#kinda hard to make out but that IS bedrock at the bottom

[munch-mumbles]

^_^ all done

[chipped-chimera]

Just wanna say sorry to people over the past month ... months? That tagged me in WIP Wednesdays, I'm sorry I haven't really been doing much of anything creatively, feeling kinda rough 💀 But thank you so much of thinking of me, I love seeing everything that you do!

Partial? Explaination/Life Update under the cut I guess.

Hi! Hello. First off, thanks for being interested. It warms my heart people care about me so much, that I've made an impact and people are happy to see my stuff. I wish so badly I could be making stuff like this all the time! Doing those things (whether art, or modding or just my dumb screenshots) and seeing people enjoy what I was making really got me through the hardest parts of this year.

This year has been a massive turning point in many ways. It just hit me I MADE this blog this year like, holy shit guys! I've felt so welcome in the Cyberpunk 2077 space and consider a lot of people my friends, whether we talk outside Tumblr or not. I'm just so happy to see your posts and your thoughts! 💖 For someone who just through how life shook out to end up really socially isolated irl, you guys have helped form the bedrock of a place I can come back to that always makes me feel better.

It's why I wish I did more. That I could contribute to that more and in turn, maybe help someone else as much as it helped me. But it's hard. Really hard.

I have realised a lot of things about my life in recent months, and I think it's a good sign - that I'm in a more solid place mentally to unpack things that have been sitting boxed up for years because I was just too exhausted to deal with them. They've both been great to unpack ... but painful at the same time. It's kind of in moments like these my passion to create things starts to suffer. It's hard to muster up enough motivation sometimes to just do what I want to do because I'm constantly struggling with a brain and body that just doesn't do what I want it to do - and that fact often makes me feel even worse and want to do even less.

I'm kind of stuck in one of these spirals at the moment. I have some idea of the way out but ... I don't know. This might be a period of grief for myself or something. It took me a long time to realise I'd been lying to myself about a lot of things - stuff I'd did out of necessity for survival at the time, basically becoming water and pouring myself into whatever mold I thought would be safe, that people would like me in. Online spaces, that I carefully curate, detached from any real-life connection have been my home in the absence of feeling myself for so long - especially as the world around me shrank.

I'm hoping in the new year, as me and my psychologist start working on the C-PTSD that apparently had roots way, way deeper than I could even imagine - things might get easier. I'm hoping like hell that maybe my fatigue is connected, that it'll ease - because to finally, finally be in a place with a supportive parent who is attentive and I have the words to explain what I need, and for that to be respected - to finally be myself - only to be held back by my brain and body because the damage went so deep I just can't is agonizing.

I'm gonna keep believing that this is just the bottom of this mountain, this turn around point. It's gotta be, I feel like my entire life has been leveled. And I know it's not going to be easy to climb back up there, repair the damage, get where I want to be. I don't even know if I'll get to where I want to be but ... at least I'll be myself. For the first time in my life.

So um. Thank you. For being around. For being my foundation through this. Wish you guys all the best for 2024, and I hope I'll be able to share more cool things with you soon 💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤

Kery

[convexicalcrow]

we're gonna talk about pharaoh cub again. bc i am brainrotting hard over this skin and it's honestly kinda ridiculous. usual caveats of i am not an expert but do know enough to be like, wtf is that skin cubby?, and ofc there are exceptions and variations and wraps and cloaks and overskirts and other ornamentation as well depending on the occasion and time period. so it's def not wrong per se, just an ... unusual choice.

another caveat is that i love what he did with the pyramid and the approach he took, not making it a recreation but making his own twist on it, and i adored that mix of ancient and cub design. it was such a good way to do it and i'm not even mad. i'm not even mad about the skin. i just have. Questions. mr cubfan sir.

(also this will probably be quite Long and image-heavy but I need to get this shit out of my head so.)

i'm gonna start with a screenshot of some skins from the egyptian mythology pack on bedrock, which is the version of minecraft i mostly play bc it's what my partner plays. now, these skins are arguably not necessarily java-friendly, but i wanted to give you some sense of how you can do egyptian pharaoh skins in minecraft as a comparison so you can see how they translate.

obvs there's some variation in design (and for some reason, Tutankhamun - second from the right on the bottom row - appears to have been made to look like his sarcophagus, poor boy) but i've separated out the queens from the kings just so you can see the difference in style. the sleeve-ish look on a couple of the queens is more likely to be representing a shoulder wrap more than something with actual sleeves even though they'd made them look more like sleeves bc there's only so much detail you can get on a minecraft skin. but the important difference i want you to note is the queens all have ankle-length dresses/skirts, and the kings do not.

this is very typical of egyptian dress styles. men are usually shown with knee-length kilts, though, as i said, sometimes they are shorter or longer, or have longer overskirts over shorter kilts, or have more ornamentation. but the basic male style is a knee-length kilt. you'll see that more often than not.

women are usually shown wearing (something close to) ankle-length skirts and dresses. dresses are usually sleeveless and commonly skin-tight (or close to it), and they can have shoulder straps but some will sit up under the breasts instead. sometimes they will just be wearing a long skirt on its own. they will have shoulder wraps or longer body wraps for extra layers and these usually just cover the upper arms and can sometimes look like 'sleeves' but they aren't. just fabric covering the arms. they don't look anything like what cub has going on with his sleeves.

so, given all of that, this is a quick sketch of what i expected pharaoh cub to go with:

plz excuse the 5 min sketch and my shitty handwriting (bc it's been a long time since i've drawn in this style), but you can see all the basic things i would have gone with that would be easily replicated in a minecraft skin. the nemes headdress with uraeus (cobra), the beaded collar, the kilt, and the arm bands. the fake beard is probably the other essential but may or may not work depending on your skin's face.

but that's your basic pharaoh look. like, there are more ornamented and detailed looks, with cloaks and longer skirts and overskirts, and different hats and headdresses and whatnot, but that's really the basic look that you see in statuary and art. the nemes headdress is what sets him apart as pharaoh more than anything else (and the tail, but that's optional and difficult to do on a minecraft skin).

let's compare that to wtf cub did:

the kilt is long, and much more typical of female styles. an usual choice but not an incorrect one. like i said, this isn't actually wrong? just weird. he could have easily made it a shorter kilt and the design still would have worked. it's just not the typical style you will see for male Egyptian dress, is all.

also i fully appreciate, given the skin change in s8, how you can see old man cub as representing the fake beard bc it was never really his face, just the one he used for so long. it's a nice touch, even if it wasn't perhaps intended that way.

the sleeves tho. like. i do not understand the sleeves. egyptian styles just do not have sleeves like that. it may be he was trying to replicate the shoulder wrap look, but that's usually tied in the middle of the chest or at the waist and they usually only come down to the elbow and are not bound by the armbands or bracelets but sit over them. and they are more commonly seen on women. and there's no visible shirt or anything under the beaded collar to suggest the sleeves are part of some weird tiny undershirt. it's just skin.

also iirc from the pharaoh cub plushie he has bare shoulders? which is actually quite hard to see on the skin itself so idk maybe that's right, but it's even weirder if that's the case. he's just gone for arm warmer type things, with gold bands on either end, bc ... idk??? so i am baffled at this man wanting to show off his torso but not his limbs. weird flex, but okay cub, you do you.

it's why i keep saying the pharaoh cub skin is inherently feminine, bc it has these styles that are more typically female (but not exclusively so). hence, it's not wrong, just an odd choice. gives off bellydancer vibes as well fwiw. like he's a temple dancer and his torso is bare to emphasise his hips and belly and tiddies moving as he dances. like without the sleeves, it would be fine and it would lose some of those more feminine associations, but the sleeves tho, i am confused cub. wtf is up with the sleeves. they make absolutely no sense.

but do you know what the really fucked up weird thing about all of this is tho? i made this egyptian style self-portrait in a nonbinary style 9 years ago or so and guess who also used a long female-length skirt and a male head with a fake beard to queer my gender up. >_>

(i modelled myself off canonically bigendered Nile god Haapi tho. >_>)

(i did not give myself sleeves tho >_>)

honestly between this and the skulk cub thing i stg it's beginning to feel like cub and i share like one braincell XD

[arcadequeerz]

OKIE!! All the info I got on Chroma under the read more d:]

Chroma is bssed off of this MC Skin of mine! They’re a- void- energy- sort of creature- from under the bedrock.

