#mackerelgray

[a-dragons-journal]

12 for the plural ask game :3

Send us plural asks!

Sorry for the delay!

12: have you drawn anyone in the system? here's a chance to show off that art!

Wei've drawn everybody, as a matter of fact!

Rani (I kind of slide back and forth between fully dragon and fully human in self-image and thus in headspace; I can appear anywhere on that spectrum):

Viridian Caldwell (loosely prefers Caldwell from strangers):

Loretta (mostly stays in human form because that's the one she was born in, but can and sometimes does transform fully in headspace even though she can't yet in-source):

and our newest addition Roshan:

and of course bonus Locke, ft a particularly stupid moment from the VtM game Viridian's a part of:

Followed up a few months later by:

[redux-iterum]

goddddddd the TRAGEDY of it all!!! the way the atmosphere is Completely flipped from the original rewrite? there's no triumph here, there's no victory, there's no badass moment of taking back power from a horrible, disgusting person - sentencing Tigerclaw to death is a horrible grief, for his son, for his mate, for his entire community who loved him and can't imagine that he betrayed them so horribly. I adore the emotional storytelling this was gutwrenching, I'm screaming about it

I am VERY GLAD the tone hit right, especially in comparison to the Redux. I didn't get the atmosphere I wanted then, and I'm glad to have gotten it now: that feeling that no one won this, that it's just fucking horrible and no one is happy to see how things turned out. Thank you for saying that!

[baylardian-1]

hi im mildly obsessed with your art! i watched like 5 episodes of voyager when i was 10, i have no idea what's going on, your AUs slap tho!! 10/10!

aw ty!!! 🥺❤️

the only episode that matters is Threshold so if you havent watched it, HIGHLY RECOMMEND lmao. XD

[rollerskatinglizard]

hey!! I've read a few of your Motorcity fics and I love them, but I have no idea if I'd be interested in the source material! would you be kind enough to give an overview of the things you like (and dislike, maybe!) about the show, so I can give it a try? :O

Ahaha ohhhh boy XD

This is a very reasonable and canny request! In response I will do my best to be... measured and rational... about this show, instead of ranting about all my pet peeves.

tldr: it's a fun show with some excellent highlights, so long as you don't expect too much.

Motorcity has a ton of really fun characters that you can get your teeth into, the hero and villains are EXCELLENT, and the implied worldbuilding is very cool (from the flying buildings in Deluxe to the spore/mushroom-based weapons of the Terras). It's got a great art style, very dynamic and colorful with gorgeous backgrounds. The shots of the darkness of Motorcity with the little blue stars scattered across the ceiling, holes in the Deluxe dome, are atmospheric and stunning. The music is good and so is the humor - most episodes have several moments that make me snicker aloud.

As far as the show's problems, well... the racism and ableism is (or at least was in 2012), I think, fairly standard kid's cartoon stuff. It's also mainly contained in the Terras, who are American Indian ripoffs with (spoilers) facial mutations (which get revealed at the exact point where they stop hiding their villainy. REAL classy, writers). The part I have most trouble with is the writing, which is spotty in quality. Some episodes are great! But others have bad pacing, or a disjunction between the setup and the payoff of an episode, the problem and the solution, which I find grating.

But! Watch any episode with the Duke of Detroit and tell me he's not the most delightful villain, oh my god. He's voiced by the lead singer of Twisted Sister, I believe, and flamboyant, dramatic, and hilarious to watch. Mike's backstory is extremely tasty, Julie's double life and relationship with (and similarities to) Kane is juicy, and there are way more excellent female characters than I would've expected in a show intended for boys! Claire has a lot more to her than initially shows, and her relationship with Julie actually gets an episode of its own! And Tennie is great, I adore her.

If you want to test the show out, consider watching the first episode and the last two, (if that won't keep you from watching the rest of the show, that is!) because the finale is quite good!

And if for some reason you want more detailed opinions from me on various episodes, check my tag "episode rewatch"! XD

Thanks for the ask! I enjoyed attempting to answer it, haha.

[goratrix-betrayed]

hey Goratrix! since we saw that essay about hunting earlier, I wanted to ask - what is hunting like as a vampire? do you hunt, exactly, or is there some other way you get blood?

Personally, I have never done much hunting--I have almost always had ghouls to feed on. (For those unfamiliar, a ghoul is a mortal human given vampire blood. This makes them immortal for as long as they continue to get regular doses of it, and grants them some small amount of vampiric powers, in exchange for them serving the vampire in question.) Keeping a large supply of ghouls is essential when running a tower full of thaumaturges.

