#its fitting but also not idk how to explain it

[bat-gwuck]

Okay so this is my entry for @drizzledrawings competition!! Get ready for a whole ass fucking wall of text…whoopsie!!

anyway drizzle i love u and ur cowbians they me goofy-grin-on-my-face-kicking-my-feet happy — u and ur art are such an inspiration mwah!!

—

I present to you my entry: Adelaide Forsythe – a travelling scholar and astronomer who’s shifter form is a magpie!

So, starting off with the animal choice. I chose a magpie for two reasons: one, I’m a bird nerd and two, I felt like the symbolism attached to magpies really fit her character??

As a member of the Corvidae family, Magpies are known for being quite intelligent, as well as having a love for shiny objects (get it, get it, she’s a scholar and she loves stars which are SHINY…I’m so smart guys)

BUT BUT BUT there’s a lot of folklore attached to them which I thought was also fitting – my Mum is like *really* superstitious and growing up she always had me salute magpies and you had to ask how its “wife” was doing if it was on its own bc (apparently) if you didn’t you’d be inviting bad luck – there’s a little song/poem that goes “one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told” so the idea is that if you see a lone magpie its an ill omen so you salute it n stuff to ward all that away bc you don’t have to salute a pair of magpies

Or maybe its just smth my Mum does idk BUT ANYWAY

I thought I could play with this a little bc in some cultures magpies are acc seen as signs of good luck and fortune, which brings me to Adelaide: she is an academic in an untamed land, an outsider among both frontier folk and the scholars who dismissed her, she longs for scientific recognition, yet finds freedom outside of its rigid institutions, she is a woman in a world that has no clear place for her—too independent for England’s high society and yet too refined for the lawless frontier. Like the magpie, she adapts, moving in a space that both welcomes and rejects her.

THEN, you have the “seven for a secret never to be told” which I felt was fitting for a shifter who doesn’t want to be found out AND THEN the “three for a girl, four for a boy” fit a bit as well, as she often poses as a man to further her academic pursuits (bit a stretch, maybe?? but idc im rolling with it)

In addition, magpies were almost hunted to extinction because people were so afraid of them, which I felt also fit with her place as not just a woman, but a woman in academia AND a shifter who’s trying her best not to get found out and skinned or smth. They’re ALSO associated with witchcraft, which fits too!!

Anyway enough about magpies, onto the actual character lmao.

—

Adelaide’s defining trait is her insatiable curiosity. She is a woman who cannot look at the night sky without wondering what lies beyond it, who cannot hear a folk tale without questioning its origins, who cannot witness an injustice without demanding to know why the world is the way it is. She does not simply observe the world—she dissects it. Whether it’s the trajectory of a comet or the migration of birds, she sees patterns and logic in everything. Even when confronted with superstition, she doesn’t scoff outright—she analyzes, compares, and tries to understand why people believe what they do.

She does not downplay her knowledge for the comfort of others. When a man tries to explain something she already knows, she listens politely for about ten seconds before cutting him off with a far more detailed explanation. Her sharp tongue has made her enemies in both academic circles and the rugged frontier. She is rather exacting in her speech, rarely mincing her words. She dislikes vague statements, preferring specificity in all things. When others say "a bright star," she responds with, "Do you mean Sirius, Betelgeuse, or Vega?" This can make her seem arrogant, though in truth, she simply values accuracy. Besides, if anyone has earnt the right to be a bit arrogant, Adelaide would say it’s her.

Yet, for all her logic, there is an undercurrent of childlike wonder beneath her nose-stuck-in-a-book personality. The moment she gazes through her telescope, or rides the wind bathed in starlight, all pretense falls away, and she becomes a child staring at the heavens for the first time again.

Adelaide has always been an outsider, whether in Oxford’s elite intellectual circles or the rugged towns of the West. She does not belong to any one world, and she has long since given up trying to fit in. While she values solitude, there is a quiet ache of loneliness beneath her independence. She spends many nights staring at the sky, comforted by its constancy, yet knowing that the stars cannot speak back to her. In Oxford, she was too bold, too opinionated, too unwilling to be a wife first and a scholar second. In the West, she is too refined, too intellectual, too ignorant of the ways of outlaws and bounty hunters. She is always “too much” or “not enough” for the world around her.