Quite small, Body is solid black but has this Glowing, Shimmering and changing rainbow energy/outline around their body. It bleeds off of them/flows off of them, kind of like smoke/flames, but isn’t that. The energy gets way more intense if they happen to get mad, if they get pissed off bad enough they kind of just become a blazing mess of, eyebleedingly bright shades of random colors that flash and shift.

In general its kind of hard to look at them, They’re like- Vantablack, like a vague shape cut out of the space around them, emptiness but not empty, the shifting color distorts, and its hard to look at them for too long. Hands end in sharp claws, and they’re legs r digigrated, but end in simple sharp points instead of a actual foot.

They have a trail of translucent, rainbow colored spines/smoke that trail down along their spine n down the length of a thin tail, that ends in a sort of swirl/tuff of the rainbow energy. Also has it on their head, makes it look like they have a curly like, short ‘mowhawk’ bit its justs a swirling/curling mess of bright rainbow energy from the top of their head, to the back. The ‘spines’ on their back n tail pulse slowly.

They have two forms, their true form, and a more ‘player/human’ form where they kinda just- look the vague shape of a person, but still that rainbow, shifting outline to them. 

Their face is a glowing white smiley face, that can emote with different emoticon faces! But its usually a smiley face as default. Their head is square shaped, and floats between their shoulder, n isn’t connected to their body. It can spin. They pretty much look like- a sillhouette of a person, but slightly Off shape wise.

They take this form when around people/players to seem more approachable/less scary.

Chroma is able to pick up bedrock, and sort of ‘spawn’ it, they like to give it to random players to see their reactions, n find it very funny.

Chroma also has wings! They are not always out though, the wings are solid black- but the ends of their primary n secondary feathers are a shifting rainbow color. Their wings are: VERY BIG, they don’t look like they’re covered in feathers, but if you touch them, it feels like they are. 

If you were to touch Chroma, they’d feel warm, sort of smooth? and sofft/fuzzy. Kind of feel like they have electricity running through them. Their voice is rly echoy and kind of shifts in volume, but it sounds like they r talking inside of someones head, rather then outside of it when they speak!

Basic Idea for like, a story for Chroma:

Chroma is made of/from the void, what lies underneath Bedrock. They pretty much slip through a crack in it at the bottom of the world n get into the overworld.

Chroma is SUPPOSED to be a messenger from the void, Supposed to tell the players of the world of the coming end of it, when the void spills in to devour it entirely n them. They’re supposed to give this warning: but instead they get distracted, and get lost in like, the beauty of the world and lose sight of why they came to it in the first place.

Chroma pretty much: Sees the beauty of existance in their time of Living, and EXISTING on the overworld. Before they came from the void, they didn’t really Exist, they were just void- nothing, but now they’ve existed, seen the beauty of it and the world, and kinda like. Fall in love with Existing/being.

When the void finally spills through to destroy the world, Chroma and friends fight back against it- They no longer care to be part of the void- the idea of no longer existing scares them- and Angers them- so they fight back against the void to save the world they’ve grown to love and their friends.

Chroma is easily distracted, they get drawn in by things easily, simple things like a beautiful flower will have them marveling at it for far longer then any normal person would. They see beauty n magic in EVERYTHING n enjoy existence and simply Being.

[enchantmentable]

Think of All the Years Gone By

Summary: It’s been five years, and Tubbo is still mourning his lost country. (a clingy duo fic)

Warnings: there’s a short argument, allusions to death and character death, grief (though it’s not horribly heavy, this is still a fic about grief and loss)

Word Count: 1710

AO3

There was a small hole in the glass floor that lay over a crater. The hole was small and jagged and hidden under an overhang of rock, but it was there and Tubbo had found it pretty easily when he’d walked over the crater the first year. He wasn’t one to miss little things like that.

He’d wondered as he’d approached if he’d be able to slip past the sharpened edges of the glass without cutting himself, but he needn’t have worried. After the first three years, he’d mostly stopped growing and had remained almost as small as he’d been during— during it. He slipped past the glass and into the crater easily. 

Sliding down the cliff face with an arm raised and a careful hand dragging over the rocks as he passed, he landed safely on the same ledge he’d landed on for the past five years. He followed the trail of footprints that had remained branded in the dust and ash down a few more meters of rock to get closer to the bottom of the crater. Once his feet hit bedrock, he spotted the boulder he’d sat on every year prior and settled himself on top of it. 

Tubbo looked up, up, up at the sky and saw it still covered in traces of night. He took a deep breath of the trapped air and waited for the sun to rise.

Briefly, Tubbo was distracted by the sound of someone walking over the glass, but after reminding himself of the overhang of rock above him, he assured himself that no one would be able to see him all the way down here unless they already knew where he’d be. Reassured by that, his gaze returned to the crater, prepared to wait at least an hour for the winter sunlight to reach him down there.

He’d been considering the red vines that still crawled all along the bedrock floor when he heard noise above him again. Frowning, Tubbo stood up from his boulder and stepped out from beneath the overhang of rock. He scanned the glass above him, looking for any sign that someone he knew was out and about at this hour. He nearly called out a curious ‘hello?’ out of habit before he remembered that he didn’t really want to talk to anyone this morning and stayed silent, watching warily for movement instead.

Not a moment later, Tubbo heard a quiet yelp and watched as a few pebbles tumbled down the cliff and landed at his feet. Unable to stop himself this time, he called out, “You alright?”

This caused another, louder yelp followed by another, larger waterfall of rocks to cascade down the cliff. There was a moment of silence as the person above him presumably caught their breath. Tubbo watched as a hand forming a thumbs-up gesture stuck out over the ledge. “Yep,” came a weak voice in reply after the moment had passed. 

Tubbo frowned, recognition ringing immediately through his mind. “Tommy?” 

A head replaced the hand. “Tubbo?”

“I didn’t know you knew about this way to get into the crater.”

“I didn’t! I just found it today.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

There’s another pause as Tommy and Tubbo just stare at each other before Tommy speaks again. “How’d you get down?”

“I slid.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, I did! I did! All the way ‘til the ledge, at least, then I followed the path I made earlier. There are footprints.” 

Tommy shook his head and pulled back from the ledge. A second later, Tubbo watched as a figure fell towards him, a bucket of water gripped in his hands. There was a splash, and Tommy was standing next to him, unharmed but for the fact that his shoes and the hems of his pants were soaked through. “My way’s better,” he claimed before Tubbo could even properly say hello.

“Sure.”

“The path though—you’ve been here before?”