Early on, when the clan was less of a clan and more of about ten of us, I would feed on our mages by ambushing them around corners or calling them to my office and feeding on them there. Feeding on a human typically knocks them briefly unconscious and they tend to forget, so I could simply claim that they passed out and express concern. Manipulative, perhaps, but I had to feed somehow, and we had to keep the vampirism secret early on.

When I do hunt, I do so quickly, since I dislike it. Turn invisible via either a Thaumaturgical ritual or another Discipline, stalk the streets (of Mexico City, in my more recent nights) for someone alone, grab, feed, move on. I am not personally a fan of taking so much from an individual that they have long-term health effects or die, so I tend to have to feed on quite a few (especially as such a low-generation vampire with such a large blood pool) and I really just prefer to rely on my ghouls whenever possible.

[chaos-monkeyy]

silly question! i noticed that the only story you have with a trans main character is the sirius/remus omo one (which i absolutely adore actually, thank you for the meal) - do you think you'd ever wanna wrote more kinky trans smut? :O

Not a silly question! I might at some point :)

(and I actually have a couple ideas for those two specifically that I may even get around to actually writing out one of these days hehehehe 😏💦)

[golden-blessing]

What signs do you get from Mithras in this world? (If you can't answer that because it's insider knowledge, fully understandable!)

Depends on what I asked about. The one sign I’ve asked for and received since arriving here was a very simple “please just send me a sign if you can hear me” request in… kind of a crisis of faith moment I had upon arriving here. (It’s hard to find yourself in a world where very abruptly you realize your god has never existed - yes, there is a Mithras here, but he’s not my Mithras. He is not the Great Sire of vampirism; he is not an ancestor that once walked the earth physically (and perhaps still does). It’s like being a Christian, who fully believes Jesus was a real person that physically existed at one point in the past, and suddenly finding yourself isekai’d into a world where that objectively never happened - except perhaps worse, because it’s more likely that an omniscient and omnipotent god would be able to reach over the borders of universes to still hear you than one who isn’t necessarily either of those things.)

In that case, I was looking for anything unusual or unexpected that was symbolic of Mithras in at least one of his domains - and got it. (The unusualness is important; otherwise you can see signs everywhere. Cows are to some extent symbolic of Mithras, but seeing a cow isn’t significant if you drive past a cow pasture every day, y’feel?)

If I’m asking for guidance on something specific, I’m still looking for that, but it’s a little more complicated because it also usually needs to be associated with some kind of indication of an answer - though sometimes that indication is nothing more than a strong gut feeling. Sometimes you might ask for a specific sign as a sign of approval of a course of action - “if you want me to do [x], show me three lions by sunset tomorrow”, that kind of thing - but I don’t do that very often, personally. (You also can’t cheat if you do that - you can’t ask for the above sign and then go to the zoo, for instance, that’s both pointless and kind of disrespectful.)

Hopefully that helps? It’s… a little hard to describe.

[knifedog-machina]

What’s In A Name?

Musings on our names and our relationships with them, particularly around transitioning, OC fictive experiences, established character fictive experiences, and our reluctance to create a system name.

Max

So I'm transgender, and I decided to change my name, as is a common choice among trans folks! I went through several different names before settling on the ones I have for myself now - Kitson, Gray, Finch, for a few examples. I was nonbinary in my teenage years, genderfluid before my gender settled into masculinity as its new home, and I wanted a name that was kinda difficult to nail down as masculine or feminine. I played around with it for a long time, I got silly with it!

My online name is Max now, derived only a little bit from misspelling mackerelgray as maxkerelgray one time! I think it’s a name that ages well, and I really like the potential longform nicknames for it - because I like saying it's short for Maximilian, but it can also be Maximus, Maxime, Maxwell, Maxfield, Maximum, Maxilla, etc. It’s fun! The possibilities are endless!

And on February 29 (wow! a Leap Year!) I got a new addition to it! I was attending the 2024 Centaurus Festival, a three-day online convention centered around mythic and folkloric alterhumans, and it was an absolute blast, especially because of the name thing! 

I was jokingly lamenting that I’d chosen a really boring name to represent myself, when surrounded by the likes of Page or Cynder or Daski, because it does look like I just chose one of the Top Ten Dog Names despite not being a dog. Everyone around me got a whiff of self-deprecation and immediately went about tearing it down, joking about how they came up with their own handles and complimenting mine, and it was honestly really nice? Like I’m not the only one who made up my name in a silly way, or feels like their name is a little underwhelming, and it felt really nice to break up the impression of Big Intimidating Community Names™ with the understanding that we’re all just weird and vibing together!

