and I jut shut up and didn't say anything about it

Sne did the "children are to be seen and not heard" crap again

Mama was staying out of it

I am getting really upset

Because u already have issues with standing up for myself

And mama is always telling me j need tk get better at it

And stuff like this is why I have prenlems in standing up for myself

So I tell memaw it's upsetting me and I get really frustrated by it when she's being hypocritical like that

She rolls her eyes and tries to brush it off saying she doesn't need to listen to me

I tell her I'm trying to have an actual conversation and I'm being serious

She keeps cutting me off saying it's not a big desl

So I start to cry and I yell I'm trying to have a serious conversation but she's not listening to me

Well mama steps in this time and tells memaw to have the conversation with me because I'm getting upset by it.

Memaw and my mama (FYI my memaw is my paternal grandmother) go back and forth for a moment before memaw finally decides to "listen" to me

I tell her that it frustrates me and it makes me feel like she doesn't care what I have to say

She cuts me off and says

"Sometimes I dont"

I just lock my jaw

If I didn't I knew I would've ended up with saying something that would get me in trouble

Again I go quiet and look out the window

Mama and memaw end up arguing for a a second before memaw says to me

"Ok fine I heard you happy?"

I said I was trying to find a solution to the issue so ut won't cause problems anymore (cause she never did apologize or anything)

After back and forth of that a few times she said "Ok fine I'm sorry I won't do it again" (she didn't sound sorry just mainly to get me to shut up)

Welk after I went inside the store with mama

She told me she was proud of me for standing my ground and having that difficult conversation

But still memaw cuts me off even njw

Although mama has started stopping memaw when she does that and tells me tk go ahead with what I was saying

Menaw doesn't seem happy about when that happens tho

[spongebobafettywap]

I also heard about the "Azazel is a rapist/raped Mystique" statement, mostly by folks who defend the retcon... I don't think they know what the word they're using means, just like that time they somehow didn't know what bastard meant (yup I'm the same anon who dropped that Reddit story here months ago. hello again, Maz!)

In pre-retcon, Azazel and Mystique were having an affair for the sake of their own separate goal that required the same tool to be reached and really did fall in love with each other. It ended in a terribly rough breakup between them, since he coldly left her behind, and what felt like/was an immense betrayal to Mystique. But Azazel still showed up on the day of Kurt's birth because he did care about him and his mother and did consider what they had as a relationship.

Retcon has Mystique not like Azazel at all and just using him while following Destiny's exact instructions to get his DNA imprinted onto hers for inspiration to her baby batter (😐)... Without him knowing it. She let him believe they were having an actual relationship, that she was interested in him and that she wanted to be intimate with him a lot. That worked so well that he was retconned to be the one getting broken hearted when they split to the point of being moved to tears and sobbing.

... Azazel isn't a rapist in either of these settings.

If anything, the situation in the retcon is more like Destiny pimping Mystique to Azazel (and the Baron)... Down to her being the only reason these two met. I'd go as far as to say this whole messy story was just Destiny elaborately cheating on Mystique by using her as a perfect proxy to Azazel because the level of imprinting Mystique did of his DNA turned "their" baby more like his' than hers. Why is it cheating ? Because the only reason Destiny gave Mystique as to why Nightcrawler needed to be born, why she tricked her into thinking she was having a baby fever and roped her into that frenzy, was to stop Azazel's takeovers. But Azazel needs Nightcrawler for his takeovers so the baby doesn't even serve the purpose Destiny made him for, he does the opposite of that... It reads like Destiny just wanted to have Azazel's baby and sleep with him but didn't want Mystique to get mad at her for it so she manipulated her into becoming like him to do the trick and it backfired so bad on them that to do damage control she come up with contradictory and uncreative excuses for her actions that Mystique is too blind to see them for what they are : Lies.

These comic fans need to either buy a dictionary, look up what words mean or read more books that aren't comic books or do all 3 and then maybe their literacy levels will improve lmao.

For 2 Whole Decades the complaints that were made about the Draco was never that Azazel was a rapist. These people have an unhealthy level of hatred towards a fictional character like Azazel but not once did they ever claim he was a rapist. If he was then this would come up in articles etc. But nothing, this is a claim made by pathetic people who somehow believe that this dogshit retcon upon retcon origin story is objectively better than the Draco. Yes clearly Nightcrawler having 4 Biological parents is the better story, I love origin stories for characters that require a paragraph to explain!