“Every year.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Tubbo shrugged, walking back over to his boulder, landing hard against it. “Didn’t want to.”

“I was there too, you know. I miss it as well. I mean, that’s why I’m here now, innit?”

“It’s not the same,” Tubbo said quietly, staring down at his folded hands.

“Well, no, it is.”

Tubbo looked up sharply, his eyes full of something cold and hard. “It’s fucking not! It wasn’t your country that got blown up, was it?”

Tommy recoiled. “I mean, guess not, but—”

“Then it’s not the same.”

Tommy went quiet for a moment before responding. “It wasn’t your fault though. It was mine.”

Tubbo just laughed. “No it wasn’t.”

“Without me though, Techno never would have—”

“Trust me,” Tubbo cut him off with a scoff, “they’d have razed this place to the ground even if you’d done everything right.”

“But—”

“It was never about you, Tommy. It was the fact that we were a government, and under my leadership, we were still seen as oppressors.”

They both let the silence hang heavy in the air.

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, really, but Tubbo nodded anyway.

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know. It’s alright. I’m… more pissy today anyway. Another reason I prefer to just be alone these mornings.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Tommy sat down on the ground next to Tubbo’s boulder. “D’you… want to talk about it or something?”

“Nope.”

“Okay.”

They both went quiet again, but Tubbo could see from the look on Tommy’s face that he wanted to keep talking. Sighing, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Can I?”

Tubbo shrugged. “I offered, didn’t I?”

“Right. Yeah. You did.”

“Right.”

“Okay it’s just that— I don’t know. I just miss it. A lot. I miss the feeling we had, being a part of something, and I miss when it was easier to just… be.”

“I don’t think you really miss L’manburg then. Or, well, New L’manburg. I think you just miss when you didn’t think you had to save the world.”

“Do you not miss it?”

“Well, no, I didn’t say that, but it was— it was more than what you said. It was protection and safety, and at least for my New L’manburg, I wanted it to be somewhere where we didn’t have to worry about dying all the time. I miss that feeling. And losing that feels like— it almost feels like losing a parent or something, I don’t know. The type of grief is similar at least, I think. I’ve never lost a parent though, so like… yeah, I’ve got no clue.”

“No, yeah. I’ve never lost a parent either, not really, but… like. I know what you mean. Wilbur… he was similar to that, at least. And losing him November 16th was like that for me. Losing L’manburg, though, that was like losing a home, losing a place I could call my own. I wasn’t— I didn’t have anywhere like that after—” he gestured to the destruction in front of them— “after this.”

“I guess this place was just different for us, then.”

“Yeah.”

Tubbo had to take a long breath before he was confident his voice would be steady again. “And like— today is bad, and that day was worse than I could genuinely ever say, but… I get it, I guess. I know why they’d want to destroy it. But it still— like, it still, uh—”

“Hurts?”

“Mhm. For both of us. All of us, probably.”

They lapsed into silence, looking up at the sky again, and Tubbo slid off from his boulder, sitting beside Tommy and pressing their shoulders together. “It’s been five years now,” he said softly, “and I’m still not over it. Still makes my chest ache a little bit every year.”

“I don’t think this is ever gonna be something that you’re gonna just. Get over.”

“Yeah, I know. I still— I still try.”

“If it helps, I can tell you do a lot to keep it alive still. It’s nice. Makes me miss it less, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You were the one who made New L’manburg all the good things it was, so even though it’s gone, it’s still… you. You know?”

“Not really.”

“Well, it’s the truth. I wish I could be that for you.”

“I don’t think anyone could be what New L’manburg was to me. It’s not the sort of thing that could be replicated, even if we tried again.”

Tommy sighed. “I know. I still want to help you miss it less.”

Tubbo went quiet, but what he wanted to say was that mourning alone had hurt so fucking much and that Tommy just being here had helped more than anything else ever had. He didn’t say that, but he asked, “Would you come down here with me next year too?”

“For year six?”

Tubbo nodded. 

“Of course, Tubbs.”

“Thanks. The sunrise is boring without anyone to see it with.”

They were both fully aware that’s not why Tubbo wanted to bring Tommy along, but that went without saying. So they didn’t say it, and the truth lay between them, forever unsaid.

“Winter sunrises are my least favorite,” Tubbo commented, forcing the air around them to feel light again.

“Yeah, they’re real ugly, aren’t they?”

“The light’s so watery. Kinda sucks that they didn’t destroy the country a few months later, you know? It would’ve been nicer to watch the sunrise then.”

“We’ll have to mention that to Techno next time he’s dead set on destroying a country, yeah?”

“Oh, for sure.”

“This sunrise doesn’t even have the decency to be that much later in the day. It’s still so early for such a boring experience.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo laughed, glancing over at Tommy with a smile. “Yeah.”

Shoulder to shoulder, they watched in silence as the sun rose over the edge of the crater, marking an official five years since one of the worst days of their lives. Quietly, Tommy pulled a bottle of champagne from beneath his jacket. He popped the cork and raised it in Tubbo’s direction. “Here’s to one more year.” He took a sip and held it out in offering.

Tubbo took the bottle into his hand and took a sip of his own. “To one more year,” he repeated. 

[ganymedesclock]

I kinda wanna hear your thoughts on NiGHTS, if you don't mind me asking. I just really like your speculation/headcanon posts!

I have great affection and great frustration for NiGHTS, honestly.

There’s a lot to love about the series. It’s got exquisite visuals and a really cool concept. While the gameplay isn’t completely my cup of tea, I think it’s a novel innovation. The designs of Nights and Reala, their bond and conflict, are really interesting and Wizeman’s a pretty impressive chunk of cosmic horror. I even feel like some of the dislike of Owl in JoD was unwarranted; yes, he was made the face of the slightly clumsy tutorial mechanism but it’s hard for me to not care a little that Nights, who is privately lonely in ways they seem disinclined to admit to anyone, clearly has some mutual fondness for this fussy bird dad.

But I definitely feel like the games have their problems- and I’ll focus here mostly on JoD because I feel like NiD itself was a pretty minimalist piece flying more on emotion than deep lore and it was successful in that regard.

I feel like JoD in particular struggled to decide if this was a story about Nights and Reala or a story about Will and Helen, and while they could’ve made room for both, it would’ve required more integration than they pulled off, and it ultimately weakens both narratives. 

Nights never really meaningfully reaches a conclusion with Reala. They get angry enough to hurt him, feel bad about it, Reala goes on to take their new friends hostage, and Nights gets angry again and, seemingly, finishes Reala off, either personally, or indirectly because their attempt to kill Wizeman would affect Reala too. Even the nature of their sacrifice is hampered here because they don’t really sell us on what it is about Will and Helen that makes things so different. I take issue with the short-lived archie Nights’ comic’s invention about the “two perfect dreamers born once a century” but it at least explains all the hullabaloo about these specific people. I don’t mean that to be callous- but there has to be a reason Nights makes their stand here and now, even if it’s for internal reasons rather than Will and Helen, and we don’t get a sense of why that is.

Will and Helen themselves have the seeds of interesting or compelling problems, but they aren’t really brought home either. The conclusions they make don’t really feel of a piece with the nature of their issues. We don’t really find out what about Helen is ‘fragile’, and you have to read into things to see the contrast between Will’s lonely, ‘abandoned playground’-like second dream and the vibrant potential of his third dream, this fear that if you can’t grow up people will leave you behind in childhood.

