#its kinda cool actually with the original greek

[smuglyankabrazilyanka]

like dude i am literally college educated and even so i feel dumb while reading the original translation of the illiad. when is the part where the gays do stuff or did hollywood lie to me

[ladykailitha]

Paper Hearts Part 6

The sequel is coming along great I just have one more part to do and it'll be done. Sweet Home Indiana is nearing its end too.

Heads up! I will be going on vacation on Tuesday and won't be back until next week. So no WIP Wednesday this week as that is the day of my niece's graduation and I will be away from laptop all day.

I will still be uploading chapters and should be able to do WIP Wednesday next week. But if not I'll let you know.

In this we have the Corroded Coffin boys being silly and a wild Dustin appears.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

****

Eddie rolled up to band practice fashionably late as always. The other three boys were doing a sound check and making sure everything was in order.

Gareth looked up first. “Did you bring the hearts?” he asked excitedly.

Eddie held up his bag and the other boys cheered.

“So how are we going to do this?” Eddie asked flopping on the sofa after gently setting his sweetheart to the side. “Do we want to do the hearts first or practice first?”

They all look around at each for a moment.

“Let’s get the heart thing out of the way,” Jeff suggested, “get it out of the way so we can focus on practicing.”

“Sounds good to me, man,” Gareth said. “In case practice runs over or some shit.”

Eddie pulled his backpack closer and began digging through it. He pulled out the hearts that he’d put in a plastic baggie so they wouldn’t get bent in the maw that was his bag.

He tossed the bag onto the table in front of them and then dug around for his notebook. He pulled it out with a bunch of pens.

“You don’t have to,” he murmured, “but I’d recommend changing up your handwriting a couple of times so he doesn’t realize they’re from the same four people.”

“We were doing anonymous and initials, right?” Brian asked, picking up the bag and opening it up.

Eddie lit up, a huge smile on his face. “I actually had an idea about that. I was thinking of famous groups with four dudes in it and I thought it would be hilarious if we mixed it up a bit with some of those to avoid the whole repetition thing.”

Jeff licked his top lip. “Show us what you’ve got,” he said jutting out his chin.

He opened up his notebook and flipped to the right page. “Alright, so I was thinking the Three Musketeers plus D’Artagnan.”

“Who would be who?” Gareth asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Gareth is absolutely D’Artagnan,” Brian said without hesitation. “No question.”

Jeff straightened up and looked over at him in confusion. “Why’s that?”

“Because my dearest Jeffy,” Eddie said with a grin, “because he’s the youngest and not an original member. Therefore D’Artagnan.”

Gareth and Brian glanced at each. Brian shrugged and Gareth blinked a moment or two before he shrugged, too.

“Yeah, that tracks.”

“I’ll take Aramis,” Eddie said with a grin. “The smooth talker with religious trauma.”

The other boys just cackled.

“I’ll be Porthos,” Brian said. “The compulsive liar with a flare for the dramatic.”

“Why am I left with the dude with serious romantic wo–” Jeff stopped. “Right, scratch that. I’m Athos.”

They cackled again. Eddie had had some wild crushes, but it was nothing on Jeff. He even had a slightly tragic love story. He’d actually dated Vicki Carmichael before she became a popular kid and hanging out with Steve’s crowd. They had both loved metal music, but Jeff was pretty sure she stopped listening to it once she joined the cool kids.

“And I have a list of other ones too,” Eddie said breaking into the resulting silence. “The four winds from Greek mythology. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...um...let’s see...” he looked at the notebook again. “The members of Metallica. The four horsemen of the apocalypse–”

Jeff winced. “Probably not that one, man. It’s for Valentine’s day and that kinda screams the opposite.”

Eddie blinked at him for a moment and then scratched out that idea. “Fair enough.”

“The four hobbits from Lord of the Rings?” Gareth suggested.

“Yes!” Brian cried. “I get to be Samwise!”

Jeff cackled. “Gareth and Eddie are sooo Merry and Pippin!”

“Oh god! Yes! Which one is which, though?” Brian said joining in the laughter.

“I’m Merry, of course,” Eddie said proudly. “I’m the instigator and Gareth goes where I lead.”

Gareth grumped in the corner, crossing his arms and glaring at all of them. “But that makes Jeff Frodo though.”

Jeff straightened up, smug. “I could handle that.”

Eddie shook his head at his friends. “All right, also on my list are the Ghostbusters and The A-Team.”

The other boys shook their heads at either suggestion but they had a pretty good list anyway. Plus their D&D names sprinkled in here and there and they’ve got in the bag.

They spent the next half hour coming up with nice things about Steve. Eddie did have nix a couple of their ideas because they came off as stalker-esque. Which was not the look they were going for.

****

To say that Eddie got a kick out of seeing Steve light up every time he opened his locker and more pink hearts fluttered out of it was an understatement.

The goofy smile the former jock got on his face was worth every second of the time they’d spent on the project.

And it was working, too. That was the really impressive part.

Even Tommy H. was baffled.

“How the hell are you getting so many pink hearts, Harrington?” he said on Friday, just four days into Eddie’s plan.

Steve shrugged in that dorky way that made Eddie’s heart stop. “I guess people are deciding to hell with social constructs and stupid cliques and are telling me even if they don’t dare to be open about that they still like me.”

Tommy’s mouth open and closed like a goldfish then he turned around and stormed off.

Eddie lean against the lock above Steve. “Back to being king again, huh, Stevie?”

“Not really,” he said, closing his locker and standing up. “Most of them are anonymous or fake names. But there are a few that real names.”

“You think someone is stuffing the ballot box as it were?” Eddie asked, worried the jig was up.

Steve shook his head. “At least I don’t think so. But it’s sad that they think they have to hide who they are to tell me that they still think I’m a cool dude or whatever.”

“For what it’s worth,” Eddie said, pushing off from the locker, “I think you’re a pretty cool dude.”

Steve blushed and mumbled his thanks.

God, did Eddie just want to bite those flushed cheeks. They were just too cute.

“It’s worth a lot, actually,” Steve whispered. He stood up and shouldered his backpack. “Catch you later, Eds.”

Shit that little nickname had Eddie’s heart doing overtime.

****

Steve was outside the middle school waiting for Dustin to come out. His mom had asked Steve to pick him because she had to stay after hours at work for a meeting.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he hummed to the music in his head. He could have turned on the radio but Dustin hated his music didn’t like him blaring it for the whole school to hear.

His eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror to see his backpack on the backseat. He wanted to go over the ones he got today. There had been some really good ones. Ones that melted his insides and turned them to goo.

He bit his lip and checked the mirror again. He looked at his watch and he still had a couple minutes until the bell rang.

Steve whirled around and grabbed the bag. He ripped it open and pulled out his trapper keeper. Tucked in the front pocket were the hearts. He ran his fingers over the outline the hearts made on the plastic pocket.

He pulled out the hearts and read over each one. Tracing the names of the givers, thinking about each name and wondering where they were from.

There was a thump on his window startling him. He looked up to see Dustin making faces at him through the glass.

Steve shook his head and unlocked the passenger door to let the twerp in.

“Looking at pink hearts, Steve?” Dustin asked with the shake of his head. “So pathetic.”

Steve rolled his eyes and tried to put the hearts back in the folder, but Dustin snatched them from him and wouldn’t let him take them back.

“Come on, man!” Steve whined. “They’re none of your business.”

“I want to see which girls are giving the Steve Harrington Valentine’s hearts,” Dustin said, wagging his eyebrows.

“Dude, give it up,” he growled. “The pink hearts are friendship hearts, the red ones are the romantic ones. So give it back.”

The younger teen cocked his head to the side and said, “No.”

Steve folded his arms and glared at him.

“Aren’t you going to take me home?” Dustin asked after they sat in silence for a minute or two.

“Not until you give them back.”

Dustin just shrugged. “It’s your funeral if we get home after my mom does.”

Steve threw his arms in the air, but turned the engine and started the car toward the Hendersons.

“These are actually really sweet, Steve,” Dustin said after a couple of minutes. “I like the idea of friendship hearts. That way you don’t accidentally send the wrong message.”

Steve just shrugged.

“You do know that some of these are fake names, right?”

Steve rolled his eyes and dared to look over at him. “Yes, of course I do. I am familiar with D’Artagnan after you named a fucking demodog after him, thanks.”

Dustin cocked his head to the side and then shrugged. “That’s fair. What you probably don’t know is that Aramis, Porthos, and Athos are the names of the Three Musketeers.”

Steve pursed his lips and nodded. “That’s cool.” They hit a stop sign and Steve looked over and pulled out one. “What about this one? Tommy H. thinks it’s short for Kassie, but none of the girls at our school spell it like that.”

Dustin took the heart and looked at it. “Kas. Kas. Yeah, okay. That does sound familiar. Can I get back to you on that one?”

“Sure thing, bud.”

Steve pulled up to curb to let Dustin out. “You got your key? If you don’t, you can hang out with me until your mom gets home.”

Dustin began rummaging around in his bag and Steve snatched the hearts away before he could bend them.