Adelaide does not easily trust others, not just because of her “little secret”. She has met too many people who have either underestimated her or tried to use her intelligence for their own gain. When she does form connections, she values them deeply, though she often struggles to express this in words. Instead, she shows her care through small, practical gestures. Yet, despite her walls, there are moments—rare but profound—when someone earns her trust, and the walls crack just enough for light to slip through.

She keeps meticulous journals filled with astronomical calculations, weather patterns, and folk stories she gathers from the people she meets. Her saddlebags are filled with star charts, old books, and curious trinkets.

Once she sets her mind to something, she will not be dissuaded. If someone tells her a mountain is impossible to climb, she will reach the peak just to prove them wrong. It is both her greatest strength and her biggest flaw.

She has little patience for those who exploit others, whether it be a professor stealing credit for a woman’s discovery or a wealthy rancher cheating his workers. She does not take kindly to men who assume they can buy her loyalty or silence.

Though she claims she prefers to stay out of trouble, she has a habit of stepping in when someone is being mistreated. She does not pick fights often, but when she does, her words cut deeper than bullets. Adelaide does not resort to violence unless absolutely necessary, but she will ruin a man’s reputation, expose a fraud, or leave damning evidence where the right people can find it. She believes in the long game – vengeance is best served cold, calculated, and with irrefutable proof. She did learn some things from her upper class upbringing, after all.

Beneath her sharp intellect and hardened exterior, Adelaide has a deeply buried, fragile softness – one she rarely allows herself to indulge. She denies being sentimental, yet she cannot help but stop to admire a field of wildflowers or the way the Milky Way stretches across the sky. She has a poetic way of describing the cosmos, though she would never call herself a poet. Though she claims she does not care for fame, a small part of her fears that when she is gone, her work will be erased, her name lost. She has spent her life chasing knowledge, but in the quietest moments, she often wonders if anyone will remember her.

—

Born in 1871 in Oxford, England, Adelaide Forsythe was the only child of Dr. Reginald Forsythe, a respected academic who specialised in mathematics and astronomy, and Margaret Forsythe, a woman of high social standing whose primary concern was ensuring her daughter’s successful integration into elite society. While Margaret sought to mold Adelaide into a proper young lady—one who would marry well and host extravagant dinner parties—Reginald saw his daughter’s keen mind and indulged her curiosity, albeit discreetly.

The Forsythe line carried old magic, ancient and restless, passed down in blood and bone. It was not the magic of spells or incantations, but of transformation—of slipping between forms, of becoming something other, something free.

Adelaide had been standing on the balcony of their estate, staring up at the night sky, when a sudden pull overtook her. Her skin burned, her bones ached, and before she could cry out, the world tilted. The next thing she knew, she was plummeting through the air — not falling, but flying. Tiny wings beat frantically as instinct overrode panic, and she soared above the rooftops, free in a way she had never known before.

And then she crashed, hard, into a chimney stack and tumbled ungracefully to the ground.

Her mother found her shivering in the garden at dawn. There were no screams, no hysteria — only a cold stare, a tight grip on Adelaide’s wrist, and a warning whispered with more force than any slap:

"You will never do that again. Do you understand me?"

Frightened by her parent’s stories of torture, death and other such things, Adelaide was keen to agree with her mother.

But nature does not forget so easily.

—

As a young girl, Adelaide would sneak into her father’s study late at night, pouring over his scientific texts by candlelight. The first time she glimpsed Saturn’s rings through a telescope at the age of ten, she was transfixed. The chaos and expectations of human society seemed so small compared to the great, unending vastness that was the universe. She devoured every book she could find, often pestering her father’s academic colleagues with endless questions during social gatherings.

Her precocious nature made her an outlier among other girls her age. She had no interest in embroidery, courtship, or fashionable gossip. When she was fifteen, her mother caught her sneaking into her father’s lectures disguised in her brother’s old coat and hat. Furious and humiliated, Margaret demanded her father put an end to her academic pursuits, fearing that no reputable man would ever marry a woman who thought herself equal to scholars. But Reginald, torn between duty to his wife and pride in his daughter’s intellect, found a compromise — he arranged private lessons with an old friend, Professor William Crenshaw, one of the foremost astronomers of the era.