JoD takes from its roots in NiD that it is good at evoking emotions. Many of the ‘major beat’ cutscenes land with really impressive intensity and evocative qualities! I can vividly call to mind Nights and Reala’s argument in Delight City or Reala circling Helen menacingly in Memory Forest. 

But I feel like the devil’s in the details. Frustratingly often for me, these vibrant splashes of story were followed up by, like... hey kids, it’s time to chase Octopaw around in circles again! This is in-universe and out a completely pointless exercise! Let’s save some Nightopians from Wizeman, never once examining or explaining what Wizeman wants with them!

I try not to gripe too hard on Wizeman’s inscrutability because he as a character at least resonates with it- that he’s only a handful of ominous details in the dark actually kind of works for his character and the jawdropping beauty of the Unconscious Space and Will and Helen’s respective leaps of faith into the sea of darkness is contrasted by a profound sense of unease. Why is this space simultaneously so real and unreal? If Nights lands on a real-world building at the end of the game, sure, they’re alive, but is that a good thing, if they’re inextricably connected to Wizeman and Wizeman seems to be clawing at the veil between dream and waking?

Again, this is not a frustration of I hate these games. It’s a frustration of, I really love these games, but they feel like a vivid concept padded into existence with inconsistent flesh where the most interesting workings of both worlds- the real world emotional problems, and the dream world’s politics and potential fate under Wizeman’s onslaught- struggle because they’re ramming into each other at cross purposes rather than intertwining and facilitating/shoring each other up. There is some unbelievably premium good shit in NiD and JoD both but the experience of those glorious moments is undercut with the disappointment of going straight from that, to, octopaw. Nights do you wanna talk to Owl about how you unhealthily use harassing this octopus as a way to run away from serious emotional talks? No?

All of this has been a big reason why I’m looking forwards to Balan Wonderworld eagerly, because, Balan Wonderworld seems to be doing the spirit of what NiGHTS was as a series, and directly answering some of the problems of JOD. The human-side dynamics are spiced up with the chapters each having their own stars-of-the-day, and we’re digging into more raw emotional territory than stage fright or a nebulous insecurity growing up- just the three released so far are dealing with unexpected catastrophe bringing ruin to months of hard work, an accident leading to medical problems and a sense of betrayal, and the ‘pettiest’ problem, interpersonal rejection, is easily the most heartbreaking because it showcases how little self-confidence that afflicted person had. 

Balan’s more mature position as a maestro and a hands-off sort of narrator figure while Leo and Emma take center stage means that I don’t mind as much when the kids get focus- in JoD, while Will and Helen were kids, Nights seemed like a teenager who was disconcertingly willing to throw themselves under the bus for friends they met yesterday and this wasn’t really framed as a bad thing. With Balan, I feel like even if Balan does at some point in the narrative sacrifice himself to advance Leo and Emma, it’d play to very different tropes- the removal of the magic feather or mentor, as a lesson you have to fly on your own.

(and, Balan is an integral part of the Wonderworld itself, and I have reason to suspect Lance would have a vested interest not fully ‘removing’ him even if they at some point separated him from Leo and Emma)

The kids themselves are also shored up in terms of intrigue. I’m really excited for square enix’s involvement, because they’ve produced a few stories that dig at emotions, and taking characters from the stock of, say, Neku and Shiki from World Ends With You, who Leo and Emma have passing resemblance to (a boy who lost a friend and became disillusioned and closed off, a girl who’s ebullient and sociable and more than a little insincere in it, hiding an insecure, lonely core) I think this is very promising.

That doesn’t mean I am abandoning all love for the NiGHTS series or that I think it’s garbage compared to Balan Wonderworld, especially since they have different themes and motifs and one isn’t even out yet, but I think that it’s interesting how, to my eye, the Wonderworld game seems like a sort of continuation or refinement upon JoD- that NiGHTS in some ways seems to be an inspiration bedrock for this new theater adventure.

Ultimately even if Balan Wonderworld is everything I hope for and more, there’s always going to be a place in my heart for NiGHTS, though. (I mean, hell, Nights themselves was an instrumental force in me figuring out my own relationship with gender.) 

(and, once the game DOES come out, I feel like I’m certainly not the only one who’s gonna want to write crossover fic.)

TL;DR I love the nightmare jesters from the absolute bottom of my heart but I just wish we had a little more plot to squeeze loose.

[ambistep]

Mina, 31

Retribution spoilers, Argentstep, Chargestep, some angst, lil bit soft. tw: brief suicide mention

Mostly inspired by talking to @cheion-writes and the moodboard she made, but then I got a little mopey and then someone gave me a little drabble prompt, so I kinda smushed them together.

Mina drags Argent outside for once. Julia wants answers but only gets feelings.

~ ~ ~

It’s a coffee place, but they both got hot chocolate. 

The daytime heat has started to bleed away and somewhere around midnight, Los Diablos actually got really nice. By day, these streets would be bustling, throbbing with the human crush of the downtown area - but right now, it is a few wait staff, scattered night owls, some other couples and just these two - two of the most dangerous women in the city.

Mina winces a little - her chocolate is still a little too hot to drink. Her date doesn’t have that problem. “I thought you’d like it - everything feels softer at night, quieter - even the stuff that isn’t. Maybe it’s different if you’re not a telepath but… daytime feels like shouting. Frantic.”

“Usually I’m working if I’m out this late.” She leans back in the wrought iron chair. In the cute little faux-gas lamp light of the cafe, she’s much less argent, and something closer to gunmetal grey. A little more handsome even, if Mina were being honest with herself, though she rarely is. “But I get it. It’s like… being in public without being in public.” It would be easy to miss but the corner of her lip does tug toward a smile.

“Exactly!” Mina laughs in triumph, “I knew you’d appreciate it.” That’s the bedrock, what makes this whole thing work - even when it shouldn’t. Being open with their weirdness, their quirks, their hang ups - not having to bury it away for the sake of performing ‘normal.’ But there’s something bothering her. Mina can tell.  “…what?”

She leans forward, downing a scalding sup from her cup. “You were arguing with Ortega.”

Mina wrinkles her nose - a tic when faced with discomfort - usually with the truth. A bad habit for a habitual liar. Her voice is a little weak. “Ah. I thought we said no mind-reading.”

She scoffs, “Please. I can tell when you’re stuck on Julia. You space out when you think I’m not looking, and you talk like you’re thinking far away.” Years and years away, Ximena suspects. “It’s either really cute or really sad, but you were doing it the whole walk over.” 

“You’re making that up,” Mina’s indignance is mostly for show - mostly. Her expressions, her voice patterns are impeccable - the result of Farm training and a mountain of social anxiety.

She relents, caught out, “Fine, fine. I heard you two back at the lounge .” And then defends herself, “What? I have good hearing - and I know I heard one of my names.”

Mina grimaces, “Yes, well. We haven’t exactly been discrete, you and I.”

“What, don’t tell me Julia fucking Ortega, who kissed four of the five members of the Calamity Clan, is jealous or something?”

“That was like eight years ago, how do you even know about that?” She sounds halfway between grossed out and impressed. “And… not exactly.”

~ ~ ~

“What is it then, jealousy?” You fold your arms across your stomach protectively, closing your eyes then looking up toward the ceiling - anywhere but her face. 

“You know me better than that. Not jealous.” Julia steps in close, her strong hands resting on your shoulders. “Confused maybe. A little hurt. It’s just… you seem good for each other. And…” You can’t read her thoughts, but you know what’s coming. Ortega pulls back a little, turning away, “I think we both said we loved each other once.” 