The kid pulled out his keys with a triumphant, “Eureka!”

Steve shook his head. “You are such a dweeb. Go on, get.”

“Bye, Steve!”

“Next time say thank you, asshole!” Steve called out the window.

Dustin turned around and gave him the double middle finger.

Steve shook his head and drove off. Why he loved that kid, he had no idea.

When he got home he pulled out the little notebook and placed the pink hearts in with the rest. All but the one from Kas. Those he kept in his wallet. He really couldn’t place why. There was just something about what they said that made him feel warm and not in the fuzzy friendship way that the others did.

There was the first one:

-Stevie I like the way you’re kind even when it doesn’t benefit you. Kas

Which Steve loved but the others were just as sweet.

-Stevie You have a great laugh, you don’t have to hide it. Kas

-Stevie That shirt today really brings out the color in your eyes. Kas

And Steve’s personal favorite:

-Stevie Each day is brighter because you’re in it. Kas

There was one for each day he got hearts in his locker so he assumed it was all the same person.

He slid it next to the other three hearts in the billfold portion of his wallet and put the wallet next to his keys on his desk. Then he put the little notebook back, careful to make sure it was well hidden.

He wasn’t sure what his dad would do about the mementos but Steve really didn’t want to find out.

He was really going to miss getting the hearts over the weekend. They really had become the highlight of his day.

He sighed and buckled down to work on his homework. It wasn’t as though he had anything better to do with his time. He wasn’t invited to any parties, he didn’t have friends to hang out with, and the people who would hang with him were fourteen year olds and they all had bedtimes.

He briefly thought about calling Eddie, but the guy had friends, unlike Steve and was probably doing something with them. Probably that nerd game that Eddie had a club for.

He buried his head in his hands.

Steve sighed. Fuck his life was depressing as shit.

With another sigh, he resigned himself to another lonely weekend.

****

Part 7 Part 8

Tag List: CLOSED

@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

@spectrum-spectre @slv-333 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie

@chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @maya-custodios-dionach @danili666 @goodolefashionedloverboi

@val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @vecnuthy

@irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee

@awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @dragonmama76

@scheodingers-muppet @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @fullpoetrybread

@disrespectedgoatman @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95 @moonshadows-13 @skyewaytohell

@swimmingbirdrunningrock @croatoan-like-its-hot @lolawonsstuff @lololol-1234 @dotdot-wierdlife

@ravenfrog @dauntlessdiva @thelittleclare @steddieyourself @dam28lh

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 11/06

@ben-guy asked: […] Imagine the Greek god level drama that would have unfolded with those 12 drama machines if they all went God tier. Even if they all entered the human universe without the two teams fighting over who gets to rule it, there would be no ending the divides that would form for any and all reasons, from quadrants to rulership over Kanaya's new trolls. Kinda curious about your takes on all this, even if it will take a while for you to see this :]

That's exactly it. Vriska's assuming that having a more powerful team would be strictly beneficial - which is hilarious, coming from her.

Like - Vriska. What have you done with your God Tier powers, lately?

Did it benefit the team?

Anonymous asked: its really interesting how the first time vriska kills not out of necessity or due to any extenuating circumstances, she almost immediately regrets it

Yup.

I think it's beginning to dawn on Vriska that she has nothing to hide behind this time. She's stopped being forced to kill, and has graduated to choosing it. It's little wonder she's falling apart.

Anonymous asked: for what it's worth, i've always taken vriska's interpretation of sburb at face value. it's a setting, or a stage, moreso than a character or an organism

Sburb certainly feels like a narrative, which is closely tied to its coming-of-age themes. John isn't John in the game, he's a character called the Heir of Breath from Consort mythology, and it's predestined that he'll fulfil this narrative role - or else.

Sburb is a play. And if you mess up your lines, the stage will collapse underneath you.

@manorinthewoods asked: You know, during your original analysis of the Creation Myth reveal, you made a lot of notes about how the Denizen grist caches must have been comically large, or multiplicative, to allow the alchemisation of universes. Clearly there is no need for that, given the Genesis Frog, so… what is it for, do you think? ~LOSS (7/6/24)

This grist is confirmed to be for the Ultimate Alchemy, which I've been assuming is synonymous with the creation of the Genesis Frog. I guess Jade's currently creating the Frog without any Denizen Grist to speak of, but I assume it'll come into play later on.

My best guess? The frog has to literally eat the Denizen Hoards to grow into a full-sized universe.

Anonymous asked: I wanted to stop by and say your liveblogs are super interesting!! Back when I first read homestuck I didn’t really bother with analysis, just kinda screamed inchoherentoy at my friends, so actually seeing the narrative and char arcs broken down like this into understandable chunks of why might it be written this way, what is the char thinking, why are they thinking that, how does that play into what might happen - it’s super cool thank you for all this !! Anonymous asked: finally catched up with your liveblog, i have been a homestuck for like a semester and i am rlly happy to see someone go this in depth on a liveblog about it! Anyways! Whats the character you relate the most to, so far? - bralsra

Thank you very much!

It's funny. I've talked before about how I was never great at writing analytical essays in English class - but I'm essentially doing the same thing here, and I'm having a great time. I guess it's just more fun when it's a science fantasy webcomic and not, like, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Who do I relate to the most, I wonder? To be honest, it's probably Kanaya, which probably isn't too surprising if you're a regular reader.

I've said things that are 90% similar to the shit she comes out with. She's so great.

@manorinthewoods asked: I'd like to hear your thoughts on each individual blood caste[…]. ~LOSS (7/6/24)

It's hard to generalize the blood castes, since we've only seen one example of each blood color thus far. Broadly speaking, we're aware that:

Lower bloods have more psychic power.

Higher bloods have more psychic resistance.

Highbloods appear to be physically stronger.

Kanaya's blood color is extremely rare, which implies that, contrary to my expectations, higher blood isn't always rarer than lower blood.

Beyond that, I can't say much more. Based on Karkat's position in the Trollian friend list, he was probably 'supposed' to have green blood, but I don't know if mutating out of the spectrum has actually changed his biology in any way.

He's not psychic, so we can at least assume he doesn't 'count' as being on the bottom of the hemospectrum.

@john-egbert-rose-lalonde asked: the searcherrrrrrrr

"why so discarded" - the drawer

Anonymous asked: Hey, since you like to experiment with stuff, what dl you think would happen if a Tier 2 Sprite prototyped itself into a Tier 1 Sprite?

Great question. I went in-depth into it during a previous ask - although I can imagine it's quite a rare occurrence. How often are two unprototyped Sprites on the same Land?

Anonymous asked: While I think a discord server is a good idea, I think it might be best for everyone if it's one where only you and those helping you with the blog can post anything. That might ruin the community aspect a little, but I feel like it'd be worth it to not get spoiled if you do ever make one. Feel free to completely ignore this- not exactly riveting things I'm sending here.

Right! Quick update on the Discord situation.

Initially, I was going to have Cat help me set it up, but she's been incredibly busy with her thesis lately. Plus, she hasn't really used the platform either, so we had no idea what we were doing. Might need to shelve the Discord server idea until later, or until it becomes necessary.

@krixwell asked: John Egbert when he's told the Earth is done for: John Egbert when his friend is his sister and his dad is his half-brother: John Egbert when he dies ignoble deaths at the hands of manipulators: John Egbert when Fruit Gushers are a Betty Crocker product: MENTAL BREAKDOWN

Dude's got his priorities straight.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: I’m taking an IT course next year, and I want a head start during this summer. Would you know any free beginner’s courses to any languages that would help in that department?

I'll always champion W3Schools as a great first port of call for tech self-learning. All the resources I've found there are well-put together, and let you test your code out in-browser.

As I mentioned to a previous asker, I'd recommend starting with the C language if you're genuinely interested in programming. It's a little harder to use than other, more high-level languages, but it'll teach you more about programming than they will. I'd liken it to learning to drive in manual, rather than automatic. You lose nothing, and acquire skills you wouldn't otherwise know about.

@caliquill submitted:

i'd like to briefly point out this tidbit of the first conversation eridan has with kanaya @krixwell asked: Gamzee to Equius, page 2221: "iF i CoUlD mAkE yOu SmIlE iT'd Be ThE bEsT fUcKiN mIrAcLe I eVeR dId PaRt Of." @dopplesgryndthloggle asked: I'm just gonna put this here: pg 2221 TC: WhAt CaN i Do To MaKe A bRoThEr FuCkIn ShApE hIs ShIt Up? TC: iF i CoUlD mAkE yOu SmIlE iT'd Be ThE bEsT fUcKiN mIrAcLe I eVeR dId PaRt Of. TC: hOnK hOnK hOnK! :o)

...this comic is going to go absolutely wild on a reread, isn't it?

Anonymous asked: oh god no, the clown got you :(

Thanks for the migraine, Gamzee!!

@5am-nztime asked: Insert the one millionth "The Heir of Void, Devoid of Air" joke you've probably gotten. I love dramatic irony

You're actually the only person who sent this one in - and I'm glad you did. It's kind of killing me.

