#rendering it all chunk by chunk

[detnuah]

the father the son the holy ghost, uh, beating each other to death.

[majimasleftasscheek]

I am madly in love with your art style, just to let you know

thank you! I'm glad you can enjoy my lil scrumblies <3

[risingsunresistance]

[kkoct-ik]

finding drawings from this year that i have absolutely no memory of shouldnt be the most disturbing thing to me this week but here we are

[aloe-veraaaa]

it cannot be said enough, just how much i enjoy making windmill auto farms

[pukicho]

puki do you still do 3d rendering?

yah I actually am doing some rn, I am learning how to generate terrain generation stuff

it has a node specifically for trees but I'm confused how to add the mask to the 2D nodes so that they show up, and Idk how it'd look in the renderer, or if it's maybe better just to add trees myself in C4D instead. BUT the idea of literally having all terrain, rocks, trees be imported in one chunk, and then just having to move the heightmap and textures over to C4D sounds sexy.

[bumblesimagines]

A Burning Hill

Request: Yes or No

Summary: Years after losing his family, former revolutionary gets the surprise of his life.

Pronouns: He/Him/His, M!Reader

CW/TW: Typical Arcane warnings, angst and death, lots of grieving, implied depression, silco when i catch you silco, child death (mylo, clogger)

divider by the-voice-beckons-below 

~~~

(Y/N) felt like a ghost on most days. He floated through the filthy streets of Zaun, ignorant to the buzzing and life around him whilst he walked from street to street until he reached his desolate home by the murky, polluted river. He preferred it, no matter how isolated from the rest of the city. It was home. Old, dull, and free from the tormenting memories the rest of the city held. Life passed him by steadily enough to keep everything at bay, anyway. 

The once-vibrant neon signs around the city buildings looked dull when he glanced at the blinking lights. Everything looked dull, washed of its original color, and rendered lifeless in his eyes. There was nothing pretty about Zaun anymore, nothing worth truly fighting for.

It didn't matter how many times Ekko visited him, all the speeches and pep talks he stubbornly gave while (Y/N) watched him only ever seeing the little boy he'd been and not the leader he'd grown into. He'd been like him once.. a long, long time ago.

"(Y/N)!" A gravelly voice called out from one of the stands lined along the rain-slicked cobble street. Mod raised a hand in greeting and then lifted a wooden bowl, the contents inside swishing and nearly dripping off the sides. He wiggled it enticingly and arched one bushy brow while a coaxing grin spread across his face. 

Somewhat reluctantly, (Y/N) approached the stand and pushed the hood of his old cloak back as he took a seat on one of the stools. Mod set the bowl before him and stuck a spoon in the fish soup. His reflection blinked slowly back at him, the bags under his eyes noticeable even in the cerulean broth. "Thanks." He muttered, his voice scratchy.

"Anythin' for you, boss." Mod chuckled heartily, thick fingers scratching at his patchy brown beard before he leaned his broad frame against the counter. There was a twinkle in his eyes, bright and mischievous. "Say, boss-"

"I'm not your boss." (Y/N) shoved a spoonful of broth with a chunk of fish into his mouth. 

Mod nodded solemnly. "'Course, 'course... I was talkin' to my pal the other day. You remember Divo, right? Well, he and his old lady finally called it quits, and I hear he's got his eye on you-" 

(Y/N)'s eyes darted up to meet Mod's hazel ones, his grip on the spoon tightening faintly. Not a single muscle in his face moved, yet Mod clamped his mouth shut instantly and turned his back to him to continue tending the stove with a nervous chuckle. (Y/N) chewed slowly on the fish, letting the flavor dance on his tongue and then swallowing.

He lifted the bowl and slurped as much of the broth as he could into his mouth before letting the bowl fall onto the counter with a clatter and wiping the leftover droplets from his mouth. He slapped a few coins on the table and slid off the stool to continue his way through the crowd, turning a deaf ear to Mod's calls for him.

Zaun was as alive as always. Kids were running about, most of them either fleeing from someone or rushing to catch up with their friends. His heart always clenched when he looked at them, when there was a straggler who couldn't keep up with the older kids.