By the age of twenty, Adelaide was unofficially assisting at a local observatory, analyzing star catalogs, observing planetary movements, and even drafting papers under her brother’s name (Adam, who had wholeheartedly agreed to the plan) to bypass gender restrictions in scientific publishing. She developed a reputation for being fiercely intelligent but also unyielding, unwilling to temper her opinions for the comfort of her male peers.

Her greatest challenge, however, was not the task of unravelling the mysteries of the universe but the narrow minds of her peers. While some admired her brilliance, others saw her presence as a scandalous threat. When a comet she helped chart was credited to a male assistant instead of her, Adelaide protested openly. “If a woman’s eyes can see as far as a man’s, then her name should reach just as far,” she argued. Her defiance earned her both admiration and ire.

In 1891, her growing reputation secured her an invitation to travel westward to Lemoyne to observe a rare solar eclipse. This would be her first real taste of life beyond the confines of academia and upper class English society.

Lemoyne was unlike anything Adelaide had ever known—rugged, lawless, and ungoverned by the rigid structures she was so used to back home. The journey was treacherous; the expedition was plagued by broken equipment, aggressive wildlife, and even an attempted robbery by outlaws. Adelaide, having never fired a gun in her life, was nearly helpless, relying on the protection of local guides and her quick wit to survive.

Despite the hardships, she made her way to the observation site and witnessed the total eclipse—a perfect black void swallowing the sun, a fleeting moment of cosmic wonder. As she gazed at the event through her telescope, surrounded by untamed wilderness instead of university halls, something within her shifted. The American West was a world of mystery and discovery in its own right, she thought.

When she returned to England, she found herself restless. The constraints of her life now felt suffocating.

It was misfortune that eventually spurred her onwards. During a risky midnight flight, Adelaide had injured her wing, and as such, was stuck in her form for a while. A colleague of hers had found her near the University and had taken it upon himself to care for her — much to her horror, and her gratitude. Adelaide had hoped to escape before he found out but it was not to be. Upon finding not a freshly healed magpie, but a grown woman in his kitchen, the man understandably freaked out. He threatened to expose her secret — stating that she was to step down from her post if she wanted to (quite literally) save her skin.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Adelaide set out for the Americas once again — this time alone. With nothing but a collapsible brass telescope, a collection of notebooks, and a revolver she barely knew how to use, she sailed westward, determined to document the night sky from places few had ever studied before.

She traveled from town to town, funding her journey by selling star charts, lecturing at any schools that would take her (which were few and far between), as well as a sizeable fund from her father, who had helped her flee. She often sought out high ground, camping alone in the mountains or vast plains, sketching the heavens by firelight.

But the frontier was dangerous, and a woman traveling alone is easy prey, especially one of “her kind”. She learned to navigate both the celestial sphere and the lawless lands beneath it. She bribed hunters to look the other way, outwitted charlatans who sought to take advantage of her, and, after a close brush with a gang of highwaymen in New Austin, reluctantly learned how to use her revolver. Though not a natural fighter, she became adept at using her intellect to survive, talking her way out of most trouble before bullets were needed.

By 1899, the world was changing. The frontier was vanishing, swallowed by railroads and industry. Scientific institutions back east were growing in prestige, but still refused to fully recognize women.

Eleanor found herself caught between multiple worlds — too independent for the constraints of academia, too refined for the lawless plains of the West and too wild, too different for all of them.

She had spent years mapping the stars, but her greatest challenge remained: carving out a place where she, and her work, could live and be remembered.

She would never be a wife waiting at home, nor a delicate lady confined to parlors and polite conversation. Nor would she be held down and restrained because of the blood that ran through her veins.

She was a scholar, an explorer, a collector of knowledge and forgotten stories. A woman with a revolver in one hand and a telescope in the other, chasing the stars and riding the wind before the West faded into memory.

Because the world will change, the frontier will disappear, and one day, even the names of its greatest outlaws will be forgotten.

But the stars will remain. And so will she.

Either way, Adelaide would continue to look skyward, seeking answers in the infinite dark.

—

Okay so that’s the end (so far)!! Hope you enjoyed!! I might expand on her and give her some friends (maybe even a girlfriend…heh) later but idk??