Anonymous asked: a common interpretation is that equius smiles because he knows nepeta might find his body and he doesn't want her to think he died in pain :((

Shit, that's kind of devastating. That said, he had no reason to think Gamzee would leave his body where it was - but that said, he clearly wasn't thinking straight at the time.

Anonymous asked: fun little detail: the ==> leading to equius taking an arrow to the knee is replaced with an arrow, -->

He used to be a Sgrub Player like us :(

Anonymous asked: The idea that he somehow has the freakin' WARHAMMER OF ZILLYHOO in his jokerkind specibus but he STILL only brings out a low-tier pair of juggling clubs is somehow even more intimidating

Where did he even get the thing? When did he get it? Is this from before or after the Pen-Pal got their hands on it?

...if Gamzee is the Pen-Pal, I'm quitting the comic.

@morganwick asked: Well, as long as you don't know for sure whether Nepeta died, you could say… she's both alive and dead until she's observed? @ipunchvampires asked: By cutting away from Nepeta's fate, it's technically ambiguous right now whether she's alive or dead, since we cannot observe her. So you could say that she… heh heh, that she's Sch… she's Schröding…

....oh, god damn it.

Anonymous asked: I feel like there should be an intermission style counter. 4/12 Alien Children Murdered.

If you include Aradia and Vriska, the tally's up to seven. Murderstuck started a long time ago, it seems.

Anonymous asked: i would like to think equius says b100 like how boris johnson says blue in that one interview where he mentions the us brand new BLUE passports or whatever

I also think his voice suits Equius's character fairly well...

Anonymous asked: To be fair on the “overwhelmingly violent purplebloods” angle, Gamzee was stoned out of his mind basically 24/7 until they got to the meteor, so they probably would’ve thought it was a nonissue. […]

I suppose. But if everyone knows purplebloods are habitual murderers, I don't know why you'd ever let one into your friend group. There's always a possibility that one day, his slime delivery will be late, and he'll snap your neck for fun.

@wickedsick asked: You know, this would be the perfect spot for a paradox space intermission. You can read the fluffy comics to wash the taste of blood out of your mouth!

I thought about it - but in the end, I decided to liveblog the Paradox Space comics at the point in the comic where they were released.

Otherwise, Cat'd have to spoiler-check each comic with a fine-toothed comb, and I'd have to delay many of them anyway. Better to get them all out at once.

Anonymous asked: considering that eridan was on feeding duty for gl'bgolyb and had to kill lusii year round under apocaliptic threat im not surprised his response under pressure is to kill something

It really says a lot about the difference between him and Vriska, doesn't it? Vriska's reaction to killing Tavros was a full on existential crisis, but Eridan's first reaction to killing Feferi was to immediately kill again.

@witchoflight asked: hey sally i just wanna remind you of the conversation that dave and gamzee have, specifically about the line: "TC: My mInD'S NoT ThAt sHaRp nOw tHoUgH, iT'S BeEn aGeS SiNcE I HaD A GoOd pIe" gamzee hasn't had access to sopor for WEEKS, not since they entered the game. […]

Was he sober, though? He's still acting stoned, and using his original quirk, so if he did sober up, he must have immediately decided to pretend he didn't, and then arbitrarily reveal himself as sober later on.

To me, it feels like it just took a while for the slime's effects to fully fade. It might genuinely have taken a month for it all to leave his system.

@mimescantscream asked: Now that Gamzee has swiftly become the most important character, any thoughts on his transformation?

It's weirdly drastic, isn't it?

Like, if he was hiding this personality under sedatives this entire time, surely we should have seen some hint of it, in all the time we've known him. We've even been in his head, and he seemed like exactly who he appeared to be.

Was Gamzee unaware of this latent personality? Do we have a Jekyll and Hyde situation on our hands? He does say he's 'both' of his messiahs...

@elkian asked: You've now reached the point where I can (probably) say that the common fandom Exile match for Kanaya is Problem Sleuth, as he has the Vampire schema mode. (Plus a jade-green ultimate attack.)

Oh, I love that for her. We better be seeing Team Sleuth in some form before the end, even if it's just a cameo.

@krixwell asked: I think you're blaming the wrong chat program. Trollian is an advanced alien chat program powered by futuristic sci-fan shenanigans, with features specifically designed to allow the user to choose the timeframe at which they try to contact someone. Pesterchum, not so much. Pesterchum if anything is retro, with only the most barebones of 1-on-1 chat features, a status setting that barely changes anything unless you're rancorous, and a block feature that seemingly fails to recognize incoming Trollian connections from the same user at different times (possibly Trollian's fault). Even setting aside the frogskin barrier, it's a wonder the two programs can communicate at all. So when someone uses Pesterchum to contact a Trollian user whose timeline is entirely separate from their own, with no interface to pick a timeframe on, how exactly is either program supposed to know when to contact them?

I guess most of our nonlinear conversations have been Trollian-to-Pesterchum.

Karkat has tied himself into knots over memos, but that is admittedly a slightly different use case.

And can I just say, I love the concept of a 'frogskin barrier'. These two parties have been beaming messages from frog-to-frog this entire time, and the walls between their dimensions are literally made of skin.

@captorations asked: consider: this means that the sbahj joke that following kanaya's death was actually foreshadowing given the comic it's from

I can't fucking believe this.

Anonymous asked: tbh i'll never get over how the presumable FIRST THING kanaya did upon coming back to life was just. to wade through the horn pile to drink blood from a corpse.

Vriska's getting a little competition for Troll Of All Time!

@morganwick asked: I mean, technically Jade was already in the Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory, it was just with two Karkats and Dave only made a brief appearance.

16-player fruity rumpus argument or we riot

Anonymous asked: do you think you'll liveblog tsg if you read it?

I wasn't planning on it, but if there's a lot of demand, I'll definitely think about it. If I was to liveblog any fanfic, it'd probably be that one, since it's a proper 'event fanfiction' from the author of TLT.

Anonymous asked: re: the ultimate riddle: karkat actually already explained it on page 1903. basically its just some more timeloop/alpha timeline predestination stuff

The sense I got was that there was a section of the conversation that we missed.

On Skaia, John begins a conversation with an early version of Karkat about the Ultimate Riddle, but the camera moves away before they really get into it. Then, on the Veil, an early Karkat shows up to continue a point he was making about the Riddle, implying that there's a section of this conversation that was deliberately obfuscated.

I initially thought that the Riddle was the mystery of Sburb itself - ie, what the point of the game is. I still think that's probably pretty close, but I do wish we got this full conversation, just in case.

Anonymous asked: “Scratch positioned [Vriska] as someone who will perpetuate a monumental, large-scale mistake, and I don't think there's anything she could do on the Veil that fits the bill.” When John was about to prototype jades sprite with a broken doll, Vriska made him fall asleep, and Becquerel jumped in the sprite instead, leading to Jack Noir becoming an unbeatable boss and destroying the trolls session. I think that could be the perpetuation of a large scale mistake.

Possibly. But as violent as Jack is, I don't think he's a huge threat to the rest of the multiverse.

He takes hours to rampage through a session, but there are presumably trillions of sessions out there in the multiverse. From a top-level perspective, he's not doing meaningful damage, and it's certainly within Vriska's comprehension.

I actually think Vriska's going to do something much worse than make Jack. If she contributes to the creation of Lord English, for example, she might be breaking something that can't be repaired.

Anonymous asked: Honestly its a little sad though right? That the troll kids are snapping and dying? Like yeah they were raised on a violent murder planet but also, they're all still 13 years old and have been without their means of Sleeping Naturally for a while (the sopor slime is how trolls usually get sleep) not being an apologist or anything but the murders could've been prevented with healthy moraillegences and good nights sleep.

Oh, it's horrific, that should go without saying. If the trolls had got some decent shuteye, it'd have kept them stable for at least slightly longer.

[littleeyesofpallas]

I forgot where i was going with these when i started throwing this draft together... It's weird to me that the series originally had this really specific and kind of unique mediterranean setting

the FIMBA's region is clearly Italian, playing off the coliseum's central role in the game

IMa's little island feels very reminiscent of the santorini caldera in the greek isles, in spite of its location relative to FIMBAs italian peninsula

And the AGIMA region being a more generic island, but one where they rather conspicuously use Greek text in a way the other two regions didn't (if you look closely at the letterhead on the mail you can see that AGIMA is actually spelled with a Gamma(Γ) and not a G: ΑΓΙΜΑ)

But then MR3's shift backwards in the timeline to the setting's pangean continent breaks away from any recognizable geography, even just as a loose inspiration. And EVO's jump to just a completely different continent with, like, vaguely African(?) geography, but also a Japanese island at the end??, and then The Moon... all just kinda threw that uniqueness out the window.

If anything it could have been really cool to expand the Monster Rancher universe along the Silk Road; thru Turkey and the north of Africa, and into Arabia and Persia. In a way, EVO starting off at what ought to have been a loose equivalent of north Africa right on the costs of the mediterranean could have been a really neat way to still retain that connection to the old games, but then they kind of don't lean into that at all somehow? If anything EVO's region feels really weak in terms of theming, and the few traces of a kind of attempted "ethic" flare are honestly just kind of offensive.