His eyes always naturally gravitated toward them to watch, despite the stabbing feeling that pierced his gut each time. There was a reason he kept himself unfocused from the goings of the city; everything was a goddamn reminder. 

Ducking into an alleyway and dodging the rat that skittered across his path, he began making his way down the usual route to his place. He withheld a sigh when he stepped in a puddle and briefly stopped to shake the droplets from his drenched boot.

He only took a couple more steps before his ears picked up the splash of the puddle, and his mind jerked awake with newfound alertness. He bit his cheek, cursing whatever gods were watching over Zaun. The last thing he wanted was dealing with some stupid thief or wannabe thug trying to earn street cred. 

Once their footsteps grew closer, he swiftly spun around and grabbed the front of their shift, a yelp escaping the person when he slammed them into the nearest wall. His grip on their collar tightened until the breath was roughly sucked free from his lungs, every muscle in his body tensing.

He stared at the girl in his grasp, taking in the stunned look in her familiar light gray eyes and the short spiky magenta hair he knew so well. Her face was straight from his memories, only with sharper features, older features. His forehead creased in confusion, and he released her to take a startled step away from her. 

"Violet?" He exhaled a name he hadn't spoken in years, his chest stuttering with a shaky inhale.

His eyes flickered all over her face, lingering on the scars and the VI tattoo on her right cheek. No, Violet... His Violet was dead​​​​​​, just like Mylo and Clogger.. like Vander. He sucked another breath, his heart picking up into a pace that made it difficult to breathe. 

Violet stared back at him, her features softening until she looked like the fourteen-year-old girl that haunted his dreams, the little girl he lost along with his boys and husband. Her face contorted rapidly, scrunching up with her quivering lips as her eyes flooded with tears.

She gasped for air, one tear managing to escape before she fell into his arms with a sob, an act she'd done a million times before. His arms instinctively wrapped around her and pulled her tight to his chest, his own eyes beginning to sting with tears.

"Dad," She wept into his shoulder, her hands desperately clawing at his back until they bunched up his cloak into her fists. His hold tightened around her until he was cradling her as close as possible. He couldn't bear to consider if it was just another dream where she'd be violently ripped away from him all over again. "I'm so sorry."

"What the fuck."

His heart was thrumming like hell in his ears, his eyes wildly flickering over the burning warehouse by the river that looked like it'd been destroyed by some sort of explosion. He searched for anything, any noise or sign that someone, anyone, was alive and in need of help.

He searched for Vander, half-expecting him to stumble out of the ruins, but as he grew closer, with Ekko's hand tightly clutched in his, he spotted something that made his heart drop to his feet.

"No.." He exhaled and dropped Ekko's hand to rush forward, past the debris and flames, toward the corpse lying on the ground. 

His knees groaned when he collapsed onto them, but the pain barely registered in his frantic mind. Lying there, battered and lifeless, was Vander's body. It was mutated, parts of him enlarged unnaturally with prominent black veins and sickening bruises scattered across his body.

His grey eyes, the ones that always lit up at the sight of him, were pale and lifeless, blankly staring up at the night sky above them. His trembling hands took his cheeks, a sob tearing from his throat when Vander's head lolled to the side. 

"Van, c'mon, don't- don't do this, please." He couldn't breathe. Teardrops dripped and rolled off Vander's cheek, mixing with the splatters of blood and grime. His hands moved to his shoulders, and he shook him lightly, willing him to come back by some miracle. "Vander, hey, baby... c'mon. Come back to me, please. You- You can't leave me. You made an oath, Vander. You made an- an oath. You made a fucking oath."

His fingers dug into Vander's skin, once warm but now growing cold with the night air. (Y/N) held his cheeks in his palms, praying to whatever deity came to mind to bring his husband back to him, but Vander's lifeless eyes remained half-lidded and his chest remained still.

(Y/N) grinded his teeth together, his vision blurring until the hot tears tumbled down his cheeks, and he collapsed over Vander's corpse, half-sobbing half-screaming until his voice grew hoarse. 