And Benry said, hey, if it were actually a top ten dog name you’d be a Fido or a Biscuit, and I said, hey, I like biscuits! I’d be a great Biscuit! And in ten minutes I’m being dubbed Max Biscuit in the general chat and giving people virtual baked goods, and honestly, it was so fun and sweet that I’m immortalizing it by putting it on my handle now. Hi fellow alterhumans, I’m Max Biscuit, I was Assigned Baked Goods at the Centaurus Festival and it was absolutely delightful.

Jude

First off, my name is technically short for Judah, and I don’t actually use that name here, for a couple reasons.

Mostly, it’s because Judah is a work name. My handler only used my full name - she wouldn’t shorten it, that’s improper, that’s not my actual designation. It’s a name that I associate with my job, with doing something for people who don’t actually care about me, and it’s not something I use with people I’m trying to get along with. My friends and siblings and partners all call me Jude in friendly contexts, but I’m Judah if it’s for something official, and that’s a signal for me to stop fucking around and do what I need to. I’ll use it as a burner name while talking to strangers, to people I don’t care about. Now that I’m in a system, I only directly talk to people who I care about getting along with, so I just cut out the middleman and introduce myself as Jude.

(There’s also definitely the fact that people see Judah and think I’m a guy, and I hate being misgendered. Jude has a more neutral association that I like better.)

That’s what I have for my first name, but I have more thoughts! About other names I have and their funny little origins, related to being an original character fictive.

See, if you’re talking about my model and serial number, I’m called RK800 476 032 660. In beta testing, before being officially given a name, I used to be called Sixty from the last couple digits. Which is really funny to me, because that’s the usual fandom nickname for the Cyberlife Tower doppelganger in Detroit: Become Human, and that was where Max got the original inspiration for my character! Listen, the moralizing machine characterization compelled them. 

Max just ran with the pieces, glued them together, and wrote that guy into weirder and more canon-divergent AUs until they realized they had fully replaced every part of that man’s characterization and I was the result. They just went full Ship Of Theseus with him. So my name got changed because I was a completely different person, and I don’t identify with that name anymore, but I’m pretty fond of it. And I like Sixty in DBH fandom and fics when I see him, he’s kinda fucked up and feral and feels a lot of things and I can relate to that. He’s just a funny little bastard.

And before I walked in, Max wrote a bunch of different alternate universes with me - and honestly I adore it, I love being known and psychoanalyzed by my loved ones because I like to know what they’re thinking about me. Most of those AUs have different settings and premises - like we’re all werewolves, or selkies, or chefs, or in the Star Wars universe or something. And this usually meant that my name is different, because I need a full name, I can’t just be called Jude. So he settled on Judah Nicholas Rook, Rook from RK and Nicholas because it has a good ring to it, and I also have it as a legal name in my timeline.

It’s funny to think about my name in terms of the meta of being a fictive of an original character, because on one hand, Max went through various iterations of a character that would eventually become what I’d recognize as me, including name changes, and that’s really interesting! And on the other hand, I definitely remember talking about what to officially last-name ourselves with my brothers when we finally got the time, because I felt kinda weird about identifying myself by a model number, or worse, a serial number that people never remembered. Watsonian versus Doylist commentary on what went into making me a person, I guess! They’re both real enough, one of them just happened in my life and the other happened in Max’s brain.

Gavin

My name is Gavin Zachary Reed, and I still think it’s really funny that I can just announce that without getting doxxed. Like I don’t think anyone should follow my example, but it’s fucking comedy gold that I can do it. I’m not even revealing my identity to anyone who’s familiar with the video game my source was based on, because my source is so canon divergent that the character who shares my name is fully unrecognizable to me.

If you recognize the first and last name there, yep, I’m technically an iteration of Gavin Reed from Detroit: Become Human. Unfortunately, I’m nothing like him - I look nothing like his character model, his voice is different, his only personality trait is being a dick, and he’s not even 5’2” - and I hate his stupid fucking ass, including the video game he’s from and most things related to its fandom that we’ve interacted with. This kinda sucks, because I’m not going to change my name again just because it’s associated with a character and game and fandom I dislike. I like my name, thanks.