I think the only thing I really managed to take inventory of in all this was that they stuck to the pretty standard JRPG routine of cramming way too many too diverse biomes into a single region... there's always

a sandy desert(with pyramids)

a kind of tropical beach

a jungle or rain forest(often with south american vibes??)

a snowy mountain range

but also a weird variety of temperate regions; sometimes a forest, sometimes hills, or plains/flatlands, oddly they only very late in the series started adding caves into the explorable dungeon lineup, even though those feel pretty basic. The ever present theme of ruins and exploration do go from being subsets of other biomes into being sort of their own environments. The initially very light steam punk elements --only really present in the freezing/combining labs-- do eventually get ramped up to full on factory towns and factory dungeons.

I think I had been intending to gather all these maps together first, and then try to distill some kind of formula from them to outline some sense of what a typical Monster Rancher region looks like, and what the parameters of making a fan region or Monster Rancher-like would really entail, but I don't know that I really got that information out of things in the end...

So i guess just have these this random collection of thoughts

[genericpuff]

What’s your opinion on the titans designs in lo

i swear to christ i was watching attack on titan when i read this question and did a double take like holy shit am i gonna get to gush about AOT????

okay but to answer the ACTUAL question, I actually have um... some interesting takes on them.

First off, for starters. Helios. Pretty neat. I know he's just yellow Zeus but he's big and he's sassy and I wish we could see more of him.

Kronos was cool until RS turned him into an MCU villain.

Gaia I'm sort of indifferent on... she really doesn't have any sort of real role in the story beyond being some Avatar McGuffin. Her original design was badass but then ofc, as all things go in LO, RS dumbed her design down and now she looks just like another Persephone clone.

Rhea was great when she first appeared but, again, Persephone clone. I don't like the recent retcon/establishment that the fertility goddesses need to experience love to have their powers used because it casts some fucked up implications (beyond the obvious) when she begged Zeus to find Metis and "use her powers no matter the cost". If I had known at the time that was gonna turn into "Zeus had a relationship with Metis" I would have been a bit more like... yikes, Rhea.

And then there's Metis... oh boy, do I have some takes about Metis. Very personal ones.

So here's the thing. Metis is the name of the Greek god, yes. But it's... it's not what comes up when you search "Metis" on its own. Because there ALSO exists an Indigenous group of people in Canada called 'Métis'. And LO Metis' design is-

sigh yeah.

Now I know I'm gonna get people who are saying I'm "reading too much into it" but y'all. I'm Mi'kmaq. The Métis people come from the same regions my own ancestors do, my own family pretty much shares blood and land with them. I promise you, I'm not pulling any of this out of my ass, Metis' design stood out to me as soon as I saw it because her outfit really resembles the fringe that you find EVERYWHERE in Indigenous clothing, like we fucking LOVE FRINGE LOL (I've got a cape/poncho thing with loads of fringe that I whip out for special occasions) And the wings resemble a lot of the 'finger feathers' you see in Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Cree, and yes, Métis art.

phew sorry I know Hephaestus is also drawn with a similar skin tone and Metis starts to veer off into flanderized colors with the bright orange like every other character in this comic, but it's just like... not a great combination.)

(*edit because I forgot to add: it also REALLY REALLY REALLY DOESN'T HELP that Metis is the ONLY TITAN designed with non-neon colors. Like, she's been explicitly drawn with darker orange/reddish tones that are OFTEN AFFILIATED WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE. THE SLUR 'REDSKIN' EXISTS FOR A REASON-

phew sorry I know Hephaestus is also drawn with a similar skin tone and Metis starts to veer off into flanderized colors with the bright orange like every other character in this comic, but it's just like... not a great combination. The more human-like skin tone is sorta just the cherry on top.)

So... yeah. Take that with what you will. I'm not necessarily accusing RS of anything (because Metis being drawn like a Métis woman is like, the least of LO's problems) but at BEST she's just got some REAL shit Googling skills or like... didn't think anyone would notice? 😂

Either way that's... that's my (*probably biased) take on Metis. At the very least it does result in her having a way more interesting design than the others (who are basically just big color-swapped versions of Hades and Persephone) but IDK if that's a good thing when that design is in the hands of RS. She ruined Metis in the most recent episodes which is kinda lowkey even more insulting LMAO

[manicali]

Fuck it, unfinished character designs! Some new ones this time.

This is my design for night, I was going to have her be an owl, and have a half moon mask, but i went with more of a spider vibe (which is why its not done) because she lives in a web, like a dream catcher, which was actually her first design, to actually be the moon

I did decide to keep the owl beak because i fucking love owls they’re such cute little freaks. Anyway, I’m going to give her a different shirt, maybe add arm warmers

Next we got Day

Originally he was based on Apollo, so my vague approximation of an ancient greek god, with the toga and all that, he was also supposed to be a fall tree. But he kinda gave my medow where you’d find bambi vibes, so I decided yeah lets make him a deer. The outfit is inspired by those godforsaken AI generated drawings I found on Pinterest and thought were actual art. It is still my own design, just the whole hoodie over a dress thing wasn’t. I’m changing the outfit to make it look cooler soon anyway, I might go back to the greek god concept.

Then I had this idea a while ago that i could do something with, idk what but it involves sentient plants, because theyre fun as fuck to draw

On the left are a flytrapper and some dandilion inspired plants, and on the right is a drawing i did a while ago of the emotion Joy. I decided the concepts would go pretty well together and Joy might make an interesting side character. The flowers were some doodles done in my notebook, so they’re jusy concepts at the moment

I might add in some of my other emotion characters as creations Clover made, since some of them look like dolls, but I also have a bunch of little clown drawings that be little creations, I’m not sure.

(Sorry for the @ on the emotion drawing, thats my old account)

I dunno yet. If anyone has any opinions on if Clovers creations (as a toy maker) should be the little emotion blobs or clown dolls, or both. The left is a drawing of shame, the right is one of many clowns I have drawn.

I have some sketches of Dawn, who I’m working on designing, the only concrete design I’ve landed on looks neat but he looks too human so all I have is this

For some reason I apparently can’t drawn men, they always end up looking feminine, but I can’t draw female anatomy so

And last but not least is some of my ideas for ash starting to assimilate to the dream world, I’m going to have her slowly start to resemble a corkscrew willow, cause I like trees.

This was a doodle i did before deciding on a willow instead of an average tree. I picked willows because theyre flexible and resilient. Also they’re cool.

I’m thinking like near or at the end of the story she’s gonna be lit on fire, that’s why I went with a tree. I did a little drawing prompt thing and it gave me smoke hair, and i figured (at five am, sleep deprived) yeah thats good for a charcoal creature. I’m probably gonna change her outfit with her new forms.

I haven’t drawn the charcoal creature Ash yet, because I dont know how the willow version looks yet, or how willow burns, so I’m doing my research!

Anyway thats it.

[loosesodamarble]

Hello senpai it's 🖤 anon. For oto-may

Can you answer 2, 24 and for 25- what otome games will you recommend me to play? (Seeing your pages makes me want to play them)

Welcome back 🖤 anon~! Always lovely to see you around!

Thank you for the questions. And thanks for waiting for the answers! I uh... kinda went off so I'll be putting the lengthy answers under the cut!

2) Otome I would like to play

Right off the top of my head, I'd love to dive into Collar x Malice Unlimited, Piofiore: Episodio 1926, Virche Evemore: Epic Lycoris, and Radiant Tale Fanfare!

However, seeing as those are fandisc/sequels and I still need to finish the original games, I kinda can't. Not without running into massive spoilers and being left totally confused at least.

And actually, Epic Lycoris and Fanfare have yet to release in English so even if I did already play through Virche and RT, I wouldn't be able to play them right away...

Okay okay! But for a title that isn't a fandisc, the only otome that is currently catching my eye is Cupid Parasite.

Which is weird because literally none of the love interests in that game have long, luscious hair which is my usual weakness. But the art looks good and the concept of the literal Greek Cupid working as a matchmaker for the most un-matchable men ever seems funny.

And I have a feeling that there would be more going on than just cringefail men making out with a Greek deity.

24) Favorite otome

I've mentioned Cinderella Phenomenon as a fave of mine before. So another one of my favorite otomes would be Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth, as well as the two fandiscs Future Blessings and Wintertide Miracles.

I just... KJAHGIOAUEHTIAEHKJBELIGHEAKLJAEIUTHALEKTHA!

I really love the series! It did take me a while to really warm up to it but once I let myself get absorbed in the world and the characters, I got really attached. And with each entry into the series I played, the more I loved all of it. Cardia is such a sweet but strong-willed heroine. Several love interests stole my heart with their tragic stories. And for the ones that didn't leave me in tears, they were decent enough and good for getting a laugh out of me.