Yes Destiny in this situation is like a Pimp with Mystique which is honestly such a bizarre dynamic for these two given that Mystique has always been the brains and the brawn of the duo and Destiny has just been hanging out on the sidelines telling her some visions of the future. Why is Destiny now suddenly this master planner, manipulator etc.

And this whole well Nightcrawler needs to be made from Azazel's DNA to stop him because Azazel can apparently just 1 shot kill the Marvel universe unless Nightcrawler is there, and then the back and forth for his origin story makes my head hurt. But you are right about how Nightcrawler hasn't really served that purpose in Destiny's vision, it was an alternate Dragon Nightcrawler that killed Azazel, he fulfilled more of what Azazel wanted out of him.

How the fuck is any of this better than Azazel and Mystique have an affair because the Baron wants a child but the child ends up being a visible mutant which causes anti mutants to chase Mystique and the baby.

[anosrepasi]

1-4?

Yay <3

Tell us about your current project(s) So Prima Lingua has revived itself again and is probably my most current project. The thing that I love about PL in particular is that I've come to adore every chapter of it, which is unusual for a project, especially one as long as PL but with such a short number of chapters. I thought I would really struggle through the Booker and Nile chapters because at least the Nile chapter is a lot of rehashing scenes from Lingua Franca with additional context and my brain didn't want to do that for the longest time. Progress is actually really close, I have two chapter left, including the one I'm currently writing, and the fic is complete. Which is also crazy to think about cause that'll be my second long-fic completed. The other project that's been taking shape in my drafts is a ghost fic for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla because unfortunately when I replay games I tend to get weirdly attached to the characters I know are doomed. Ivarr was one of those characters, and I thought his death had way too much angst to not play around with the idea of him haunting Eivor afterwards. Progress on that is that it's almost completely written I just have to nail the epilogue/ending and some placeholder text spots. What I love about it is that it is a fic about conflict and guilt and I really really love the dialogue in the fic because I made one of the characters unwillingly mute for most of it, and that gets addressed.

Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing Honestly, I'm looking forward to Nolexi and where I finish off the Lingua Franca series. I have a couple of scenes I refer to in my head that I'm looking forward to writing that are coded in my brain as: Yusef in the dark, Booker in Chicago, Nicolo gets mad, Nile in the museum, and the family dinner. They're kind of acting at my waypoints for the fic and oooof I have lots of feelings about all of them and cannot wait to get into the strange messy world of estranged and grieving no longer but still dysfunctional immortals.

What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? If I had to pick a scene from an existing fic, I wish I could see and have a fleshed out version of Booker exploring the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 that I touch on in Prima Lingua. I know I wanted to have Booker end up in Chicago for a while back when I was writing Lingua Franca and having Nicolo experience the world fair as a second hand observer was one of the best unexpected plot points I created when writing chapter 4 of Prima Lingua but. I also hint that Booker was literally a victim of H.H. Holmes in the fic and it gets brushed off cause Booker and Nicolo are too busy being amazed by everything happening at the world fair. Which having been to just a Venice Biennale, I get it. If i was immortal and getting murdered got in the way of seeing everything i could, i would also minimize the whole murder thing. Alas. I don;t really want to write this but I wish i could watch an episode of Booker and by extension, Nicolo, wandering around the Chicago world fair. i think it'd be fun.

Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like) (I wrote more than a paragraph) From chapter 1 of Nolexi, I have an exchange that just I was like. Wow! This is fucking rough! And what a great way to set up how rough this is going to be for everyone! I had a bit of character conflict in Lingua Franca, but the first two fics in the series are mostly man vs. situation/setting conflict not interpersonal conflict and Nolexi is about all the character conflict. So yeah. Many a struggle ahead for the group.

“No, I understand you fine, it’s not your language skills," Booker motions to himself, “I haven’t spoken Provincial since I was a child.” Nicolo tilts his head at the statement, his confusion evident for a moment before something like understanding, though understanding for what Booker couldn’t begin to fathom, replaces it with a blank clarity. “It’s a lonely life, being so far removed from that which you consider home.” And that’s- that’s too close to something Sebastien doesn’t even want to acknowledge and like a fool his mouth is on the defense before his brain catches up. “You’d be the expert in that, I think.” Nicolo’s sad smile doesn’t waver and Booker is ready to shoot himself out of this conversation. Fuck. He just always has to get the last word in doesn’t he. Nicolo rises from the table and Sebastian flinches if expecting a blow. “Goodnight, younger brother. Rest well.” Great job, self.

Fun Meta Writer Asks

[beardedmrbean]

Hey Nunya can you explain the difference differences between Yiddish and Hebrew? Is Hebrew is to Yiddish what Italian is to Latin?