Here’s a brief rundown on how I got my name. Gavin - I’m trans, I chose this name myself. My middle name, Zachary, I also came up with that, because it worked way better with Gavin than my old middle name, and I go by Zach in spaces where I don’t want to use my first name. And Reed is my aunts’ last name, because I moved in with them as a teenager, and I did not want anybody knowing I had ties to my famous older brother or dragging me back to my shit parents. I legally changed it all at once. My aunts were my guardians until I got my own place, and really, they’re way more like parents to me than the people who fucked over my childhood.

So I’m really attached to my name. It carries a lot of meaning for me. I’m annoyed that it’s connected to a character I hate, but I can’t exactly control that, so there’s not really a point in getting tetchy about it. I’ll readily bitch about it in private, but I genuinely like who I am and I’m not about to abandon that by letting a game dictate what I call myself.

System Names

We still don’t have a system name and don’t really care to officially make one, for a couple reasons.

First, there’s only three people here, and we have our individual names already. Addressing us by a collective system name feels like it means losing some of that individuality, because people use the system name because they don’t want to assume who’s fronting or anything, and while that’s understandable, it’s not something any of us really likes. Like, we’re very much separate people! If you wanna talk to one of us, just say it, we’ll probably show up!

On the other hand, I do understand wanting an identifier - like, there’s loads of Maxes and Judes and Gavins out there, we have really common names, there’s gotta be something to distinguish us from another group, right? Like a last name.

Honestly, looking at it like a last name makes it feel better. If you’ve read through the rest of this, you can tell we’re already experts at getting new last names, and this is just another one! So on that note, we’re not gonna call ourselves anything like The X System, but if you have to tag us as a collective, just use Machina as a funny end tag, like how people talk about Sans Undertale.

(Max Machina is a misnomer, since he’s not from Machina, but he came up with the title so he counts. And it’s really fucking funny.)

[acaciapines]

@mackerelgray

Quick style and color experiment featuring some lil dinos

[a-dragons-journal]

What are places of worship like? Any particular duties to take care of it or consecrate it?

A mithraeum, a Mithraic temple, is an underground one-room affair, usually with a building on top of it where the highest-ranking priest(s) live (my instinct is that any Mithraic can claim shelter there if they need it, but we usually don’t all live in the same building). At the front is a carving or painting of the tauroctony above and/or behind an altar and brazier(s), and along the walls are usually smaller altars for individual worship outside of group worship times. Ours was pretty big, bigger than most, but that’s because New Orleans is a big city and we took the opportunity after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the old one to rebuild it bigger than it had been before.

Outside of that it can vary some, but ours had the ceiling painted to resemble the sky, with the sun in the center and the moon off to one side - toward the door, I think? We had benches or tables or something lining the central walkway, lines of supporting pillars just outside that, then space outside of that on either side to stand in during group rites and to get to the alcoves for individual worship.

There are consecration rites to open a new mithraeum, and I think it gets ritually cleaned out and cleansed once a year or something, but I honestly don’t really want to get into details. Purification and consecration usually involve both fire (representing the Sun) and water (representing, well, the Waters). Incense burning and some kind of sacrifice (food, wine, blood from the vampires, something like that) would probably also be involved. It’s definitely a whole-community affair!

—Roshan (fae/faer)

[redux-iterum]

HOROA HELLO SORRY FOR EVER DOUBTING YOUR EXISTENCE IN THIS WORLD SIR

YOU DARE DOUBT THE ENDLESS WATCHER

[chaos-monkeyy]

favorite fic! "when you gotta go...." was an insanely hot 5+1 and i Adored it <3

aaahh thank you!! 😍😏 I got kind of carried away with that one and had so much fun writing it, I'm glad you liked it tooooo 💙

[fanfoolishness]

for the assumptions based on your fic! i think you're someone with a lotta heart, who's gone through a lot of shit but still manages to come out swinging, and has a found family of your own out there in the real world!

<3 <3 <3 there has indeed been a fair amount of shit but I keep going and keep throwing myself into things wholeheartedly.  thank you! <3

[knifedog-machina]

This blog is run primarily by Jude (they/them) and Gavin (he/him), created to journal about memories and system experiences as fictives from the same source, a heavily canon-divergent AU of Detroit: Become Human called Detroit, Machina. (You know, like Michigan? Fucking love puns.)

The lovely host is called Max Biscuit (as dubbed by Snowy Hare and company during the 2024 Centaurus Festival, thank you I adore it), and he'll also post here. You can find more of him at @raptorish, his therianthropy blog.