The side characters are pretty interesting too. Delly and Finis are like my baby brothers. Queen Victoria kinda talks down to Cardia and the boys at times but we can forgive her because she's kinda cool in how she's like "the kingdom and its people are my children, and a mother protects her children." Watson. Just Watson. He's a treasure.

The artwork of the game is beautiful too! UDAHGAEUHIAHR! All of them are winners in my opinion. ESPECIALLY HERLOCK! He may have needed to wait for the fandisc to get his route but it was made up for by all his cgs being LITERALLY THE BEST!

And the thing is, I love Code Realize so much that as I came close to completing the third game... All I needed was to read the epilogues of Wintertide Miracles and then I'd have the full stories and all the cgs... I was close to completing it and I paused and went "wait, I don't want the story to end yet. I want to keep falling in love with this game and the characters."

So I decided to delete my save data for all three games and buy other otomes to play so I could delay seeing the end of Code Realize's story. If I saw the ending, then the story would be concluded and I didn't want to imagine closing the book on Code Realize! AAAAAHHHHHHH!

I'm gonna replay Code Realize and actually see the epilogues of Wintertide Miracles one day. But not for a long time!

I just want the series to stay alive in my head with the ending just out of reach for as long as possible... That's how much I love it.

25) Free question: what otome games will you recommend me to play?

If you're looking to play an otome game, I'd suggest Cinderella Phenomenon.

It's free to play and available either through Steam or itch.io. The basic premise centers on a princess breaking a curse placed on her by a witch and along the way, she falls in love with a handsome young man, also under a curse. But even that base idea has a few twists to it.

Cinderella Phenomenon (or Cin Phen for short) is a straightforward, choice-based dating sim. And even light on how many choices you make. Not counting the Common Route (which is the section of an otome before you're locked for a single guy), you only make 21 choices total, three per chapter with a guy, excluding the final chapter which is either the Good or Bad Ending. Cin Phen is also nice in that you are allowed to have a guide, the Right Choice Indicator, to clue you in on when you've made a choice leading you to the Good Ending. It can be delayed for some choices and you can even turn it off if you want to play blind.

While I... disagree with a trope used in one route, all of the main characters and a good majority of the supporting cast are good, likeable people who each deserve a happy ending. No one is perfect and a couple show difficult sides of themselves at times but it makes the characters rounded and entertaining.

There are also dark themes like political corruption, emotional manipulation/abuse, and death. Though I'd still say Cin Phen is a pretty safe starting point when it comes to dating sim.

[disaster-vampire]

pls talk about the shelf

i was desperately hoping someone would ask me to rant abt it akehdjshd i'm kissing you sweetly on the forehead anon

okay so if anyone sees this out of context: i have a shelf in my bookcase dedicated to hannibal. yes it's kind of like a weird little shrine but leave me alone.

be warned this is going get LONG.

so, it has the obvious: the hannibal books, the tv show box set, the tv show's cookbook, my fancy copies of the divine comedy (they're hardcover with gorgeous sleeves that have art printed on them to match each book), and i also have the iliad and the odissey in there in a single big book that i bought on a whim when out once and then after buying it i found out it also had the original greek alongside the italian translation and i lost my mind. i've never felt such pure joy and i can't even read greek. yet.

as for decorations, as of right now there's a piece of driftwood that is kinda shaped like an L so it stands up on its own and it also kinda resembles an antler.

there's this fuckin box, i don't even remember how i got it, but it's made of bones. it's shaped kinda like a stereotypical treasure chest but it's literally made of bones. the inside is lined with red velvet.

i'm not sure what else to decorate with? i've put in a seashell but it can't even be seen because the shelf has glass doors but the shell is covered by the frame (might move everything to another shelf where the frame is not in the way tbh just so i can decorate with tiny things at the front).

i just moved this whole thing from my other bookcase (i just got this new one today because i have too many books and in my first bookcase the shelves are literally bending with the weight of the books piled up on them) and when it was there i also had a teacup in there along with a lighbox that says "bone saw time! 🖤" but this new shelf feels very elegant and there's also not enough space for the lightbox. i also had a bust of dionysus there but i'm going to move it to my dionysus altar.

i've got an old scalpel somewhere too and i'll try to find a visible spot to put it. i also have 3 tiny japanese plates that were all given to me as gifts and some souvenirs from japan from a friend too but idk if i wanna put japanese stuff in there. like it's fitting but at the same time idk if it's disrespectful or not.

if i had money and more space i'd make this whole thing bigger and get like. a little frame with fly fishing lures like the ones will made in the show and maybe something like some ethically sourced taxidermy. a snake skeleton and a mongoose skull would be really cool. maybe i could print out a little something with lures instead of buying real ones and like. a fake death's head hawkmoth taxidermy. i'd need some of those shadowbox frames and i'd make it so the pictures stand out a bit from the back so it looks like they have shadows. bc like i'm fairly certain real death's head hawkmoths cannot be ethically sourced at this point in time because ever since silence of the lambs came out people have started going insane over them.

i think my grandpa has this framed thing somewhere with sailing knots made with actual ropes in it rather than just pictures. haven't seen it in ages so i'm not sure anymore if it was my grandpa's or someone else's. probably my grandpa since he was in the marines when military service was mandatory in italy but idk maybe i saw it somewhere else. i could print out a small picture with various illustrations of sailing knots.

i also have these cards that my aunt gave me at one point that have prints of a lot of famous paintings with descriptions in the back and i THINK one was the primavera. it was either that or the birth of venus i'll have to check but either way there's at least one botticelli in there. i don't like botticelli much tho so 🤷

i plan at some point to also get physical copies of all the movies but idk when that'll be since i've found a different box set for the tv show with gorgeous covers that i plan to buy as well. also of the ones i currently own i think one of the dvds stopped working bc it got scratched while inside my pc because i was pausing and rewinding/forwarding too much. we'll see i guess.

now for the rest of the books. i have a medical book in there called the abc of the human body. i think the title is kind of hilarious for a hannibal shelf. i just found out today while moving books back and forth from one bookshelf to the other that i actually have two copies of this book and one of them was owned by a doctor that died i think like 15 to 20 years ago. i have a few other medical books that said doctor also owned on the shelf above. he also owned the scalpel i mentioned before.

there's the book skulls by simon winchester, which is a collection of pictures of skulls from one of the biggest skull collections in the world, along with a few inserts on biology if i remember correctly? i originally bought it for art references and i LOVE the cover so i made sure it was facing forward in the shelf.

there's the resurrectionist, which is a sci-fi/fantasy book kind of in a frankenstein-esque vein where the main character is this made up doctor who manages to make some mythological creatures through surgery & digging up dead bodies and i won't spoil it any further. the second half of the book is a whole bunch of medical/biology style illustrations of said creatures, their skeletons, their muscles, how certain parts of their bodies would function (for example i believe it goes into explaining the lungs for both mermaids and harpies). i don't think it quite fits thematically with hannibal but i think it's got The Vibe so i put it in there.

there's a book on saint lucy, who is the patron saint of sight. i have it because i was born with my skull being asymmetrical and the doctors immediately told my family it would likely cause problems with my eyes, and so instead of, you know, starting to take me to eye doctors from a young age, they swore me to saint lucy and left it at that. i'm likely going to go blind on my left eye at some point in my life btw lmao thanks st lucy <3 i do like her though. i like her iconography a lot, she's always portrayed as holding a plate with her eyes on it.

there's damien by hermann hesse, which is one of my all time favourite books. it's written in first person and it starts with emil sinclair's childhood, explaining that he sees the world in a very black and white way, and does so very literally because he speaks of the world of light and the world of darkness, which are kind of meant as good and evil. but then something happens to him that starts blurring the clear line he thought was between the two, which sends him into a moral panic until he meets max demian, who starts to make him see that there's more to both sides. the story as he grows up follows his "corruption" into someone who is neither good nor evil. it has a lot of implied homoeroticism, as it was written i think either in the 20s or the late 1800s so it couldn't be explicit but it is very much there and is expressed mostly through demian's mother. there's also a weird cult thing going on and the ending is a bit ??? and honestly i need to read it again because for such a short book SO much happens that i'm having a hard time summarising it accurately.

the only other books i remember being there rn (it's 1am i'm not turning the lights on again) are dracula, because cannibal/vampire count with a big castle, the butchering art, and les fleurs du mal, plus two other books written in french that i haven’t read yet because my french isn't the best, whose titles i don't remember rn, and one in italian that i've found at a used books stall once but i believe it's from a local author and i've never seen it in a bookstore nor online so there's definitely no english translation of it. i still haven't read this one either and i don't even remember what it's about, it might be a poetry book? not quite sure. but yeah these few ones i haven’t read are there like. on trial. if i read them and find them fitting they'll stay otherwise they go to another shelf. i also haven’t read les fleurs du mal nor the butchering art yet, so the same applies to them. i think that's all of them? i plan to put my art history books and regular history books on the shelf above as well next to the medical books to kind of carry the theme over lol.

i would like to maybe someday get some of the books that we've glimpsed from the bookshelves on the show but this is it for now!

anyway. tysm for asking me about it dear anon. you said but a few words yet they meant the world to me <3

[xxswagcorexx]

watching this au somewhat-flesh out in the tags like heeehoo giggling and twirling my hair etc. thank u for sharing its really cool to hear about this especially your reasonings behind things :) and the au name FUCKS btw 10/10 on that one (you can take this as a free space to ramble more about it if you like)

AHHH TYSM ANON!! ive been having a lot of fun with au (but im a lil. tapped out for ideas, but the general idea is that you can do. Whatever you want with this [wowie just like actual mythology!] so!! feel free to add on/make ur own/be inspired or whatever from this ^_^ most of this is mostly what i feel from Vibes anyways [and i would be very very happy to see any content in general so !!!])