"Please, please, don't do this to me..." He whimpered, helplessly reaching for Vander's limp arm and raising it to press his large, collaoused palm over his cheek.

The cool metal of his wedding band pressed into (Y/N)'s skin, burning like a hot iron. Their wedding day flashed clear before his eyes: the party at the Last Drop, the stupidly sugary sweet vows Vander spoke into the microphone that had him unable to make eye contact, the dancing and festivities that kept the bar alive with a happiness they hadn't experienced in ages, little Violet and baby Powder giggling along the whole night with their mother and father.

He looked down at him through blurry, unfocused vision, the heaves and sobs wrecking through his body until it grew sore. This wasn't how they were supposed to part. It wasn't. They were supposed to grow old and frail and gray.

"(Y/N).." Ekko's soft, trembling voice reached his ears. "I... I found this."

Sniffling, (Y/N) lifted his head and turned toward the little boy, a strangled noise emitting from his throat at the sight of Clogger's goggles in his hands, shattered and bloodied. He reached a shaking hand out to gingerly grab them, his thumb rubbing over the glass until his skin caught on the broken glass.

Clogger, Mylo... his boys. His sweet, troublemaking boys. He surveyed the mess around them in search of his missing daughters, but there was no sign of them. His eyes dropped back to his husband.

He'd never be able to listen to one of Mylo's rambly vents again or tend to his injuries while he huffed and puffed. He'd never be able to fix up Clogger's goggles when they broke for the tenth time or share an eye roll over someone's childish antics again. He'd never get to curl up in Vander's arms at night and listen to his rumbling laugh while he recounted his day or feel his lips brush over his ear while he muttered corny love confessions that always made him flush and roll his eyes. 

"Who..." His jaw clenched. "Who did this?"

Ekko wiped his runny nose and swallowed, his big, watery eyes narrowing. "Silco."

Silco.

Always. Fucking. Silco.

He stumbled onto his feet in an instant, the bottom of his boots slapping against the stone as he took off down the path leading back into the city. The buildings, markets, and nightlife passed him by in a blur of gray and neon as he ventured further and further toward the inner parts of the Lanes where he knew, he just knew, Silco would be. Other Zaunites leaped out of the way, with those who were too slow being shoved aside until the Last Drop came into view. His home, his sanctuary, and there were already lackeys shuffling in and out of the bar. 

He was heaving by the time he swung the bar doors open, his steps slightly staggered as he entered the familiar bar. Some of their regulars were already arguing with Silco's men; Sevika sat at one of the booths with a pained expression as someone hurriedly tended to her shoulder where her arm was simply gone; those injured from the warehouse soothed themselves with alcohol bought from Vander's hard-earned money.

He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. 

(Y/N) shoved Clogger's goggles into his pocket, ignoring the pain in his hand from where glass shards embedded themselves into his palm. He took in a staggering breath. "Where... the fuck is Silco?" 

Wide eyes turned in his direction. The regulars frowned sympathetically, and their heckles raised on his behalf, while the lackeys that blindly followed Silco exchanged panicked or hesitant glances. He scanned the bar, but no one uttered a word, leaving the air with a suffocating tension.

One of the younger lackeys glanced up toward the office, the office he used to plan out his ideas, and then shrunk back into his seat when he caught (Y/N) staring daggers at him. Another lackey had the bright idea to step in front of him, his chest puffed out with smug arrogance over their 'victory'. 

His husband was dead. Murdered brutally alongside the orphaned children they took in when everyone else turned their backs on them. The only feeling (Y/N) that knew better than grief was pure, unbridled rage. He'd locked the rage away years ago, worked on it until it was tamed for the sake of his children, who'd grown up seeing too much violence on the streets to see it from their protector. It brewed in his stomach relentlessly now, simmering and growing until it made his body run hot. 

