#im sorry about this mess lmao

[hinamie]

corvidae

[cabbagestrand]

oh, to be taken care of

[nonomives]

How do you color your art!? Like color theory and stuff!! Your art looks so vibrant and gorgeous!!!

I like your Circus AU very much, Julie looks absolutely adorable haha!!

Babe im gonna be real with you, I just fuck around and find out--

Okok but in all honesty, I dont know. My main tip when it comes to coloring is knowing the value (darkness and lightness of colors). Your art could have the wackiest colors as possible but if you nail the values right, it will work out

Another thing, pride flags lowkey actually highkey are useful as references for color combos. Some peeps actually pointed out how Dolly's hair is the lesbian flag and yeaps--

Also also thanks! Have this Julie! Im still figuring out the other peep's designs but her's is pretty much set lol (i used the trans flag as a color guide hkabjdggjagjdg)

[saltylotus]

"I am the most powerful Trainer in the world!"

[moonlight-singer]

Moonlight memories: Anger

This is part of Ahr'in's memories collected during the expansions , mostly SHB and EW, some from earlier in time. -------------- LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE

[deus-ex-mona]

you’ve heard of the lovers bench

now get ready for the divorce couch

[freckledsokka]

wip wednesday

a wee snippet of the self-indulgent tense-fuckery zukka fic i'm working on that no one asked for! most of this fic is sokka (ghost sokka? spirit sokka? who knows) waxing poetic about zuko grieving him, but i wrote this scene with korra for a touch of levity (while still being a little angsty).

note: this is NOT a reader fic. do not let the use of "you" fool you. this is fully from sokka's pov as if he's narrating this to zuko.

"You remind me of him," you tell the Avatar, something wistful tugging at the corner of your mouth, reaching to the creases of your eyes. Korra looks almost bashful, or maybe just flattered. "I get that a lot," she says quietly, as if it's a sore subject but she doesn't want to offend you by mentioning it. You smile at her, warm and reassuring. "I don't mean Aang." "Oh." She sounds surprised, which quickly gives way to embarrassed when you offer her an encouraging smirk to help the thought along. "Oh," she says again, nearly in a different octave. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I should have realized that's — of course, that's who you meant." She laughs nervously, waving her hand vaguely at herself. "Southern Water Tribe, duh." "It's not just that," you tell her, and her nervous energy seems to settle a little at the calm, smooth tone of your voice. "You have the same tenacity, the same spirit. He would be proud to see the Avatar you've become."

Korra is quiet for a moment, either out of respect or simply a loss for words. Then she smiles, a little sheepishly but no less grateful to be honored in such a way. "Tenzin told me he — the Chief? — was with you and my father the night the Red Lotus tried to kidnap me." She looks away, guilt seeping into the set of her shoulders, the way she wraps her arms across her chest. "I'm sorry, I — Did he —?" She glances back, eyes bright, pleading for some kind of forgiveness she doesn't need to be given. "Was it my fault?"

"Korra," you say slowly, frowning, placing a gentle hand on her arm. "What did Tenzin tell you? The Red Lotus had nothing to do with Sokka's passing."

Her eyes go wide. "Really? But he made it sound like — I mean, my dad became Head Chieftain not long after that, I thought —"

You can't help the chuckle low in the back of your throat, a rumble of distant thunder, warm as a summer storm. "No, Korra. Sokka never was particularly suited to be Chief. He felt it was time to pass it on, is all. That, and he felt he could do more good behind the scenes, or through his work in Republic City. But, more often than not, he was with me. Those years were some of our best." 

Korra lets out a trill of nerves, huffing in relief. "Thank the Spirits." A beat, the haunted look of someone who is technically thousands of years old yielding to the vulnerability of someone barely out of her teens carrying the weight of the Spirit and human worlds on her shoulders, knowing she is the reason your — our — friend is gone. This is the cycle we were all prepared for, and yet — "Is that why I barely remember him? Didn't he ever visit Katara at the compound? Why didn't he ever say hello?"

"I wish I could tell you, Korra, but he never gave me his reasons." A wry smile. "I'm sorry if I kept him from you."

Korra twists her mouth, setting her jaw defiantly. "Lord Zuko, if I may —" She isn't really asking permission and you know this, but you nod anyway. "That's bullshit, and you know it. He was your husband. Don't tell me you didn't know just because he didn't tell you."