ANYWAYS going to use this an opportunity to ramble about clown and spoke!! this is gonna focus more on their myths rather than their cults bc. i have a clearer image abt their myths than their cults (and vice versa for ash and red)

ANYWAYS lets start of with clown! ^_^ for some context, clown's username used to be godlysins (which is something he only went by for a little bit, he's been using clownpierce for a Lot longer) but basically id imagine he'd start off as a god, and after some time his mythology would be about him rejecting godhood and being able to complete impossible tasks as a mortal (also he gets a name change, pissing off any historians trying to study him <3), so essentially functioning as a greek hero in this au (also bc i think there's this cool quote of him saying that he's human, so that's a fun tie in!). anyways he's popular among warriors and looked up by anyone who wants to accomish something really hard :)

i also mentioned spoke being an import god in my tags where i mentioned clown, and that idea is mostly because iirc he got a lot of his powers from a hypixel exploit? don't quote me on that though im not very caught up on his lore (or ls lore in general </3 i cant watch streams bc of School and energy levels) . anyways since he seemingly got his powers from a 3rd party, id imagine (similar to the original theory about dionysus' origin before we found his name in older records) that spokes origin myths would have him coming from some far off land and having arcane powers compared to the other god bc he got it from somewhere else ^_^ awesome! (also this is a Different reason to why i think ash is more of an import god bc ash is known for. a lot of things? like you cant really point where Most people know him, so that idea kinda transferred to him being an import god)

but YA! ty for the ask anon <3 i loveeeee thinking abt related ideas abt a topic so ^_^ tysm for the ask and giving me a chance to talk abt clown and spoke!!!

[thesungod]

finally able to articulate what bothers me most about them calling an Apollo kid the sun and using him as the antithesis to darkness: APOLLO WASN'T EVEN THE ORIGINAL SUN GOD. he had a swan chariot and a silver bow but eventually people started conflating him with Helios bc they were both called Phoebus ("Shining") and one of Helios' epithets is Apollo's own name, "Apollon"- understood here to mean "destroyer". "Helios Apollon" was what they called the sun's destructive aspect. yes Apollo's name literally means "the destroyer" and i had to read a book arguing that Apollo (plague god famous for mass murder) and Hades are opposites and then go about trying to disprove the argument it made up

i mean, i love Rick’s world and Apollo is my number 1 character of all time but if there’s one thing we can say for sure is that he got somewhat nerfed.

making a scale of power basing ourselves on ancient greek texts is impossible, but if one sums up all of Apollo’s skills and abilities and domains, not to mention his influence and the width of his worship in Greece, he could be considered pretty much the most powerful god of Olympus except for Zeus. There’s a reason he, not Ares, takes the part of the rebellious son set to replace his father, in the myths.

in the pjo books he’s… powerful for sure, but manyyyyyy of his powers/domains aren’t even mentioned. the meaning of his name alone!!! and that’s fine, btw, we would have needed a book just for that. but it does make me a bit :(

with all that said, interpretations of mythology are varied and i was satisfied with rick’s vision overall. Apollo at his full power is still cool asf in ToA.

i agree with you about Will.

i don’t get why they leaned so much on the sunny side of Apollo and why they pretended so hard that he’s the god of Disney princesses and bunnies. I didn’t want Will to have plague powers or lean into his father’s deadly domains because whatever, not every character needs to be outstandingly powerful, but there was really no need to make him such a whimp😔

the sun thing was wayyyyy overdone. Will used to be all about healing but he barely even mentioned it in this book. he used to be decent at archery and that was gone too. again, i’m totally fine with Nico being a LOT more powerful than him, it was actually the outcome I had hoped for, but it’s kinda crazy for Nico to have so many fucking different skills and for Will to be so fixated on one when Apollo is the god of a million things and Hades is the god of… the dead. That’s it. If anything, Nico’s powers should be more stale, if that makes sense. Death isn’t really a concept known for its versatility.

(not saying Will should have been more powerful than Nico: having more skills doesn’t mean being more powerful, it all depends on what the skills are.)

[3456boidone]

yo thats so cool! i love how amazingly you captured the tone and tragedy of an actual greek/roman myth with their story, its awesome! and i love how you were able to work the sun and moon symbolism thats so prevalent in their culture into their designs. plus their relationship seems so bittersweet, its heartbreaking but in such a beautiful way. and i cant help but wonder artemis’s relationship towards bunnie when she first meets her, considering her feelings towards technology and bunnies half roboticized state.

I finally got to this🎉

I fucking love Bunny, she was one of my favorites as a kid, and probably still is now, behind Antoine. So I thought over this question over and over, so the answer could be perfect.

I think they would have an interesting relationship. First I would like to say Bunny is somewhere is an adult, and Artemis is close to Sonic's age, just being a little bit older than him. (ALSO I just found out sonic is infact 16, and 20 like originally though when I was like 6 and I'm every confused and frustrated.) There's no romantic feelings at all between the two, and more like an enemies to kinda family.

In the relationship Artemis goes through different opinions (stages) about Bunny, which also changes their relationship as well.

When they first meet Artemis Hates Bunny, and avoids her like the plague, and tries to convince others that they should stay away from too. Her excuse being "since she's half robot, she might turn against us" which of course doesn't work. And if they're in a group together, but the group had to split up, Artemis would demand to go Bunny, to make sure that "she doesn't turn on them"

Second one, would be after Artemis learns about how Bunny got robotized, and that her mother has been. Artemis starts using her as the reason on why the need to stop Robotnik(which everyone is already is trying to do) Inviting her into more things, stops trying to make everyone against her, but still keeping her arms length.

The third, is where Artemis wants to make amends with Bunny, and then she slowly starts seeing her like a mother(and a lot like her mother) Artemis then starts to think she's cool and follows her around like toddler. Also this probably were Artemis finally learns how to use technology, and it looks like that scene in Michael and the Machines where the dad using the computer.

Basically from :"Don't look at me! Don't even come near me!" To "Mom, I frew up..."

Also a thing I made a while ago, it's not good but at least it's something.

[skinnymeanfaggot]

7, 27, and 45 with vanguarde?

7. so his first name inez is portuguese in origin but i also see results of it being greek. but regardless its a womans name. he was given a lot of shit about it as a kid and like, he is cisgender but hes so fucking trans coded especially with him being more feminine as a kid, which he hated, and like. he has trauma around being regarded as feminine. and really hates it. and his name was part of that so he really hates it by proxy

27. executed at the hands of the government. it would be objectively humiliating because of how much he stands against them, and its what they really really want. van wants to go out on his own terms and he wants to do it in a way that will fuck over as many people as possible and dying like that would not do that

45. hes actually...... content with himself, physically. he gets to have multiple dicks and his prosthetic limbs are super strong. hes gotten used to not having an eye and if he doesnt want to hear something he can just take his hearing aids out and vice versa (which is very funny to me. if hes in a conversation he doesnt want to hear he will just take them out). obviously brain stuff hed want to change, trauma of course but he also knows that hes kinda dumb and wishes he was smarter like jude. he also finds his ears and tail embarrassing because theyre objectively cute. like theyre very very very soft and he has this tiny itty bitty little tail because somehow (you know why) his ass was completely unharmed during the explosion. he doesnt mind being a mutant entirely because the horns are badass but he does sometimes wish he was a more Cool animal like a wolf or something

[ami2kewl]

specifically! for @mugiimatsu who so kindly asked and any others who might be curious on my,,

mishima yuuki persona au

first things first, his persona is dolos, greek god of deception n trickery. since a persona is all about the how you present yourself when in the face of danger, i based this off of his rank 8 confidant event where he bluffed to that guy attacking akiyama. so since mishima isnt very strong physically, he relies on trickery. which is ALSO where I got the idea for the outfit. because you know where trickery and deception is most common? magician acts. which is why he has the whole trenchcoat corset (and non visible laced boots) combo going on. I almost added a top hat but it just wasnt working out. a loss..

anyway because of his arcana I gave him a color palette similar to the moon and its surroundings, dark blue (sky), yellow (moon), and white (stars).

and the mask. THE MASK. its not fully visible so heeere is the original sketch

anyway a whole bunch of thought went into this thing. not the fishnet part though I just thought that looked cool. as you can see though, there are 2 sides. one dark, one light. these sides individually represent the lies and truths. and in that same vein, the dark side and light side of the moon. it resembles jokers mask a bit for the eye part, just to show how his outlook on the world (and himself!) was changed thanks to him. at some point I started thinking the entire get up looked too similar to jokers but at least he doesn't have those atrocious leprechaun shoes. besides if he sees the phantom thieves as absolute justice then its make sense that his view of a rebel would align with jokers.

visible in other posts, for his neutral special he wields a ginormous hammer /ref. in my notes its said this is because:

"like birds when they puff out their feathers to be big and menacing. hes compensating with a humungous hammer."

and isnt that just so him.

anyway for the stat explanations ill be ripping it straight from said note.