The young man only had a second to react, a second for surprise to flash over his face, before (Y/N) twisted his dark hair in his fist and slammed his head into the nearest table. He dug the heel of his hand into the man's temple, and with his move, the tension broke, and people lunged at each other. (Y/N) released the stranger, watching him slump onto the floor and clutch his no doubt throbbing head, before he walked around him and bounded up the metal stairs leading up to his office.

There were thuds, crashes, glass shattering, and shouting behind him, but he was only focused on the wooden door growing closer. Silco stood inside his office in the bar his husband owned after slaughtering his family. Silco turned toward him when the floorboards creaked underneath his weight, his mismatched eyes widening before (Y/N)'s fist connected with his cheek.

Silco stumbled backward, his hip bumping into the desk covered in the papers he used for designing mechanisms and technology. He grabbed onto the desk, half-way hunched over as blood dripped down from his nose and onto his vest. 

"Felicia wasn't enough for you, was she?" (Y/N) spat out through gritted teeth, drawing Silco's eyes back to his face. They remained widened for a long second and then flickered away to the framed picture hanging on the wall of them back before her death, back before the brotherly bond between Vander and Silco dissolved. "Your ambition took my sister, my brother-in-law, but you couldn't stop there, could you? You just had to take my husband and children, too."

Silco brushed his fingers over the streak of blood coating his upper lip and straightened up, palm brushing back the dark strands that fell over his face from the hit. "I never intended for Felicia and Connol to get hurt." He said grimly, curling his hands around the hem of his vest to adjust it properly over his body. "The children weren't supposed to be there. The boys... Violet. They were... collateral damage."

(Y/N) stared at him, aghast, his fingers curling into fists once more despite the sharp pain in his hands. "Vander and I loved you once." He gritted his teeth, tears tittering on the edge of his vision.

There were faint memories of them in that very office, hunched over the desk while dreaming up what Zaun would look like without Piltover's boot on their necks. Memories of them chatting in a corner of the Last Drop until Silco practically shoved him into Vander's arms so they could dance with Felicia. Silco blinked at him in startlement.

"I thought.. You were the cleverest man in Zaun, that you'd be the one to help us make Zaun better than Piltover. But you're just a filthy, weak little fucking rat." 

(Y/N) barely registered how quickly he closed the distance until his hand fisted the collar of Silco's shirt and shoved him onto the floor. He followed him down, his knees pinning Silco's shoulders down against the floorboards as he tugged his knife free from its holster around his waist. Silco's eyes widened again, his hands clutching and shoving against (Y/N)'s legs. 

"If Felicia saw you-" Silco gasped out. "-what would she say?" 

"She'd hate you for what you did to her daughters, you piece of shit!"

Heavy footsteps quickly grew near, and a bulky arm swooped around his waist to haul him off Silco. "(Y/N), enough-" Sevika hissed in his ear, a strained, pained groan filling his ear as she staggered, weakened from the blow that'd taken her arm.

His legs kicked out toward the desk, and he used it to propel himself back into her, the weight and force forcing her to stumble back until she slammed into the wall. She released him with a cry and clutched at her shoulder with heavy breaths. 

He caught himself before he fell, his hand still clutching the knife like a vice when he turned to face Silco. The thin man scrambled to get to his feet again, but (Y/N) swiftly kicked him back down, his movements growing sluggish from exhaustion. He slumped back onto the floor, one knee pinning Silco's forearm and soaking in the wince. He was tired, too. Bastard. 

"Vander... Vander thought you were redeemable, even after what you did to Felicia and Connol. He wanted to talk, to make amends, and you slaughtered him like a pig, you-" (Y/N) inhaled sharply, frantically blinking away the tears building in his eyes. Silco froze at his words, stiffening fully underneath him and staring up at him with big eyes. (Y/N) scoffed, disgusted just by looking at his shock. "It should've been your body lying there, forgotten and alone."

(Y/N) raised the blade yet hesitated, his quivering lips pressing together tightly as his eyes flickered between Silco's eyes. The blue-green of his right that'd once been warm and gentle made his stomach churn violently.