Your mouth twitches knowingly, even as your expression remains impressively neutral. "I had my suspicions, of course."

"Which were?" Korra presses.

If she weren't the Avatar, I suspect you would've said something along the lines of None of your damn business or Nothing to concern yourself about. Being the Avatar still has its perks in dragging honesty out of you, it seems. Still, you manage to make it a whole production, sighing like it physically pains you to admit it. 

"He wanted to wait until you'd mastered all four elements before he would teach you" — an exaggerated eyeroll, fingers pinching the bridge of your nose — "the 'fifth element.'"

Korra's brow furrows. She blinks like she's waiting for a punchline. "The — what? There is no fifth element, unless you count energy, but —"

"I know," you agree, exhausted. "I know."

"Then what?" Korra demands, sounding as flabbergasted as she looks.

You take a deep breath, wearily replying, "Swordbending."

Korra is frozen for a moment, maybe in shock, maybe in disbelief. Then she bursts out laughing, bright and cool as snow crunching underfoot, until it dawns on her that maybe you weren't actually joking. "Wait, really?" she asks incredulously. "He actually wanted to — to teach me? Why didn't he just team up with Katara? Spirits, it would've been so much fun to have a swordmaster around."

"You told me you have to learn the elements in order, Zuko," you say in a poor imitation of my voice. It's been so long, you've almost forgotten it. "He didn't want to influence your bending, or distract you from your role as Avatar, or so I assume."

Korra huffs. "Sounds an awful lot like he did tell you things, then," she mutters indignantly.

You shrug. "Not in so many words. He said a lot without ever saying it." That wistful slant of your mouth softens into something closer to melancholy. "When you're with someone as long as I was with Sokka, you learn to read between the lines. We had our own language, in a way."

"But if you suspected, why didn't you say anything? Why not encourage him?"

There's a sadness in your smile, an ache in your eyes. "Because, young Avatar," you say gently, "you always think you'll have more time."

[mistercakerz]

hi

i need hugs i cant stop crying today :(

[ladyohdeath]

is Rio omnipresent? does she have many embodiments around the multiverse at all times?

hey anon, this is a great question!

yeah, so she is death for all beings, in this universe and the others. technically she's a cosmic being, but one could almost consider her more of a concept than anything else, if that makes sense? she lives a completely different existence than someone who's present as one, present being, so it's sort of difficult to write from a roleplay perspective.

technically she is the big three: omnipresent (present everywhere, at all times, at the same time), omniscient (on the basis of death, and knowledgeable of all lifelines and where they begin and end) and omnipotent (although i don't really lean into that as much for the sake of roleplay purposes). but this includes control over time, and manipulation of reality.

i mean, think about it, millions die every day, across every universe. she would have to be omnipresent, otherwise she would be SEVERELY overworked lmao. many instances of her, many manifestations of her, like i said it's sort of difficult to write from a roleplay perspective but i think the concept of infinite selves is also difficult for us to conceptualize in general. her realm, the one in which she "lives" and rules, is the realm of the dead, for all beings. i go into this more i think in my carrd, but it's like what you would imagine to be the "underworld", and obviously not every soul exists there if they have a different religion, or different ending point, depending. but, that's sort of her grounding point, i suppose you could call it?

i like to humanize her in a way when i write her, having her focused on one universe at a time, physically and mentally present there, during the timeline of my threads. it also helps when it comes to writing the more human parts of her personality and her motivations.

the problem with writing death as a being with emotions, a soul (maybe), feelings is that having her also be omnipresent is a bit difficult at the same time. so, although the answer is technically yes, it's not likely i'll mention this all that often in threads because that brings up some difficulty. she has a physical self, and can be touched, so there very much is a her as well. and she can mentally exist wherever she is, and be fully present in the moment.

but if you think about it from a technical perspective, she isn't all there, not fully, if you really think about it, and even in the show there's a lot of times in which she literally just disappears. i don't think, at least in the way i write her, that there are "other" conscious versions of herself walking around that she could run into. i think it's a subconscious thing, her existence just is everywhere, and she takes bodies and souls without thinking about it. if you can visualize mentally, the idea of her soul being split into a trillion difference instances, the essence of her off doing her job as death. while the emotional, mental part of her is one place at a time. but then of course this brings up the conversation of when does she actually choose to be the one mentally present to help a soul cross over, so i do think that her omnipresent selves have to have some bits of her, some pieces of her personality. see where it gets hard to conceptualize??? lmao

basically, i think the easiest way to describe it is that if you want the real, talking, walking rio vidal, with a sometimes-human face and a wicked laugh, you'll need to find the real thing. the part of her with a heart, exists as one sort of cosmic being, and the rest of her presence, concept and existence stretches across everything at all times.