" stamina is 40, magic 75, endurance 55, agility 71, luck 5. stamina should be higher from volleyball but idk... I cant really judge how good he actually was at volleyball since he was in a bit of a pickle at the time. dammit. we shoulda gotten a scene where a volleyball game takes place near the end of the game where the team gets to be happy without kamoshida. I woulda cried so hard.. anyway magic stat 75 since hes mastered 2 whole elements! endurance 55 I made it decent from past experiences... 🙁 agility 71 cause volleyball hello?? shit takes SPEED! luck at a depressing 5. because I checked tv tropes and he is apparently born unlucky. "

and finally, we are at weaknesses/strengths.

I actually struggled quite a bit at this part. originally was just goanna make his weakness ice cause im akeshima shipping trash but then I remembered loki isnt even an ice persona in p5... so I went back to metaphorical stuff. tried to see if dolos had a spouse, or an enemy. and he does, kinda. veritas, the goddess of truth. not specifically an enemy, but a direct opposite! however i associated the truth with light, and he already was null to light and dark, and changing that would kinda take away from the whole shabang. so I settled on a weakness to electricity based on zeus being an important figure in dolos's backstory. not completely random, but definitely not my most impactful choice.

and that my friends, is my

mishima yuuki persona au

explained! thank u for reading!!!

if i made a semilong text post detailing his persona/stats/weaknesses etc etc would anyone read it

[yuukei-yikes]

Is kagepro an anime? I wanna get into the series but I don’t know where to start (and honestly all i know about it is the stuff that you post, shout out to that white hair malewife and black hair girlboss you always post about)

GOD OK UM SO kagepro is really one of those things that are. just messy.

this is my pinned, so i’m putting it under read more!

What is kagerou project, should i get into it, how do i get into it?........... let me tell you about it!

originally? it started as vocaloid series, as in a story told through songs, then it had a manga adaptation, anime and novels. they all vary a lil bit with consistency though tell the same story. and that is because… each media represents a “route” the characters go through. yep. it’s a “time reset” kinda story! ...timeloop, if you will. kagepro is what i like to call a clump story. just a bunch of stories put together. you take longer delving into each character's backstory rather than the actual main plot ig?? like, knowing everyone's backgrounds Builds the present story. it is difficult to explain 1 thing without explaining another and so on..

before i start, i'd like to warn that kagerou project deals with very heavy themes, particularly suicide and mental health. the loss of a loved one, abusive parents, dying in every way you can think of... look, it's not for everyone!

mid as hell guide:

if you want to start somewhere I recommend listening to the songs in order, if you're into vocaloid you'll find out about many bangers and cool as hell music videos. i always recommend release order. then if you wanna watch the 12 episode anime and be confused as hell, be my guest. it's kind of ridiculous but idk there's certain charm in watching it and feeling totally crazy afterwards

the manga i recommend up until volume 4 chapter 18. after that it gets TOO confusing because it goes into a route that's only explored in this adaptation, while its kinda important if u REALLY wanna jump into the world of kagepro, it is VERY confusing at first, like a LOT happens and differs significantly from the regular routes(and as an old fan i really was not into it that much but that’s aside the point) but the manga in the first 4 volumes at least puts the beginning more in perspective

and only then i'd recommend watching the anime for real cuz like i said, without all this the anime is VERY confusing lol. even with all this the anime is confusing. the novels are good but they're wholeass BOOKS yknow. also, if you do, be prepared for some gross, outdated humor. there are 8 light novels so it is not beginner friendly if u rly dont wanna tap into it. even some seasoned fans haven't read them. that’s my casual kagepro fan guide. but.....

but if in the end you become interested and you end up reading them... hey, your here already, and i know i told u not to finish the manga but if u just read 8 light novels i guess ur ok with reading 9 more volumes of manga!!!! and then... i’d watch the anime AGAIN? because the anime, believe it or not, as shitty and as ugly as it is... possesses the GOOD ending. and bc u read 8 novels, 13 manga volumes and listened to like 5 song albums, u can watch and actually know what’s going on and u are very happy at the end bc after ALL THAT u get to see the good ending.

what is it even ABOUT!!

explaining the plot is... confusing in itself. basically, as non spoilery as possible, it's about a group of teenagers (ages 12 to 19) called the mekakushi dan (blindfold gang. yep they pretend to be in a gang. they're a funny cast of characters!). they're all struggling with superpowers that are actually kind of lame and not as cool as it sounds, that manifest through "red eyes", i.e eye abilities. it's very much inspired by the gorgon monster from greek mythology... particularly medusa. you'd be surprised by how relevant the word medusa actually is in kagepro.

getting a bit more into specifics, as i said, it's a clump story. kagerou project isn't only difficult to understand when it comes to all its different medias, the story ITSELF is as complicated as it gets. hurray! the clump story aspect comes into play when the story jumps back and forth in time to introduce us to characters and explain their relations to one another. BUT the very basics starts with... shintaro kisaragi, our protagonist, is a shut in ever since his highschool best friend ayano tateyama committed suicide. he goes out for the first time in 2 years and runs into the funny quirky people who might've been involved in ayano's life, who in return was involved in the quirky sci-fi shit about..wow? superpowers! maybe her suicide wasnt driven by depression but by....(SPOILER CUT)? or was it? join shintaro's terrible journey as he learns about everything ayano left behind! you'll cry! it's a REALLY sad story! with lovely characters such as:

kido, kano and seto! ayano's little siblings! kido is the leader. of what? good question! kano is gay and hates shintaro's guts. seto? he has jobs and better things to do. he likes dogs.

momo! shintaro's little sister! she is.. a famous idol?! and... DEPRESSED?!

mary! token cute character who is...relevant to the plot!? and even... A PLOT POINT!?

hibiya! a random 12 year old who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. also equally as important depending on the route, his best friend hiyori! dont worry about it. if you've ever been a little bit into vocaloid, you probably know these 2.

konoha! we dont know who this guy is. well. we do. but thats a spoiler so dont tell!!!!

and of course our lovely deuteragonist, ene!! the funny little AI living in shintaro's phone who TOTALLY didn't use to be human and has a sob story of her own and totally isnt related to the mystery of konohas existence. kagepro!! call now!! ITS AWFUL IN HERE!

[ahopefulbromantic]

Tysm for the reply, and such a detailed one with the links at that!!! It was fascinating to read!

I also have some thoughts:

Jesus combining Mary and thus becoming a hermaphrodite makes me think about Adam. The word for a male man ("ish") isn't used in the Bible until the creation of Eve, before that Adam is called just Adam - a human. This leads many to believe that he was created as intersex, either containing both sexes at once or none. And since the Church gives the title of The New Adam to Jesus and The New Eve to Mary, and since Jesus is to reverse Adam's sin and bring humanity back to its natural state from the original paradise, this image makes sense. If Adam was "split into" himself and Eve (he wasn't exactly and also it was God's idea not a result of sin but let's go with that for now) and lost the paradise afterwards, Jesus was "combined with" Mary, became the original perfect human, and regained the paradise.

The claim that 'wherever there's Jesus there's also Mary and vice versa' also seems in tune with the mariology of St Louis de Montfort (see: "True Devotion to Mary"), which is widely accepted by the Catholic Church even today - although to claim He's intersex because of that would be too far-fetched.

I have a whole argument and a half about how the crucifixion bears a lot of resemblance to the childbirth (like eg. the birth canal thing, frequently appearing phrase "of His wound the Church was born", John's Gospel using the Greek word kolpos when refering to both Jesus and His Father that could be translated either as a heart/breast or as a womb/female reproductive organs, Jesus kinda breastfeeding His children but with blood instead of milk, and because of it being very often likened to a pelican mother who medieval scholars believed to do the same, and so on).

A couple of images of female pelican being a symbol of Christ for anyone interested (fun fact! our parish priest has one garment adorned with the same image and it's my favorite piece of priestly clothing ever, I'm hyped whenever he wears it) :

Yay, St Wilgefortis mentioned! I love her and her legend, sometimes you ask Jesus for a way out and He gives you a beard. Although I only encountered versions of the story where she was female with a beard and some male features, not intersex, and her shoe falling off during the crucifixion, not some weird joke (also what's the joke cause I don't get it and you got me curious?).