For a moment, he found himself staring down at the Silco he used to know, the soft-spoken yet sarcastic young man who'd sit with him while he sketched and offer pointers with a small, tender smile. (Y/N) squeezed his eyes shut and brought the knife down, listening to it embed itself in the floorboard. Silco released a quiet, shaky breath.

Swallowing harshly, (Y/N) opened his eyes to glare down at him. "Where's Powder?" 

"My baby girl," (Y/N) carefully cradled her face in his hands, stroking his thumb over her pale skin as a manic laugh fell from his lips. She was real. "They told me you were dead. I-I thought you died with Mylo and Clogger that night. I should've- I should've looked harder. Where- Where have you been?" 

Violet wrapped her bandaged hands around his wrists and nuzzled her face into his palms, her shoulders lightly trembling as she took in a staggered breath. "Stillwater." She whispered, her teeth gently biting at her bottom lip as her eyes flickered away with a wince. "That Piltover officer.. the one that worked with Grayson, he.. he took me there. Kept me there this whole time." Her jaw clenched.

(Y/N) bit his tongue and took in a slow inhale, his eyes closing briefly. Marcus. He'd always hated the asshole, even more so after his promotion. "How- How'd you get out?" He blinked his eyes open, his brows knitting together in bewilderment. "Did- Did you escape?"

Stillwater was notorious for keeping a tight hold on its prisoners, and even if one managed to escape, the treacherous waters surrounding the small island would kill anyone who tried fleeing via swimming or boat. Violet had always been resilient, but even she couldn't have possibly escaped alone.

"No, I-"

"Violet! You have got to stop disappearing like that!" 

At the end of the alleyway, a young woman stumbled toward them, her fingers tugging the hood back over her head when it slipped after her clumsy attempt at wriggling free from the crowd. She kept her gaze pointed toward the crowd before she turned to look at them, her lips parting to speak, but she quickly closed them when she noticed him. She froze, stiff like a plank, and then slowly raised her hand to give an awkward wave. 

"Dad," Violet began, her lips twisting into a sheepish, hesitant smile. He frowned. Nothing good ever came out of a smile like that. "This is Caitlyn Kirraman."

"Kiramman?"/ "Dad?!"

(Y/N)'s head turned back to the dark blue haired-girl with a squinted gaze that only made her stiffen again. He raked his eyes over her slender figure, taking note of the clothes beneath the draps hanging onto her shoulders.

Her skin was too clear, too perfect. Her hair was too sleek and shiny. Her clothes were prim and delicate, not a hole or tear or washed-out color on a single article. Her hands looked smooth, free of callouses. Her body flinched with each loud noise that came from the night market, like a mouse in a den of vipers. Topsider, and given the weapon strapped to her back, she was an Enforcer.

He snapped his attention back to Violet and tore his hands from her face to set them over his hips disapprovingly. Violet's sheepish look grew, and she dropped her eyes onto the ground, where she lightly kicked a pebble aside. "You're with a Enforcer?! Violet! You just told me you were at Stillwater- I- Ugh." (Y/N) pinched the bridge of his nose. "What am I going to do with you, Vi?" 

"Love me?" Violet proposed with a little, cheeky smile. 

(Y/N)'s shoulders sagged, a huff of amusement slipping past his lips before he tugged her into another tight embrace. "I missed your smartass comments, you little asshole." Violet's laugh sounded muffled against his shoulder, her arms sliding around his waist in an equally tight hug. "I always knew you'd be hard to get rid of.. like dog shit that gets stuck on the bottom of shoes." Violet laughed again, this time lightly pushing at his chest and rolling her eyes. 

"Ahem," Caitlyn shuffled forward toward them, her eyes jumping between their faces before she focused on him and stuck her hand out for him to shake with a polite yet strained smile. "As Vi said, I'm Caitlyn Kiramman. I helped your daughter get out of Stillwater Prison this morning." 

(Y/N) eyed her outstretched hand. "Why?"

"I.." Caitlyn trailed off, her fingers curling inward before she dropped her hand back to her side. "I need her help.. and yours, I suppose. There is an... ongoing investigation regarding stolen shipments that I have reason to believe have been orchestrated by the man you all know as Silco. If I gather enough evidence, we may be able to put him behind bars for once and for all." She firmly nodded. 