[tiny-planet-13]

you know what's absolutely fucked (besides my inability to say a single sentence without cursing) is that I think that somehow, however improbable or disgusting this truth is, riko's abuse is at least half the reason why jean is still alive right now. (please bear with me) and I mean still alive as in the reason why he hasn't killed himself yet rather than someone else doing it.

idk quite how to explain but like, we can acknowledge that the nest and the ravens was a cult, right? and it's quite obvious that the ravens have been essentially brainwashed in their own ways into believing that the whole situation is normal and that's just how life has to be for them to achieve their goals and dreams in the future. but they don't know about the extent of the abuse that riko was inflicting on Kevin and jean and also Neil for his brief stay. (whether they had suspicions is besides the point because I suppose if it didn't affect their futures then there was no reason to care)

so the fact that a lot of the ravens end up killing themselves after the nest has been dismantled in tsc is almost entirely because of the brainwashing and the reliance they had on that awful structure.

however

as we see in tsc jean is also battling with trying to adjust to normality again, but the fact that he is actively trying says everything. sure, he's angry at everyone and makes empty threats and all the rest of it, but the fact remains that he is still willing to embrace change and learn and reluctantly heal. especially once he's with the Trojans, we don't really see jean deliberately working against what is being offered to him. sure, he makes mistakes and he gets angry and he struggles to cope BUT!! I don't think he's doing any of that intentionally because of course he's going to slip up on occasion. you don't just live in a hideous abusive situation for 5 years and then magically escape from it unscathed.

(I promise I'm actually getting to my point soon I'm sorry)

the reason he can go on and try and understand that killing himself isn't an option is because he knew that what happened to him in the nest was wrong and bad and evil. and whilst he still says things like he deserved it, I don't think that overshadows his understanding that it was still wrong. so whilst the other ravens had all accepted that this cult was the correct way for them to get what they wanted, horrifically enough I think riko's abuse is what kept jean aware that it wasn't normal.

so in some backhanded absolutely twisted and sick way I think the difference between jean and the rest of the ravens (particularly those who killed themselves) is that the abuse was so real and tangible to jean that it shattered any reliance he could ever truly have on the nest and is at least in part the reason why him killing himself on the phone to Kevin would never be as plausible as him finally clinging to an opportunity and trying to heal..

[jils-things]

i am vulnerable and mushy again sniiff

[maliciousalice]

👕 & 🍽️? For the trek ask game

Heheh thanks for Asking Meg!!! All aboard another long winded ramble about my wife ST: Voyager!!!!!

👕 Character whose fashion you like.

While I answered in the last one, I think I'll add to it by saying I love the Ds9/Voyager Uniforms--Infact I'm a HUGE sucker for them--At least to me, they feel like THE signature trek costume rather than TNG or TOS ones. Plus, they are fun to draw! I love how they look on the actors with the structured upper half, and loose, high-waisted pants that give everyone the illusion of height.

Those that are dressed in the uniform are portrayed with a respectable heft and a pleasant, overall shape. I know it's not the case, but they look like they are really practical. This is fully intentional as the lead costume designer said they wanted the suits to appear modular and have advantages in different environments. That's why sometimes they are unzipped or twisted around, depending on the narrative.

I could go on and on about them. I act feral over how they look when when all the actors stand together, turned in various ways, posing so that that folds pucker on their joints, or when subtle differences in their body sizes take up screen. It just looks so cool! I'm a big fan of squad-based, colour-coded uniforms and clean silhouettes.

Most importantly though, it gives them all BODY-ODY-ODY!!!

AYO WHICH LOCATION THEY AT??? CW: GORILLA DUMPIES!!! 👀👀👀 😳😳😳😳

🍽️What alien food/drink would you want to try?

I wish I could find the video but I've seen bits and pieces about how they designed the food on the sets and I think it's super charming!

Lots of effort went into considering the cuisine. It just about decorates every set and It was important to the show. Voyager engaged in a lot visual gags, or dialog discussing food. It was in a comforting way that would present the characters with their personal ideals of home.I find that subtext of world-building really endearing.