Oh, Hell. You’re tearing up a little. Come on, Mina, you were trained better than that. 

“Stop me if I’m wrong.” You don’t. Julia goes on, “Last we settled on it, I kind of felt like maybe we still do, even if… even if we can’t figure out what to do about it. I want to be there, waiting for you, but…”

You put your hand up to your mouth, clenched in a fist, knuckles to your lips to keep them from twisting into some embarrassing shape. “I know, Jules…”

“So I just see you two and I… why couldn’t I be there for you , like she is?” That’s hurt - real hurt in Julia’s voice. She covers it up quickly, “Okay, and maybe I get a little tiny, itty bit jealous.” She turns back to face you, flashing her smirk - that unfair smile. It is eating at you, just having Julia this close. “I’m still only human, yeah?” 

It’s too absurd, you almost laugh - not for the reason she thinks. Only human. It’s your turn to be jealous. Your fist unfolds and you gesture, trying to gather your words and be stronger about this. “It isn’t fair. I know, you shouldn’t have to deal with all of my…” you hate to curse, you really do - part of the conditioning you struggle breaking, but in this case… it fits, “…shit. It’s just…  simple with her.”

Julia laughs, shaking her head in disbelief, shoulders slumping a little, “There’s a lot of words to describe Angie, and simple is not one of them.”

That’s fair. So what did you mean? Conceding the point, you try again, “Fine, it’s more like…” …you don’t have to worry about feeling like monsters together. You can’t say that though. “…there’s things in our lives we’re working through, and it’s hard to relate that to other people.” 

You messed up, you know you messed up. That hadn’t been what you wanted to say but you can’t say what you wanted to say. Ortega’s whole body tightens - that’s real anger coming off her - you shrink back.

“You think you’re the only two ‘working through’ things? What do you think I’ve been doing - I am still doing, Mina? You don’t tell me anything, and then want me to understand, I can’t even talk to you most of the time, only talk at you. I must be insane - I fucking buried you and I was still waiting for you.” She paces away from you, putting distance, brushing her short hair back, trying and failing to cool off. “So yes, it makes me upset, knowing that you can open up with her. I want that with you. But ay! Fuck me, right?” 

She throws her hands up, “I know I loved you, and I know I’m trying, but I… I don’t know, are you?”

Your thoughts are so far outside your body that you can’t know what it is doing - probably making an ugly pathetic face, but it’s the only way to weather the body blows Charge is hammering you with. It would be good, nice, to slip away, escape into Yasmin’s body right now, and be Not-Mina. Yasmin who can match Julia with her own charming smile, who can slip out of a cute little dress, who can afford to be reckless and carefree for a single solitary night. 

“Come on, Mina, say something, give me something.” She’s angry - no, she’s begging, and you’re not even being present. She’s right to be mad - she wants to have this still but God, you have to throw her a lifeline, because she’s slipping away, and you can’t let that happen.

It is hard to pull out words that will mean anything when you aren’t ready to go near those truths. Your voice comes out brittle - if Julia were to push back, you would crumble, “…I’m sorry. I’m trying, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but… every day, I’m getting closer. To being someone who you can reach, to figuring out how I can be Mina again, or what that would even mean.” Your voice is a whisper, because any more and it quivers,“You have been, so, so patient.” So you settle on truth - not the whole truth, or the factual truth but… Mina, just do this without any lies, alright? Let’s promise.

There’s still that anger, that tension in her limbs, but the heat has cooled. She turns away and you don’t even think about it - unusual - you hug your smaller body into hers, your cheek against her back, “I can’t talk about it yet, not all of it, but… the place where I was, was so dark, and so far away. I can’t… there were pieces of Mina all over, and I wasn’t even me. I don’t have words for those kinds of depths.” 

Objects can’t kill themselves, but you tried anyway - and those were the better days. You wished you’d fought harder but all too often, you gave them what they wanted: no mind to think, no will to break, no voice to cry suffering. A hollow vessel. It was how you survived.

“I- I forgot how to be human.” You’re rambling. Your tears are making her shirt wet. Quit it. “I was… I am, sometimes still - so, so angry, and I have to hold on to it because sometimes it is the only thing that keeps me together. It made me strong enough to piece myself back together, to set foot in this city again.” You wonder if any of this will make sense to her. Then you wonder if it even makes sense to you.

“And I had to come back. A part of me will always belong to Julia Ortega. Always. Wherever I’m going, I know it can’t be someplace without you.” She treated you like a human, pushed through your boundaries and made you believe you could have something like that. 

She gave you hope for some kind of better life, and sometimes you hate her for that - but never for very long.

“I know you’ve been waiting. I just… I have to work harder, settle things,” face your enemies, then put down that anger, put down that past, “then I can stand in front of you, and be just… Mina.” But you have to build that future first - a future where those orange brands on your flesh won’t matter so much. 

Your hands are wrapped around her, clasped to her chest - and her hands are on your hands. She’s quiet - the fire’s gone out, “I don’t need a perfect you - this one’s fine.”

You laugh, a bitter, wet laugh, “She’s not. She’s really, really not. But she’s getting there.”

There’s a pause, “…is Angela helping with that?”

Your tears are starting to dry. It is a good question. What’s the true answer? No lies - you promised yourself. “…yeah, she’s helping.”

Julia turns to you and… looks strange to your eyes for a moment. Her smile is strained, thin. Age tugs at the corner of her eyes. There’s a scar you don’t remember near the bottom of her left ear. Not strange - this is Ortega. It’s just not Ortega from eight years ago, it is Ortega now, and God, you have to try and remember that there is a world of difference between the two.

Her thumb wipes at your eye, gently brushing past your cheek, “…can I kiss you?”

You’re wondering if you could even withstand it - but your body must have answered first. The space between you closes and it is the softest, gentlest kiss. She’s worried she’ll scare you off. Worried you’ll disappear. Again. But not this time, you’re better at this. You’ve been practicing. 

She smiles - a real smile. Charge’s kind of smile. Stronger again. And maybe old Ortega isn’t so far away like you thought. “Good luck. I’ll be here.”

[dailyaudiobible]

12/03/2019 DAB Transcript

Daniel 11:2-35, 1 John 3:7-24, Psalms 122:1-9, Proverbs 29:1

Today is December 3rd. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It's great to be here with you today as we take the next step forward in our year and take the next step forward on this path that we have been following for this year through the Bible, which will take us back into the book of Daniel in our Old Testament reading and back into the letter, the first letter of John in our New Testament reading. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Daniel chapter 11 verses 2 through 35.