P.S. Adelaide would def be besties with that palaeontologist you meet who gives you that dino bone quest

[willowwee]

Some faithful x albus post

Tbh I was supposed to do this yesterday but I was celebrating eid and was too tired to draw💀💀

Inspired by:

Ramble: I was actually planning to do this with makkaro and his darling but the way the og art perceives it seems more like pining lovers ykyk?? So I thought albus and faithful would've fit 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I couldn't get enough of them istg. I do planning to do a makkaro and darling next but it's more of a comic so it'll take some time for me to finish it so I'll have to post some other fanarts while finishing it up

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Baizhu design :V ? For funsies totally not going to draw him or anything

had way too much fun with this one hahah

[aeliem]

DTIYS results!!!

for #senseless400dtiys

3rd place!

@peach-flavored-cyanide i really like this one, it's simple yet not overly neat, the texture is vry nice and its not too overwhelming despite it (also N's eye is so freaky so cool)

2nd place!!

@azirakor i really like how the focus is on nightmare for this one, killer's pretty much just an object you can see tentacles going through his eyes and the way nightmare looks at him fdrnskjglhfruifojsd very nice

1st place!!! 🎉🎉🎉

@somehhuuuhh your stuff is amazing!!!! again i really love the colors you used here they're so bright and vibrant, it makes nightmare look so shiny, and nightmare's expression is just so delightful like he's so happy with himself i really love it!!!

honorable mentions!

@error7227 & @gatorshighfive

thank you so much to everyone who participated!! (my first dtiys wowie so many ppl)

i'll send everyone a message for the prizes. if you dont get a message/if i don't reply to you for a while feel free to ask me again! sometimes i just forgor

[theghostofwilburtheworm]

im a he in the same way an animal who u do not know the gender of is a he i think

[charafansmile]

i would LOVE to hear about more of your headcanons if youre willing to share….

I have so many and I love to share them :))) holiday flavored because that's what's on my mind

Chara is a big Christmas fan, not of the watches hallmark movies, and goes rabid over it, but they do really, really like it. It's their favorite holiday, and they dislike the whole capitalism angle, but they really like the other parts of the holiday. It probably goes against canon with gyftmas and all but I like the idea that their presence in the underground popularized it. Monsters were aware of Christmas through newspapers and the influx of decorations that would show up in the dump after said holiday but chara being so wistful about missing it is what inspired asgore to do the whole Santa thing. Mainly I just think the idea of naughty or nice vibes well with charas whole consequences thing and I want more noelle parallels with them <- that one comic hellspawnmotel did with them and noelle is another reason... it vibes so well with how I think chara behaves. Chara trying desperately to convince asriel Santa is real..(he has no idea who that is but is nodding along to the ridiculous things chara is trying to convince him of. )

Kris on the other hand is a total Halloween nerd. Being someone else? Being a MONSTER? yeah that's them. If kris and chara ever were to interact I think the only movie the two would agree on is Nightmare before Christmas before they immediately return to trying to kill each other. I think kris would lean more towards actual dislike of Christmas compared to chara. I also don't think either had good experiences with the holidays prior to being adopted by the dreemurrs, so for chara living with the dreemurrs is like a do-over where they get to experience it how they wanted to. But for kris it's just reliving uncomfortable memories- after the divorce and asriel moving away and dess dissapering- there's just too many things tied up in the holiday that upsets them. They might have started to like it after being adopted but it evolved into an actual distaste for it after everything else.

Flowey also likes Christmas he's really good at giving gifts (the save scummer probably went out of his way to memorize everyone's favorite things and while he claims to hate the holiday he gets secretly really proud when people like the gifts- but alas since he can't be seen being nice he didn't even include a 'from' sticker- except for the gifts he gave papyrus and frisk those ones Said "from: your best friend") issue is after the first two or three years post pacifist he starts running out of gift ideas since people regrettably change and most people don't like getting duplicates so he has to actually talk to the people he wants to give gifts too instead of just relying on his memories- good thing he can still just stalk them and eavesdrop!(the Ole reliable method) He's secretly and weirdly pleased nobody knows what to gift him in return- it makes him feel cool and mysterious. He does get annoyed after the third new pot and the second bag of fertilizer so he starts just heavily and blatantly hinting at what he wants- the second someone asks him directly though he acts like their stupid and will go on and on about how he doesn't need it or how impractical it would be. <- not a tsundere just stupid cringe kid who can't fathom the idea of people knowing he likes things, terrible!