Many scenes involved characters bonding in the mess hall, socializing around food, or isolating with it to gain a sense of self. In contrast, it's used as a device for diplomacy, or to make settings seem more alien, unnavigated and removed from regular comforts. It's even incorporated into main plot points, such as with Tuvok in ''Riddles'', when he gains a newfound skill around cooking after a serious accident, and he solves the plot by decorating a code on a cake. Through food, we saw a lot of what it could be like to be a crew member on the ship, and live inside their Universe. It wasn't always pretty but they made it work.

We have a really rich food bowl and diverse food-culture In Australia, I love noticing exotic food that are used as set decoration of as props--I am used to seeing tropical fruit or Asian ingredients around my community, so it's fun to see it transformed. And much like the characters in Voyager, I relate to the comfort and the charting of new territories when it comes to seeing/ eating food.

I suspect being a chef / working in hospitality would be an interesting occupation in Trek. Everyone complains about the lack of authenticity from replicated food, so I'm sure being a good Chef would be worth your while.

I genuinely want to try Old-mate Neelix's cooking. He seems so creative and passionate about what he plates up, and he CLEARLY (they all put on weight haha) kept the crew well-fed. ''Bitches make do'', but you can tell he cares by the questions he askes everyone, or the detail he places into his recipes. I'd like to see what all the fuss is about with Leeola Root Stew. I bet it's not that bad! (I like bitter food) Or better, serve me up a Jimbalian Fudge cake! It's so quaint how there is an evolution to his work as he gets more integrated with everyone.

(crying over this ^) Neelix Nation Rise Up!!!!

[blortch]

Paying forward the shoutout was long overdue but !! Check out this channel if you want to see a playthrough on just about any niche visual novel you could think of! There's a super high variety and she takes the time to leave nice reviews on every game she plays too, supporting a ton of indie creators! I def recommend this channel 😍

[the-kipsabian]

man as much as i think im a bad writer on so many levels at least im cringe and im free and im writing for myself

lol. lmao even

[anotherpapercut]

working with children really will make you examine your thought processes and emotional reactions like nothing else. I've found myself being so much more thoughtful in my daily life about how I respond to my emotions and environment, as well as the reasoning behind why others behave the way they do

[of-solitude-past-and-present]

YOUR WRITING>>>>>

I don't know how you came up with Naga Scaramouche but I've been brain rotting for days now 😩

Do you have any ideas how'd he'd react if someone goes out of their way to look for reader after they disappeared?

Especially if they mightve been a love interest at some point or the person clearly has feelings for them 👀

(referring to this)

A friend of mine actually came up with the idea for naga scara!! Together, we fleshed out the plot. It wasn't originally a fic, though, it was just a rp that got me brainrotting afterwards. I couldn't stop thinking about the whole concept until I finished writing Hidden in the Sands. The fic literally wouldn't leave me alone unless I was working on it LMAO

I'm going to take this as an excuse to talk a bit about the behind the scenes here (you have NO idea how much I've wanted to infodump about this fic)–originally, the reader was actually my friend's interpretation of Lumine and Sanad was originally my Alhaitham. I also played the part of Kuni himself. It was a bit awkward, actually, because Alhaitham and Kuni had to talk to each other a little bit and it felt like I was talking to myself.

I've changed the personalities of the reader and Sanad greatly, as you might have already guessed, since Sanad behaves nothing like Alhaitham; Sanad's more like one of those "prime examples" that Alhaitham talks about when he says, "Book learning alone is not enough to cultivate intelligence." Sanad is, intentionally, a very flawed but still reasonably likeable character. I want to talk about him too. Oh boy, looking back on this I sure did talk a lot about an OC I don't think anyone genuinely cares about.

I wanted to make him come off as normal, like an actual human person. He really is just a regular dude, he's just been kinda brainwashed by the Akademiya, as shown by the lines, "The Akademiya has declared them to be just baseless nonsense, so of course I don't think they actually exist." and "Desert dwellers tend to be... fearless." He's absorbed many commonly held beliefs (and biases) in the Akademiya, a textbook example of someone who's been taught what to think rather than how to think. I wanted him to be realistic. However, he's still funny, charming, and overall good-willed, even if he's spineless and very easily led.