(Y/N)'s mouth drew into a taut line, his front teeth dragging along each other. He could still hear his own sobs echoing in his ears, the hoarse screams into his pillow the following weeks after the warehouse incident. He was so tired. He stared down at the stone ground beneath them, watching the water covering it reflect the neon signs lining the tops of the buildings above them.

His head shook lightly. "Don't bother."

"Dad, c'mon... You still have power here. People still respect you; some still fear you." Violet placed her hand over his shoulder, her fingers gently squeezing it. "If you rallied the people-"

"Your father was the leader, Violet. I was the follower, the one who took orders, the one who had to be patched up constantly. Everything and everyone I fought for is.. is gone. I have nothing left in me, Vi, I don't. All I do is wait for the day I can reunite with Van and be done with all this." 

The corners of Violet's brows angled upward. "You- You have me. I'm here, Dad. I'm- I'm back... and Powder.. she's still here, right? She's okay, right? Tell me she's okay, please."

"It's complicated, Vi. She.. She's alive." The relieved, breathy laugh that escaped Violet made him wince. He raised his gaze off the ground to look at her, the pained frown on his lips wiping the relief clean from her face. "I see her, sometimes. She pops by when she feels like it. Sometimes, we'll bump into each other and talk. She... she hasn't gone by Powder in a long time. Powpow doesn't exist anymore, Vi. She's one of Silco's lackeys now."

"What?"

"I've tried getting through to her for ages, even Ekko's given it a go, but she's stubborn. She's not well, Vi.. and Silco- Silco refuses to see it. I've told him time and time again but-" (Y/N) rubbed his fingertips over his forehead, soothing away a building headache. Their countless arguments rang clear in his ears. It was like talking to a wall on most days. "Our talks never go anywhere. I hate him too much, and he knows it. Uses it as a reason not to believe me. It's hopeless, Vi."

"No... No, no, I don't-" Violet turned away from him, one hand raising to clutch her chest while the other braced against the wall. "I-I don't believe that. She- She'd never work for him, not after what he did. You're wrong. I can help her, I swear. I-I can get through to her. I can prove it."

"It's not that simple, Vi." 

"I'm her big sister." Violet's hands curled into fists, and her head raised to look at him, the determination in her eyes startlingly similar to Vander's. It made his throat tighten. "She's my responsibility."

"You're my girls, Vi. You two will always be my responsibility... but things are different. If I push too hard, I risk losing her forever." He stepped toward her, reaching out to delicately touch her chin and remind himself she really was alive. Alive and no longer the little girl he'd taken care of since she was a newborn. "If you go running after her and Silco finds out, who knows what he'll do. I can't lose you again." 

"I'm not a kid anymore, Dad. I can take care of myself." A tender smile spread on Violet's face, her hand enveloping his reassuringly. "I'll bring Powder back, and we'll be a family again, I promise."

[osmanthus-wine-addiction]

18 Evil Twin

Zhongli x Reader / SFW / established relationship / Zhongli has an evil twin and he's a yandere / canon was hijacked again for plot purposes / this was supposed to be sexy, I don't know why he turned out so babygirl, like poor thing just needs a hug and some good loving

"Zhongli…"

The name slid off his tongue like some sort of titillating joke. The velvety quality of his voice and the deep timbre was so eerily familiar, it was hard to imagine that it did not belong to your lover.

"So he's given himself yet another name." The man remarks.

"Who are you?" You ask warily.

Your captor's gaze returned to your face, a curl tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Morax, or if you prefer to call me by the new name, I suppose I can be Zhongli as well."

"You're not him." You dared to point out.

His eyes might be the same striking amber, but something was missing. Perhaps it was the gentleness and affection that always seemed to spill over whenever your lover's gaze falls on you.

At first, you wondered if Zhongli had succumbed to erosion like his old friend Azhdaha. Perhaps he had lost a chunk of his memories. It would explain the jarring differences in his demeanor. However, you simply couldn't accept the possibility of this person being who your lover used to be before you had met him.