Frisk approaches every holiday (including the small vague ones) with the exact same amount of energy- 100%. They are maximizing their holiday output- they want to celebrate everything! They do like some more than others mainly ones that deal with food like Thanksgiving or fun ones like April fools but they put alot of dedication into all of them. Valentines is their chance to practice terrible pick up lines and eat an unhealthy amount of candy (surprise surprise being the savior of monster kind gets a kid alot of Valentines gifts, and birthday gifts, and Christmas gifts, and new years gifts, and just because gifts- basically monsters love them and for the first couple years above ground monsters like just giving them things to show their appreciation- alphys has to keep updating their phone inventory) i like the idea undertale takes place during fall/ late winter and the phone calls take place almost a year after- so for frisk in any non pacifist timeline they are spending the holidays alone :( sad! Anyways- I also don't think frisk had a good time during the holidays either before falling underground so they like getting to experience them to the fullest and with as many people as possible...

[puppppppppy]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[dykedvonte]

you make really good points, I think I used the term karmic wrong sorry. I think of it more as not how I personally think he deserved all that happened to him (which thinking back os exactly what karma means, I messed up sorry), but as his fate being directly tied/parallel to anyas. I handnt noticed the toxicity of jimmy and curlys relationship, from the first playthrough I watched and the first interactions I had w fandom I saw so many ppl just. dismiss the terror Anya went through and focus too much on him as the "ultimate victim" and that just didn't sit well w me. I really dislike seeing ppl go "oh well nothing could've been done" I think it's much more complex than that. also I forgot to mention in the last ask that I really appreciate you bringing the point that this game isn't just about the harm of patriarchy but also very very critical to capitalism, I haven't seen too many ppl touch on this. I hadn't thought too deeply about how it makes "he deserved to become disabled as punishment" come up and I agree that's really messed up. I'll try watching a playthrough again with all of this in mind. but either way thanks! I really appreciate your answer 🫶🏼

I guess this is just part of being in a fandom like this. I've noticed a lot of people don't actually see posts outside of their curated view. So some people only get like anya posting or jimmy or curly and it can make it seem like that is what is saturating the conversation.

I mainly just follow the general tags and look for anything new because I'm like obsessed but I know some are only looking for what they want or believe to be the case and can get weird about other ideas.

Sorry if I came off mean its just a last few of the asks have been like circular conversations like this and its not draining per say but seeing all the nuance and details get overlooked to fit a straightforward and basic narrative really sucks cause there's a lot to explore character and theme wise.

[kabukeo]

tonight's little doodles

[nabaath-areng]

Honestly, having good days like this is good for me mentally. Because not only does it put my usual struggles into perspective, forcing me to accept that I have a tendency to severely downplay just how much they impede me... but it also gives me perspective about my self perceived laziness.

Like, the fact that I become almost abnormally productive and energetic compared even to abled people the very instant that my pain and all of the other issues are all gone? I'm not lazy! And I know logically that teachers telling me that over and over growing up was wrong, but it still shocks me in new ways to this day just how deeply ingrained this perception of myself is.

Like, is it laziness? Or am I just averse to doing things that will physically punish me? Today reminded me that it's very much the latter.

[lethalwizard]

my bachelors of linguistics speaking to me like jim carreys 1994 the mask whenever people around me start making wildly incorrect statements about language

[starpros-sunshine]

What's with all the "Them and Us" stuff I mean. I thought the whole point of this acceptance stuff is realising that despite all the little differences everyone is still kind of similar in the way that they should be granted at least the basic but of respect everyone deserves? Call me naïve and childish but isn't the point of all this to Not have the clear distinction between people who are slightly different? Isn't the whole point to Not have a "Them" and an "Us"?

[i-appear-misssing]

I just had the horrible thought that I need to fall in love because having devastating crushes on beautiful, competent, authoritative women that I desperately want to please is exhausting and I need it to stop

[gikairan]

One of the things that got said yesterday about the Veilguard character creator is SOME factions give you the option to further customise your background

e.g. specifically choose to be a Dalish elf rather than a City elf

but not which factions have what options?

And since i'm trying to avoid a looot of the more spoilery stuff being revealed, I was wondering if anyones actually managed to collate what options have been mentioned as available for each faction?

(At the very least, I'd specifically like to know if theres a bit more customisation possible with the Shadow Dragons? Namely, being able to choose which social class your Rook comes from)

[kurtcore]

cried at work today! i’m now 3/3 for crying at jobs :)