I've greatly changed the fic from the original rp, and only the base premise (yandere!naga!scara and the whole "commissioned to find the culprit for some strange murders in the Hadramaveth") remains the same. It went through several versions at first. In fact, before I came up with Sanad, I was going to have Cyno replace Alhaitham! But ultimately, I realized Cyno was actually competent and I might have had to write a proper fight scene, which I did not want to do. You can still see a remnant of the first draft I chose to leave in (from when Cyno was the disposable companion) in the bad joke Sanad tells at the beginning of the story.

Using Sanad also had other benefits that I feel helped pull the fic together!! His cowardly nature gave reader a chance to endear themselves to Kunikuzushi, for refusing to abandon Sanad even after he (frankly, understandably) ran away. Even this early on, I had decided that whatever backstory naga Kuni might have had, it absolutely had to revolve around betrayal since canon Kuni's backstory is so deeply tied to it.

It's a really minor pet peeve of mine, and it doesn't bother me too much, but I usually don't really like it when the yandere starts to fixate on the object of their obsession for no reason than, like, "love at first sight" or "they simply caught my eye for some vague reason I cannot put into words." It's not bad, per se, and it's not even a solid rule of mine! I can think of several fics I love that don't give a solid reason, though the characters in those have such a dynamic that you still understand why one became so interested in the other to begin with... (I'm making this more complicated than it is, I think, but I'm beginning to think it's just I just don't care for it when the MC has the depth of a piece of paper.) Anyway, I'm getting derailed again, but I chose to give Kuni a reason to empathize with the reader in the form of Sanad and his "betrayal" because of this preference of mine.

However, and I think I've touched on this a bit in a previous post, this wasn't the only reason Kuni decided to spare them. In fact, even after he decided to leave you for last, he still thought he was going to come back to kill you. What really interested him was your insistence on saving Sanad even after what Kuni perceived as a betrayal. Why would you try to help someone who didn't even make an attempt to help you? It doesn't make sense. You're too soft, it's endearing.

Whether or not Sanad's actions are justified is debatable, though I personally understand them. He's never fought in his whole life. If you, the experienced monster-fighting adventurer couldn't do it, how could he? He doesn't even have a sword. It's certainly cowardly and rude to say the least, but given the circumstances, I think it's the choice most people would make in that situation. Of course, it's absolutely something Kunikuzushi could have (and did) twist into something completely different. I think I made it pretty obvious, but contrary to what Kuni said, Sanad had no such malicious thoughts when he left you there. Kuni is extremely jaded; his perception of the world has been mostly shaped by the betrayals he's experienced, and he's no different in this AU. As I said before, Sanad's not a terrible person, just terribly average. If he had survived, he absolutely would have had survivors' guilt.

Anyway!!! I'm not sorry about the infodump, thank you for giving me the slightest reason to tell you all about it. Here's what you actually asked for.

Kuni views most people as inconsequential, little more than helpless ants. He doesn't care about them in the slightest. If anything, they irritate him. So when someone shows up–an old friend, a crush, anyone–his first thought is to get rid of them if they venture too far in, and especially if they see him. Even if he doesn't know that they know you. If he lets them go, more will come. If he finds out they're looking for you, specifically... well, it doesn't really change his plans. He's going to kill them no matter what.

It does motivate him though, to be a bit crueler, to make it last a bit longer. What they are to you doesn't change the outcome, but it might sour his mood a bit more if they were anything more than friends or family. It's not likely that he'll leave them be long enough to find this out, though. Logically speaking, they're probably not going to tell a monster like him all about the friend/family/crush they're looking for in this desert, especially not when he's clearly unfriendly.

It's not totally impossible, though. This hypothetical person would have heard all about the strange attacks (as mentioned in the fic), so seeing a large half-snake person could make them realize that Kuni was most likely the cause for your disappearance (even though they'd assume it was murder and not kidnapping). Even so, I doubt they'd have a little chat over tea about who all Kuni has murdered recently.

Anyway, I digress. Assuming he figures it out somehow, whether or not he tells you about them depends on his mood and your behavior. Unfortunately for you, dealing with people irritates him. Especially when they're specifically looking to take what's his from him.

He'll come back covered in blood either way, but if he's in a bad mood, or you haven't been on your best behavior, he'll tell you all about what they looked like. He makes sure to mention that they were looking for you, and describe in detail everything he did to them.

"I'm going to leave his corpse out to rot in the sun," he hissed into your ear, pulling away to look you in the eye, "for the vultures and serpents to feast on. It serves him right. He was on a fool's errand; it's impossible to retrieve what's lost to the sands."