Sorry, ugh why we know so little about Jewish history? It’s like it just went from ancient history to the holocaust like in one paragraph

Wait, probably because the left don’t want to admit that the Nazis had a “Eat the Rich” mindset towards the Jews. And have you notice a lot of European countries pretend they didn’t have centuries of antisemitism leading up to the holocaust?

Given the current situation with Israel and Palestine…yeah.

Yiddish is a weird combo language it's going to be indigenous to Ashkenazi Jews came to being in central Europe as a mix of Hebrew, German, some Polish, and other local languages at some point 1000 or so years ago and has refined itself over the centuries before almost being wiped out along with Jewish population of Europe in the 1940's with the Holocaust. Makin a come back though which is good.

There's a lot of high quality snarky insults in there too, there's a good wikipedia article that's going to be way more detailed and informative than I could be on the subject, not just the insults either.

I gave it a skim to make sure I wasn't giving bad info. Says it's High Germanic which that's a lot of languages in the family tree

As for their history, there's a lot they don't know either, starting with the northern kingdom of Samaria being scattered by the Babylonians, 10 lost tribes and all, there were still Samaritans after that whole thing obviously, kingdom of Judea not big fans of them as you may remember from some stories in the Jesus part of the bible. There's still a few there too, dwindling population of them in Israel.

They've been looking and trying to bring people home if they'd like to come home and their current home country will allow it too, one group that tickles me every time I think about them is the Kaifeng Jews random community in China that popped up in the records here and there, couple others in China as well. Ethiopian royal family which is not really around anymore claims descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, there are Ethiopian Jews living in Israel some racism accusations that may carry water there I haven't dug.

A lot of their history for the ones that landed in Europe is fairly parallel to everyone else's history there other than the whole Pope thing, and the various pogroms where the local Christian community to our eternal shame tried to go in and wipe them out for a multitude of reasons mostly false and related to superstition and or ignorance. Check out the places that got hit by the plague the least and you'll see why ritual washing is a good thing.

Then there was that whole inquisition thing and England actually banned them from living there completely for a while, that mildly recent in the grand scheme of history.

Short short short version of Jewish history can be summed up with the traditional toast "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat" which is both sad and hilarious all at the same time.

The history is there though, it's just not something you're going to pick up a lot of in primary (k-12) school, same reason as a lot of things that get a glossed over treatment, there's a whole lot of it.

People are lucky the internet is a thing now, not only can you find a whole bunch of pictures of raccoons wearing different hats and outfits, the whole world of information is at our fingertips and anything we're interested in, provided it's not a national security threat, is there to be learned about.

[workingchemistry]

After rambling paragraphs in your comment section I have come on Tumblr to write more lmao. Seriously I wrote 4 journal pages of thoughts about your au it's very good!

Ok so first, I love how the fight dynamic is: jump Fox when he is being stupid -> 17 breaks up fight -> profit. Except now everything's all wrong so they had to call 17 over to fix things in post. Just hilarious and good continuity.

Your manipulative Fox is excellent show don't tell. It's honestly really hard to write a smart dude without being basically psychic or actually failing a lot. So like even though a lot of people love manipulative Fox it's hard to show in such a low stakes fashion. Usually wr just see him blackmailing people or otherwise winning instead of slowing gathering intel and influencing someone. The pacing and POV just makes it work.

Ace!Fox and Allo!Bly solidarity is hilarious. It cracks me up that the Kaminoans somehow didn't realize that most of the clones are ace spectrum. Like i question if the whole defective CT for CC batches worked even once as intended when every CC is only interested in adoption. "Natborns are obsessed with sex" indeed. Fox knows what's up.

Fox being more genuine with Bly and 17 and even Laruk was adorable. Especially with 17 where we got to realize that all the cadet style military discipline is affectionate with 17. Feral!Fox and his barely older dad my beloved.

I love how the deterministic gene editing totally matters but also doesn't matter much at all. Like all it really did is make a hierarchical family dynamic. Alphas will absolutely parent solo because they are competitive. CCs are big on being at the middle level of parenting and ori'vod-ing because they are only as competitive (for affection) as necessary to get the primary position in a cuddle pile. CTs are totally comfy with looking after younger siblings while still being looked after by the CCs. Ultimately they are all chomping at the bit to create a found family irrespective of genes.

Satine and Fox are so interesting because Satine cares that he is bleeding because of her principles not because she is being kind. Fox likewise pretends to be nice constantly so that she doesn't die on his watch and he gets blamed. Like him expressing understanding over natborn women being uncomfortable with men is just so he can do his job. He gets it but he doesn't really care about a stranger's hypothetical trauma.