We like and follow back from @mackerelgray, which is really just for reblogs of various posts we enjoy.

Our personal website can be found here! (If you need to copypaste it: chirp-bark-hey.neocities.org)

[hapalopus]

@mackerelgray @kaznata

The 'planticores' actually call themselves wardens. I just call them planticores because they're bright green (and red/orange/brown) and their lives and culture center around plants. They all have plant magic of varying types and strength.

They see themselves as stewards of the world tree, and usually settle in the roots or near accessory trunks, where they can keep a close eye on the tree's health and growth. They're big on oral history, most of which is recorded through song. According to their history, there was a time before the Rootspan, when the world tree was one seedling among many, taking root in a cluster of cosmic dust, tended by wardens and humans and hrihriwa and other peoples who dwelled among the stars.

My main warden, Chive, can reanimate the dead by infusing them with algae, moss, and other tiny plants. Not all wardens spend their every waking moment in service of the world tree - they hunt, craft, trade, cook, and otherwise take care of their kinsmen. But as a direct caretaker, Chive does. She recently set out on a journey to discover new accessory roots of the world tree, which is a highly regarded task that all caretakers are required to undertake at some point in their life, like a pilgrimage or spiritual journey of sorts.

I should write a Dragonology book for the Rootspan. I need to tell you guys about the planticores

[encrucijada]

Marjorie/Lorelai!! for What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

max, i respect your attempt to narrow down the question. and @azzy-moon-stars too. but i am going to answer all non-spoiler questions instead because i think they are cute!

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet? Lorelai’s adoptive mum, Cecilia, is the one member of the Princess Gloria Coven not related by blood. Cecilia invited the De los Ángeles over to meet her daughter and that’s how she and Marjorie met, they were fourteen.

What was their first impression of each other? Lorelai has one of those charismatic personalities that are kinda scary at first and Marjorie was (and still is) a super quiet kid. Because Marjorie was too young to participate in the Adult Witch Activities she just had to spend time with Lorelai and it took them an afternoon to become friends. Lorelai, being new in town and new to the family, was nervous but Marjorie is easy to talk to and as non-threatening as you can get.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together? The mums thought it’d be cute.

Who felt romantic feelings first? Lorelai.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings? Nope

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think? Lorelai would tell you soulmates are fake. Marjorie would say her soulmate is Archie.

LOVE

What are their primary love languages? Marjorie is quality time. Lorelai is affirmations.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA? Lorelai more than Marjorie, but it’s mostly forehead kisses because of the height difference.

What are their favorite things to do together? They like going on walks, actually! Walking helps Marjorie stay focused on conversation and Lorelai can talk for hours.

Who’s better at comforting the other? Lorelai.

Who’s more protective? Both on equal amounts I would say, I mean the book’s plot is a murder mystery. 

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection? Lorelai: verbal. Marjorie: physical.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise? Riptide - cover by MisterWives, Sweater Weather - cover by Kina Grannis. i don’t really have that many ship songs for From The Mouths.

What kind of nicknames do they call each other? "mi amor” and “mi vida” from them both, Marjorie also uses “corazón”

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes? I don’t think they would get married and not because this is the 90s, in my alternative universe there’s no homophobia because I do whatever I want, I just simply think they wouldn’t... but if they did, then Lorelai.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends? Pictured: wedding in a garden, every attendee wears a flower crown, Lorelai wears white but Marjorie wears pastels instead. Tabitha is the ring bearer.

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like? Marjorie had Tabitha with Archie and she really doesn’t want more kids. Tabitha never comes around with calling Lorelai “mami” but she does call her “Lor”, which if you are a latino kid calling an adult by nickname that is a lot. Same with Elías on Archie’s side! Tabitha never calls him “papi” but does call him “Eli”.

Do they have any pets? I think with Marjorie’s many owls they have enough. Lorelai really likes cats though.

Who’s the stricter parent? Marjorie. Lorelai let Tabitha paint on the walls as a toddler.

Who kills the bugs in the house? Marjorie, she isn’t afraid of critters at all. She wouldn’t kill them though, she would put them outside.

How do they celebrate holidays? Because their families were always so close-knit they continue that tradition with their friends.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning? Marjorie, not a morning person at all and she likes cuddling. Lorelai usually brings her Tabitha as replacement.

Who’s the better cook? Marjorie. Lorelai is a struggling college student when it comes to cooking.