Commentary:

Alright. Let’s talk about what we read in first John today because if we can grasp what we read in first John today it's one of the most poignant, pivotal, important…I’m trying to like think about other words, this is like bedrock stuff for how we’re supposed to live a life of faith, like what it's supposed to actually look. So, like John…John asks a question, “if anyone has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him”,  which if you think about it causes us to pause for a second and just think, “what is the purpose of God's benevolence?” Like, “what is…why…why would He bless anybody in any way?” Like, “is He blessing us for our good behavior? Is He blessing us because He just simply loves us more and wants us to benefit more, or does He love and bless us so that He can then love and bless through us, or because of us, or in collaboration?” And before we go any further, let's like jump out of first John and go back to the gospel of John and see that John quotes Jesus. So now from John's Gospel I am speaking the words of Jesus. “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples”. So, all of the sudden we’re starting to see James and Peter’s point being made in John's letter and that is fundamentally that we can't claim a faith that does not change our actions in any way, right? Like, we can claim anything but if we're not living that it's not true. So, taking that further, we can't claim to walk in the love of God if there's no love flowing out of us into the world, right? True faith, true love compels us into action, which is…which is what John said. So, let me quote John from first John. “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything.” So, what we’re being told here is that love is the thing, and love cannot be fully expressed in word alone or talk. It must be done in deed and in truth. So, in another words it's offered not as a manipulation, it's offered freely as an honest true gift and borne out in the actions of our lives. And, so, John gives us a gauge. “By this”, which is our love in action, “by our love in action, we will know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him.” Because if our heart is condemning us and we are loving in deed and in truth, well then we know we are on the right path and God is greater than our heart or any kind of condemnation that will come against us. We’re certain of God's love and that His love is within us when we see Him loving through us. And we see him loving through us when we open the floodgates and let love flow out of us. This is where it gets really helpful. This is where the layers start peeling back. We started talking about what was the purpose of God's blessing upon us in the first place. And if we look, any kind of blessing that we get we usually try to hoard. We usually live from a place of lack. We usually live as if what we have obtained is in limited supply, which then leads us to be very self-absorbed about just about everything in our lives, which according to John then reveals that God’s love is absent from the equation. So, there's an example that I like to use…because…well…because it's biblical. And we’ll go back and see this for ourselves in February when we go back to the land of the Bible. There’s this geographical body of water known as the Dead Sea. It's known as the Dead Sea because it sits at…it's the lowest point on earth, right? There's nothing lower. So, when water flows into the Dead Sea there's no way for it to continue its journey, it has reached the bottom, like the lowest point on earth. And, so, it stays there, becomes stagnant and there’s no life in it. Water flows into it but can't leave. But just north of there is another very famous body of water known as the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is also below sea level. In fact, it's the lowest freshwater lake in the world. Water comes out of the mountains and fills the Sea of Galilee, which has a tributary known as the Jordan River. And the Jordan River flows out of the Sea of Galilee bringing life all along the line and eventually dumps into the Dead Sea. So, let's just…like if we think back to the time when Jesus walked to this earth until today water has continued to flow out of the mountains into the Sea of Galilee, out of the Sea of Galilee down the Jordan River and into the Dead Sea. We’re talking about billions and billions of gallons of melting snow and rainwater and fresh living water that has flowed out of the Sea of Galilee since Christ lived around it. It's still full of water. Billions of gallons have flowed out of it and it’s still full of water and it's never grown stagnant because new water is constantly flowing into it. What John’s trying to tell us here is that there is no lack, there is no shortage of God's love, but we will only ever experience that kind of life and that kind of awareness when we’re not trying to hoard and look at everything from a sense of lack. When we throw open the floodgates and allow everything that flows in to flow back out then we do not become stagnant, then we do not become a lifeless, like the Dead Sea. So, are we living in lack spiritually, physically, in any way? Are we living in lack because we have habitually been selfish? Then what we are witnessing is ourselves becoming stagnant and we will not find life in that direction. But if our hearts actually have been overcome with the love of God then that is gonna require more than us just saying it. It's going to propel us to love in every way that we can think. And what we’ll find is that the more we’re willing to love the more full we’re going to become. No matter how much love flows out of us we will be filled again with God's love because there is no lack, and he's loving the world through us and this is the only way we will ever get a sense of fullness, wholeness. When we start to hoard then that is all there is. We have…my dad used to use an example, he’d say, “get all you can. Can all you get. And sit on the lid” as an example of this kind of behavior. When we do that though, even if the can is full that is all there will ever be. When John is telling us, when the Bible, the Scriptures, are telling us, we are tapped into the author of life, and the energy that is flowing through that connection is known as love. And if we’re willing to give it away, we will never be in lack of it. So, I mean it’s hard to ignore that we’re moving full force into the holiday…into the Christmas season. This is something we need to carry with us through this season. The greatest gift we will ever be able to offer is an open heart. God can do miracles through the open hearts of his children. And yet if we’re going to be closed off and stagnant then we can say whatever we want to say, there is no life there. So, it's a matter of which direction we want to head in  from here.

Prayer:

Father, we want to head in the direction of love. It's just that sometimes people are hard to love and because that's difficult it exposes all of our brokenness and then all of a sudden we’re just wallowing in brokenness when You have come to make us full and whole and all we have to do is surrender and find ourselves in an ocean of love that is inexhaustible. Show us how to live like that because that would be becoming Christlike. That is the direction we are supposed to be heading in. We can’t get there on our own. And, so, we invite Your Holy Spirit to once again illuminate our path and lead us into all truth. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base, where you find out what’s going on around here.

And we are certainly in…in the Christmas season. I think yesterday was cyber Monday. Yeah. And, so, we have the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box. We bring that out every Christmas and pack a box full of some of the most popular resources that we have and ship ‘em all over the world and just pray over them. And it's…it's fun because there’s things in the box that you’ll want to keep for yourself but there's also things in the box that you…you may want to give away as gifts and just to pray over those things and just understand that they’re going out all over the world through…through this community. And it’s a beautiful thing to see God working in the world that way. So, we have the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box. It's available now. The international ship date for that cut off was yesterday. We’ll…we’ll ship them anywhere in the world, but we felt like kinda yesterday was the cutoff for Christmas arrival, where it was safe for Christmas arrival. But we’ll ship anywhere in the world. Here in the United States we’re still good, although they are going fast so we may run out of them. So, check that…check that out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop. There is a Christmas section and it has three items in it: the Christmas Box for this year that we were just talking about; the Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards which can be purchased separately. They come in packs of 20 with their matching envelopes for…for $4.99. So, fivce bucks. And yeah, I mean, you can’t…you can’t beat that…that's…there's no margin is what I'm saying. We make these as resources to give to you to use to invite your friends and family on the journey with you next year but there not…there not Daily Audio Bible advertisements. There just Christmas cards, but they leave generous space for you to write and the only thing that says dailyaudiobible.com on it is just on the back where it would say Hallmark. And it's just their real easy to…to…to use. So, those are in the Christmas section as well as our Christmas album, Family Christmas, which you can order from Daily Audio Bible Shop but you can also stream on Spotify or Apple music or wherever you get your music, Amazon music, wherever you get your music you can find it. Just search my name and look for Family Christmas. And that is a soundtrack that we have created for the season and it's beautiful and lush and relaxing and contemplative. It's a great thing to listen to with just the Christmas lights and a cup of hot cocoa or whatever. I do it every year. I mean it was created to be that…to set that atmosphere. And, so, check that out as well.

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And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is number to dial.

And that is it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

[rosey-writes]

Eliot- Violin, Marimba, Fiyero- Bagpipes, Jason- Harp, Jonathan- Oud, Sparks- Recorder, Matthias- Organ, Axel- Harpsichord, to the mod- Marimba, Hai Lin- Trumpet, sorry for such a long one, you don’t have to do them all!

mSorry I took for literal ever, I wanted to make sure they were all good, hopefully I succeeded! I’ll try to be faster next time Eliot

Bravon’s going to call me an ‘emo bitch’ for this, but- I don’t get sad all too often. Never have. Usually it comes out as me being pissed, which I personally find much more useful. Even at things that do make me sad instead of the much more useful anger, I do everything in my power to turn it into anger- to find a problem and solution and do it. I don’t believe in lying down and accepting whatever happened. You move on and you break whatever did it to you, or you die trying.