Caring about your appearance is absolutely not a baseline experience for clones. Choosing to deviate from regulation at all is a huge expression of individuality even if you still present as a man.

Also like, Satine they are not soldiers by choice. Why would they have a culture that values violence above all else when they don't choose that life. As Fox was explaining in the creche, violence between vode is about love and survival, bot bloodthirsty bloodthirstyness or glory.

Also yeah, Satine will be totally offended by Fox's philosophy on death and murder. "The only deaths I care about are my brothers and they die all the time. If the purge was real I would fix the overcrowding in the senate dome no problem."

lol. They had a Method. It’s always a struggle when your younger brother is both smarter and dumber than you are. Usually beating him up and getting lecture by the only person he listens to is effective but then they tried to beat him up without Seventeen being there and it just didn’t work as well.

Ahh. Thank you. 😭 Fox is so fun as an unreliable narrator because he’s being purposeful about what he tells people when and even what he lets himself thing about but it makes me so nervous that I’m showing too much of my hand lol.

😂😂 I’m just too obsessed with the idea of the clones being ace mostly because I’m ace and so I love the idea of a culture where being allo is met with confusion. I don’t think the Kaminoans thought about sex drive at all until the trainer pops up saying it’s a problem. They give the CCs a CT and they seem more pliable so I guess it must have worked. Meanwhile the CCs are losing their minds over having a new tubie to take care of and mother hen. The CTs on the other hand are dubious but willing to be babied bc they’ve gone from living under the threat of decom to being protected by the most feral clones they’ve ever met. 😂

Seventeen acts a lot more aggressive than he really is. He’s not against thrashing his kids to make them behave but he always does it with affection. I just love to think about like Kenobi and company realizing their commanders and troopers are actually the semi domesticated version when they start digging into things and see the kinda shit that Fox and the Corries pull off unsupervised.

That is such a perfect description. 😭 the Aureks are extremely possessive and don’t really trust each other while the CCs don’t really trust outsiders. The CTs on the other hand are comparatively easy going despite what natborns think. They see these men doing crazy things on the battle and think they’re insane but actually CTs are very affectionate and willing to adopt everyone into their found families. They’re just also more willing to listen to a no. Aureks Will Forcibly adopt anyone from the younger series and CCs will latch onto anyone and dig their teeth in until they’ve subdued their targets.

Satine is so much fun to play against Fox because they’re kind of the same subset of person but with different ideals. They both come across as very helpful and caring and it’s not that they aren’t but they aren’t altruistic—even though Satine values altruism, everything she does is to further her ideals and people so it’s not actually good for good’s sake. Satine cares about Fox’s wellbeing because she feels responsible for him and Fox cares about Satine’s wellbeing because he is responsible for her. She wouldn’t be more sad about him dying than she would any rando and he would say good riddance to her if his family could get away with it.

The clones in other battalions get to play around with their appearance at least, but Fox can’t let his Corries even do that. Too much hinges on them being interchangeable. Those with identifying scars get pulled off of Senate duty and when he got his facial scar he had a whole breakdown because it meant he couldn’t step in and pretend to the others anymore. So that means what little individuality he can give to them is extremely precious and if that’s just which pronouns and names being used, he will fight for them. If they are already too identifiable with scars, he lets them grow out their hair and dye it as long as they leave enough undyed roots so it can be shaved off in an emergency. Makeup and nail polish and accessories are shared freely and used by everyone regardless of gender identity within the barracks.

The love/violence and inaction/hate culture clash is so fun to me. Like hurting your brother so that the trainer doesn’t do it is love as far as the vode are concerned. Standing aside and not correcting a mistake is setting your brother up for a decom. Satine’s preconceived notions about war and the reasons natborns fight doesn’t fit when these are just men who aren’t allowed to anything else. Like sure they enjoy killing sometimes. They enjoy getting a job done and they’re desensitized to murder. It has nothing to do with the actual killing. Later this will be highlightened when we get to see Fox doing the bare minimum to protect a natborn compared to Rex, Cody, Wolffe, and Bly all nearly killing themselves to protect their generals. Inaction vs action is a huge thing for them. Fox quite quit his job years ago. He’s just keeping his men alive at this point. Fuck everyone else.

Fox really said if the terrorists wanted to be harder to catch that would be great actually. Oh no he’s accidentally dropping the plans to the senate dome. If he could guarantee that no one would be alive to retaliate afterwards, he’d commit a murder spree, take his troopers, and book it out of there.