As a side note, there are many other saints who defy our modern understanding of gender, the medieval times were very cool for that. Just to name my favorite few there are e.g. St Euphrosyne/Smaragd (a girl who wanted to stay virgin for Christ so she ran away from marriage to a male monastery where she did a Mulan on everyone for practically her whole life and the best things is, they found out eventually and they didn't kick her out cause "hey, you'll always be brother Smaragd for us, you're cool") and St Francis (yes that St Francis of Assisi, who when asking for a blessing to establish an order was said to tell the pope: "I am the Bride of Christ and this is the way He wants me to bear His children").

Those two below are both Euphrosyne!

And though it's interesting to see it done to His human form, depicting the Son as a woman isn't actually that recent. It dates back to the Old Testament and Lady Wisdom, a personification of God's wisdom from the Book of Proverbs, whom at least Catholic doctrine believes to be Word/the Son/Jesus, giving Jesus the title of Wisdom Incarnate. She was consistently depicted as a young, very beautiful woman.

While the understanding of concepts of sexual orientation and gender back then were very different to what we believe today so people most likely didn't identify as gay or trans, it's true that the Church was the most welcoming place (and still is apart from its highly conservative members, fight me) for everyone who was different, weird, or socially unacceptable. Yes you have to follow the morality and commandments of course, but the weirdness is never the issue. Heck, the Hebrew word for "saint" (kadosh) literally means "different/weird"! It seems they may have understood the assignment far better back then than we do today.

Hi! I saw a post where you mentioned intersex Jesus being a part of medieval European alchemy and I'd love to learn more about that. Could you elaborate or maybe provide links to some articles? I know some saint mystics talked about Jesus being our Mother, and the holy wound in His side was often likened to a birth canal, especially in medieval times. Is it connected to that in any way?

I'd love to elaborate! (This is going to be a long post so buckle up lol)

I will be using the word "hermaphrodite" instead of "intersex" because that is the word that primary sources from medieval Europe and contemporary medieval scholars use when talking about this subject

The best scholarly article I've found is "The Jesus Hermaphrodite: Science and Sex Difference in Premodern Europe" by Leah DeVun. It talks about how the image of the hermaphrodite was used in a metaphorical way by alchemists to show the combining/transforming of two different metals. They believed that certain metals/elements were gendered, so combining male and female "traits" would make something of a completely new sex; similar to the way they perceived hermaphrodites as both but also neither sex.

The article then goes on to talk about two medieval texts: Aurora consurgens and the Book of the Holy Trinity. Aurora consurgens is an alchemic text and has the image below in it. The hermaphrodite is holding a rabbit and bat, both of which were thought to be hermaphroditic species where both males and females gave birth, to emphasize their dual sexuality as well as the conflicting male and female attributes of alchemy.

The Book of the Holy Trinity transitioned from the traditional alchemic hermaphrodite, like seen above, into the religious sphere by arguing that Jesus and Mary were two sides of the same coin. The author of the text says, "one can never see the mother of God without also seeing that God eternally hides and intermingles [his mother] within him. God was and is eternally his own mother and his own father, human and divine, his divinity and his humanity intermingled within. And he depends on that which he wishes to be hidden most of all within himself, the divine and the human, the feminine and the masculine." This makes Jesus/Mary a hermaphrodite.

As a bit of a fun side note to your ask, the author of the Book of the Holy Trinity gives a few more supporting points to his argument and then turns to say that as Christ contains Mary, He also contains the Antichrist which the Book illustrates like this:

The idea of the hermaphrodite Christ really took off after that and boosted the cult of Saint Wilgefortis, saint of monsters. Images of the hermaphrodite Wilgefortis were often indistinguishable from images of Christ because they were both depicted on a cross but where they both have beards, Wilgefortis only has one shoe on: a playful medieval illusion to female sex organs. Images of Saint Wilgefortis below (some images from the 1800s, some from the 1400s). You can read more about Wilegfortis in Bearded Woman, Female Christ: Gendered Transformations in the Legends and Cult of Saint Wilgefortis by Lewis Wallace.

About a hundred years later, “The Lamentation around the remains of Christ,” below, was made depicting Jesus with breasts and feminine curves. Not much is known about it and Christ's hermaphroditic traits weren't even discovered until it was restored in the 21st century. Because of how recent this discovery is, not much scholarly work has been published on it, but I did find this: "The androgyny of Christ" by H. Valdes‑Socin. It is now at the Museum of Notre-Dame à la Rose Hospital in Lessines, Belgium.

And you're absolutely right about Christ's stab wound being like a birth canal! I think the article Mysticism and queer readings of Christ’s Side Wound in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg by  Dr. Maeve K. Doyle does a good job of explaining it. Dr. Doyle says, "The image of the side wound, ... grants feminine bodily attributes to Christ, destabilizing assumptions about his gender. In mystical images and texts, Christ’s capacity to transcend the gender binary, like his capacity to transcend the binary of life and death, underscores his divinity." Dr. Doyle then goes on to talk about how images of the stab wound looking like a birth canal would also be comforting to medieval women, trans people, and homosexuals on both sides. Now I'm not Christian but I think it's really amazing that such a simple image can elicited so much comfort and joy in so many groups of people who were not able to fully be themselves in the era they lived in. It was a reminder that even Christ was like them, their feelings were valid (to an extent), and that Jesus loved them anyway. Medieval Jesus stab wounds below for people interested.

----

Just for fun here are some more cool things!

A medieval wooden architectural relief with a person with a beard, phallus, and breasts

Potta di Modena Metope/The Hermaphrodite (left) and detail from the Southern Archivolt (right) of the Modena Cathedral Modena, Italy, c. 1099-1319, Marble reliefs

The Potta di Modena Metope (left) is damaged because people in the 1500s thought it was too sexual/offensive so they vandalized it

More journal articles:

Bearded Women in Early Modern England by Mark Albert Johnston

The Third Sex: The Idea of the Hermaphrodite in Twelfth-Century Europe by Cary J. Nederman

Transvestites in the Middle Ages by Vern L. Bullough

[chatonyant]

I binged a ton of orca documentaries and ended up shaking this lady out of nowhere

(ideas/ramblings under cut)

I was looking up Orcus after a documentary mentioned that orca are named after him. Funny thing is that the scientific name is "Orcinus orca" and orcinus means "of the kingdom of the dead" according to wiki, which means both parts of the scientific name is related to Orcus.

Orcus himself is a Roman/Etruscan god of the underworld and broken oaths, and wiki says that originally he came from Etruscan religion and the Romans sometimes mixed him up with the gods of the underworld (Hades, Pluto, the broken oaths part came from the Greek daemon Horkos who is (sometimes?) the son of Eris).

Originally when I was thinking of this new oc I was considering doing a redesign of an old oc I had named Erebus, who was this ghost oc? I had some lore for him but I... can't remember too much of it except he suffered a lot? But as I was thinking further about designs it ended up very much different lMAO

I'm going to try and kind of add some details of Erebus into Orcus to kinda connect them some more.

Orca are matrilineal and I was considering this oc to be some sort of god or at least a leading, powerful figure of sorts so considering Erebus was a boy... with the power of "i fucking said so" Orcus is a trans lady :)

I was considering ways to add orca elements into her design and I was also thinking she hasn't medically transitioned. Orcas aren't too sexually dimorphic other than size and the shape of their dorsal fin, so I made Orcus's hair like a curved dorsal fin like female orcas :D

Orca are big and a bit chonky so i made her a big and a bit chonky too! it was so fun to draw, i used a pic of a wrestler as a reference on how to draw a big and muscular body in a way that isn't stereotypically ripped and chiseled.

Clothing wise I,,, couldn't get any spark of inspiration so I ended up going pretty simple with the clothes and predictably giving her a split side skirt dsffguohsdgug influence from drawing hanbok

Lotsa jewelry! because she deserves it

The lack of pupil does come from Erebus (and I'm gonna give her scars, also from erebus) (actually I'm considering reworking Erebus in a way that Erebus grows up and becomes Orcus haha)

Story wise, I'm considering that Orcus isn't a part of a "pod" for one reason or another, so despite the fact that she's sociable and friendly (albeit in an intimidating way), she's also pretty alone and lonely

Taking into consideration of the mythological Orcus, she might be some protector of an underworld who abides by personal rules of honesty. Maybe like Cerberus she's the guard to the entrance of the underworld and makes people play games in order to earn their entrance into the underworld. idk yet its still a work in progress

so she's friendly, loud, excitable, reckless, head-strong, honest, stubborn, sociable, lonely.

I also ended up throwing her into the multiverse story I have, so she's friends with Ki now, who pops in once in while to spar and chat

Ki: hiya Orcus: :D Ki: let's spar Orcus: >>:D

I gave orcus a fan as a weapon but i have no idea what kind of power she wie- wait no

so erebus had control over shadows so I'm thinking Orcus's power appears as dark, inky water. So similar power of shadows that manifests itself in a more watery way– thinking of the whale-people from lout of the count's family if that makes sense to anyone (being able to summon weapons made of water and manipulating the water to be like constructs to use in battle, whether that be a foothold or just straight up armor)(honestly yes orcus is also inspired off of Witiria, she's so cool)