As for my ‘defining trait’? I have no fucking clue- let me go ask Bravon and Axel.

(Ten. Minutes Later)

Well Bravon said it was that I’m bottom, and Axel said it’s that I can make great hot chocolate so they’re useless. 

I guess if not those, I don’t fucking know- I guess I’m resilient? If that’s the word? I don’t like inaction, not doing anything to me is worse than self destruction. Humans weren’t meant to take being pushed down, you keep going even if it hurts you more. 

Fiyero:

How sweet of you for asking ❤️

My heritage is my lifeblood. Why wouldn’t it be? Not everyone is lucky enough o be a Deamorte, why wouldn’t I show it as much as I could~ We’ve been celebrities since Venice, what’s there not to be proud of! ❤️ 💖

As for country wise, while I admit I’m not the largest fan of my hair, I love my Irish background from my father’s side, they’re such a fiery people, how could I not? And my mother’s Roman ancestry is the reason I have the gifts I do- the bedrock of civilization and all that. And nothing in this world could compre with the marble streets of Italy.

Of course, I would love to add some more Irish to the family line, right, @liliesinwrittendreams ?

Jason:

Bagpipes? Really? You pick the most lame-ass instrument there is? Whatever- least I got a better ask than Johnny. Good luck to that creep explaining his shitty parents. 

Anyway- pride? In my heritage? I mean, gotta say, I’m white as fuck. We’re Mayflower bitches. Some of the first police officers in the state, went back since for literal ever. Pretty proud I guess, police, generals, pretty badass. But I don’t really like relating to my old man unless I have to.

Fuckin’ dick.

I drink a lot of beer? That count as ‘showing my heritage’? Fuck it, sure, love German beer. We’ll call it that.

Jonathan:

I don’t know why Jason would think I wouldn’t want to answer this, I love my family, all of them, even the...problem child, Jason grew up to be.

Well, not ‘grew up’. He was always like this. Throwing my dolls in the river and all that.

It’s a hard call, honestly, between Jason and my ma, but, I’m sure you’ve all heard enough about Jason to last a lifetime.

[”Jonathan you creepy fuck stop trying to write me ou-]

Ignore him. He got his attention seeking from father.

Besides that, I’d say my ma’s the one who taught me. She fell sick when I was younger, so I was the one who took over the farm work, especially when Jason left to move to the city with father. Seeing her so weak, helpless, the woman who gave life, who held me when I was crying as a child, protected me from my father’s rampages, would jump in front of his fist in the name of protecting her child, I learned just how important it was to protect the weak.

That’s why I know it’s my callin’ in life, protecting what can’t protect themselves. Animals, children, weaker adults. Even if my mother is no longer in this world-bless her heart- I’m still around to keep her legacy around. 

And, if I can say anything about it, I’m goin’ to make a world safe for people like her.

Sparks:

Oh, gosh, I-I, I don’t remember much of when I was a kid. I spent a lot of time inside, we were traveling all the time, s-so I didn’t get much of a chance to make friends. I had a lot of siblings, though, who were always with me, I loved a lot! I don’t keep in much contact with them anymore, my older sister, Mai, tries to call me sometimes but, u-usually it’s to try and get me to join It Works...

Oh! I remember it. It’s like a really really specific thing but...

When I was a kid, really young, I got picked on a lot. I was kinda weird, had- have- a gaptooth, didn’t really get other kids. A couple kids started messing with me, pushing me to the ground and I hurt my arm really bad on the school steps.

I guess...I just remember really clearly how I felt in that moment. Well, that, that I didn’t feel. I’d seen in every movie, seen other kids in that moment, they’d cry, they’d feel bad and...

I didn’t.

I wanted to. I tried to talk mean to myself while they did it. I repeated the names they called me, I called myself ugly and stupid and a freak, but, I couldn’t make myself sad. It was weird. I wanted to know what sad felt like, if nothing else than curiosity. 

That was when I realized why I was different, I think. I didn’t know why mom was taking me to doctors before that, I didn’t understand. I do now though. It’s been hard but, I’ve worked through it. I just needed an ù̶̟͋p̶͇͈̑d̷̦͊a̴̠̳͗̔̇t̶͇̬͆́e̷͇̜̋͑̿.

Matthias: 

LOL, thought you said Organ. Like, ya know. A dick. Is a dick an organ? BRB, gotta google that.

Well I’ll be danged.

Anywhoswhatevers. Blowy thing. Duuude, we watched the Ring, it was sick. Dad and I have horror movie Mondays, which, yeah, tehcnically god doesn’t like or whatever, but, dad says as long as we get permission from the pastor ahead of time, we’re good. 

And, when ya’ got the pastor’s nudes, anything is good by him.

It’s so funny, that movie scares the poop out of anyone, so watchin’ dad watch it was so freaking funny. Wish I had a vid. He started crying once, unplugged the phone, it was great. 10/10, would recommend. V good.

Axel: 

I got one! ;LDKFDSAKJ That is so cool!!!!

This whole thing is cool, I haven’t heard a harpsichord, what’s that? It’s like a super big piano right, with ploppy keys? I should learn to play one- it’d be so cool I could play that cool song from Rainbow Rocks with the siren peopl-

Eli says I need to get back on point because he has homework 

Oh...when I was told I was ‘weird’? It’s not super happy I guess but, I get called that a lot at school. There’s a group of girls who like making fun of me a lot, say my clothes are all raggy trash and stuff, and throw stuff at me, say I’m weird...but it’s okay! I don’t mind really, if they think I’m weird- they can think I’m weird, since it makes them feel better!

If I’m weird, it means they’re not, and not feeling weird is nice, so, it’s got to make them feel good to throw things at me right? That’s what matters? Right?

Right?

Hai Lin:

Blog. You people. Started. A blog.

I’d say I’m surprised, but honestly- this is not the dumbest thing you people’ve done. Not that it says much.

Alright, though, I’ll bite. Sue’ll be happy about it.

Honestly? I’d say I’m almost there. I’ve clawed my way from poverty to queen of the underworld, there’s not a soul who wouldn’t refuse to kneel before me...well, one who’d live to say anything about it. 

I guess, if there’s one thing I do still wish for though, is a life for my little sister. I know she doesn’t like this life, even if she knows little about it, but, I don’t want her forced into the same world I was. I want to give her a good, safe, life. 

I know sometimes she gets swept up in the romantic idea of the thief, she thinks she’s the kind to swing from masts and find a Romeo and Juliet love story, with her as the criminal and them as the good boy, but, I just can’t see her as anything other than my little bird. Maybe that’s on me, but, that’s the last milestone I have before I’m where I feel I can really rest.

Rosie! (Me)

Fun fact, when I first signed up for band, I tried to get the Marimba. I cried trying to hold two mallets because I have really sensitive skin thanks to childhood eczema. Then tried Timpani, couldn’t figure it out, freaked out, quit, and refuse to go to the half of the school where the band room is to this day. 

I know. I’m a wreck. 

My defining trait, I’d say, is probably my...for lack of a better term, ‘fuck it’ mentality. I’m the kid who, and this is true, rolls around school in Heelies with a yeet or be yeeten shirt. I was voted Most Unforgettable for Senior Superlatives. Generally, in life, I try to assume that nothing matters so I may as well have fun with whatever I’m doing :)

[ravenpie52]

With Domicile’s Conclusion:

I’m writing a wrap-up of sorts here, explaining all the lore and background info for the series (and where it might go?) in a fully transparent manner. Don’t read this if you want to puzzle some of it out first after finishing the series. I’m posting the art assets I drew at the bottom too.

Prepare for a long one.

1. Series Lore

First off, the most important thing. Raven is not a true “Player.” I categorize Players as beings separate from mobs that sorta just, appear (though they all have their own backstories). They have a lot of power at their fingertips. They can manipulate the world drastically, travel between worlds, and set up worlds as “hubs” (servers) for others to gather in. The existence of a Player influences the world around them. Worlds are literally made for Players, and can barely exist without them. 

So what happens when a world lacks a Player? Well. Mob AI is fundamentally changed, for one. They do not aggro on beings that aren’t mobs unless provoked. Therefore, all hostile mobs ignore Raven’s existence because they are not recognized as anything worth paying attention to. Things also got messy and the world deferred a sort of “awakening” to those of the highest “power,” Evokers, in order to try and pick up the slack in a way. (Though the world doesn’t have thoughts, I’m just personifying it for ease of explanation.)

Evokers in Raven’s world have a higher “sense of self,” and in doing so took on a fraction of Player abilities (building/exploration/crafting skill and world manipulation). Many of them banded together into the Evoker Collective to try and figure out what’s going on with the world. There are legends of “Players” that all sapient mobs know, and yet....there is no trace of one...

Eventually, one such Evoker got the idea to try and MAKE a Player, or at least, create an entity that could try to fill the void. Enter our dear shapeshifter. Unfortunately, Raven either accidentally killed both their creator and work partner in their eldritchy infancy without realizing, or scared the two off for good. I’m leaving that for others to decide. Thankfully they started learning life lessons from passive mobs and ended up in a village in a form where they were mistaken for an actual Player and could learn about it.

Secondly, in a broken world, the connection between the dimensions is super fragile. This is why Raven didn’t get any dimension-related advancements. They don’t exist. All knowledge regarding the Nether and the mobs within was left vague or nonexistent and Evokers had to figure it out themselves. At most, villagers know of a far off place that is very warm and red. And they know of a hard, purple rock, that when made into an upright square...does something... Only Evokers actually ended up getting there.

When it comes to the End, that’s a complete mystery, though they did find a stronghold containing a portal. Unfortunately, they didn’t know enough about Endermen (named “Warpers” instead) to figure out the whole deal with the frame.

There is no Enderdragon. With no Player to defeat her, she does not exist, nor do her pillars, her crystals, or her egg. And with no dragon to defeat, there are no End Cities. The only thing that exists is the anchor point, the bedrock fountain.

IN COME CYAN AND GREEN: residents of The Liminal, the space between worlds and dimensions. You know that dirt screen you see whenever Minecraft is loading, showing an error message, looking through options, playing the credits, etc.? That’s a place. You can fully enter it only after hopping into the fountain the first time in a world. All those other times you’re kinda just a blip. 

It’s implied in my custom End Poem that it is possible to acclimate yourself to The Liminal better and eventually stay there without being pulled away. Furthermore, it is being said that Raven has the possibility to join the ranks of Cyan and Green since Raven’s also somewhat detached from the universe (due to being made from its own cracks). However, that will take, like, hundreds to thousands of years.

Cyan and Green gave Raven a boon after being impressed by their ability to be, well, a person. They gave them the knowledge and ability to world-hop, like Players, so Raven can now go to other worlds as well as servers and isn’t stuck in a broken one, hooray! All the other worlds they visit will be actually made for Non-mob Beings, so there’s proper mob aggro, regular dimension stuff, etc. There’s gonna be a violent few lessons Raven’s gonna have to learn fast. Good thing the other ability that Cyan and Green gave Raven was the ability to respawn in other worlds. Yep! Raven was unknowingly in hardcore mode this whole time and didn’t realize there was anything different!

Despite getting a slight power boost, Raven is still unable to shapeshift properly. They can only get forms slightly right. They worked really hard to maintain their zombie mimicry at this level of finesse (even if it isn’t perfect), so they’re unlikely to change shape unless it’s necessary or accidental. People are more receptive to Raven in this form, after all. This is my excuse for why Raven doesn’t shapeshift in-game at any time....there are no mods for this.

2. Out of Character Stuff

Here’s a previous OOC post I made regarding some of the filming stuff.

Domicile was always meant to be Raven’s backstory. It’s something I could point to when people might go: “What’s their story?” It was just for fun, but I put a lot of work into it, and it has felt very rewarding. For example, I’d been trying to figure out how to present the flashback of episode 6 and the custom End Poem for episode 7 for aaaages and getting those all settled has been great.

If you’re wondering why I have silent moments for montages in my videos and didn’t see the answer anywhere else, there were times where it just didn’t work out to use the webcam microphone I was borrowing, or said microphone messed up the audio (I’m FINALLY getting a replacement mic in a few weeks). At a certain point I decided it was a feature to have montages with only in-game sounds. Like, asmr or something.

None of the mods I installed changed generation. Everything that looks different from vanilla I made happen in creative mode. I made the mini-mansion in the roofed forest, the temple topper and stairs for the stronghold, fixed up Hometown to be nicer, and got rid of all the obsidian End pillars with creative mode punches. The pillars still stick out of the bottom of the island, I couldn’t be bothered to do that too. ( >3>)

One of my rules for the RP was to keep all knowledge in-universe. Raven had to only know things they could conceivably find out from villagers or their books. (And sometimes they just straight up forgot some of it.) After this, there’s gonna be a time skip where Raven learns a whole bunch of Minecraft basics from faceless Players. So in the future I won’t have to pay quite as much attention to what gets called its proper in-game name or not.

Also I had to hold back from singing any real life song lyrics to myself and I couldn’t give anything a name that alludes to our world. The orange tower is called Traffic Cone in my head but Raven can only call it a tower. That sort of thing I can be way more lenient with from now on.

I want to make future RP content with my character, but I have no friends who are fitting that particular niche to roleplay with me for a multiplayer series. I’m keeping an eye out for potential roleplay servers and such for outside of video RP. But at this point, I think that if I am to make a multiplayer video series, I’m gonna have to wait for someone to approach me with an offer. 

Though, I’m still gonna post art of the character here, no doubt.

By the way, since this is working as an archive of sorts, here’s the link for the written piece that started me on the track to making the series. I’m thinking of changing the canon time Raven spent wandering around the tundra thinking they were a mob to be a bit while longer than a day.

More stuff involving my Minesona can be found under the #Domicile tag, but later I’m just gonna tag all new stuff as just #minesona.

3. Art Assets

Here are the assets I made for the videos, excluding the blurry picture of the Evokers, that one’s kinda not worth much, lol. I’ve posted the first two elsewhere, but thought this would be a good archive.

The thumbnail:

The title card:

Raven falling from The Liminal, losing their form a bit after Green and Cyan’s influence and Raven’s emotional bewilderment:

(You can really tell that I loosely traced a reference photo of someone falling, lol. I have no shame, this pose rocks.)

For fun, here’s the skin I use! I didn’t make it, but I’ve used it for years, so it’s me now. >:) 

Here’s the Skindex link.

Once again, thank you all so much for anyone who watched the series. Every view means a lot to me. I’m so happy that people watched my stuff and liked it. Thanks for reading this! <3