Zhongli had always been the kind and patient man you had met all those years ago and even if he had lost his memories of you and held no love for you in his heart, you'd have no trouble falling for him all over again. This only left you with one explanation, the person standing in front of you could not be the same person.

"I'm every bit him as he is me, sweetheart." The imposter chuckles. "But since you find that hard to believe, why don't I make the truth easier for you to swallow?"

The ground beneath your feet began to tremble. Your eyes darted around in apprehension. Once the shaking was over, the two of you were surrounded by a ring of stone pillars. Elemental energy resonated between them, forming a rippling wall. He had just formed a seal, something you had witnessed Zhongli do on multiple occasions.

So this imposter was capable of the things your lover is capable of doing. That does not make him the same person. The more this person revealed about himself, the more uneasy you became. There was now a seal around you and despite making his point already, the pillars were still standing.

"What do you want with me?" You asked.

"What do I want with you…" He mused, as if he himself had no idea what had compelled him to kidnap you and bring you here to this mysterious place.

Amusement glinted in his eyes. He took a step towards you, then another. You had no choice but to back up, right into one of his pillars. With your back pressed up against the pulsating construct, the vibrations rippled through your body with mind-numbing intensity. Your body began to tremble and your knees involuntarily buckled as you struggled to stay standing.

"Don't touch me." You swatted away his hand which had instinctively reached out to steady you.

He places his hand against the pillar behind you instead. Despite the lack of physical contact, his looming presence threatened to crush you like a mountain, an impression your lover never once gave you.

"I appologize for the forwardness. It appears there are certain inclinations I cannot hold back in regards to you."

"Who are you and what do you want with me?" You ignored his apology and demanded answers to the two questions you had been asking ever since he appeared.

"I believe we've already had this conversation, dear. Whichever name you prefer to call me by is irrelevant."

"You're not him!" You shouted as you attempted to push him away.

He caught your hands and pinned them against your body, rendering you immobile with little effort.

"How shall I prove it to you then, hmm?" He hummed, amusement returning to his tone. "The person you call Zhongli, he and I are simply two faces of the same coin. For every moment of unfettered peace he reaps, who do you think pays the unsung price?"

"Let go of me!" You hiss as you struggled against his bruising hold.

"Have you never once questioned why the Geo Archon is immune to karmic debt despite slaying countless gods and bloodying his hands during the Archon war?"

Your eyes widened as the words hit your eardrums.

"Do you not find it unusual how he is able to resist abyssal corruption, despite clearly having encountered it multiple times as recorded in Liyue's past?"

"He must've had his ways…" The sound of your voice fell to a wisp.

"Have you never wondered how he deals with erosion, which indiscriminately affects every living being on Teyvat?"

Once again, you could only succumb to speechlessness.

"How well do you think you actually know your past archon, the god you've been calling Rex Lapis for the last three millenias?"

"I…" You started, but the words wouldn't come to your lips.

"You know nothing of his cruelty, his deceptions, or his hypocrisy and yet you claim to love him." His words bleed into your mind like murky ink as he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze. "Everything he does not wish for you to see, he simply siphons off, seals it away so that you may be blissfully ignorant."

You shutter as his breath fans over your skin.

"Everything that he knows, I know." The corner of his lips curl as he says this. "Everything that he feels, I feel too."

You stared at him, blinking so innocently.

"You do not understand." He sighs at your lack of response. "We are one in the same, yet I have been sealed away in this godforsaken place ever since the day he carved me out of him, left here to fester in perpetual solitude. Do you not find that insidious?"

Although his tone did not reflect his bitterness, his words were clearly spoken with the intent to garner sympathy from you. He was no longer sealed, which you were only now beginning to weave into your understanding of the situation you were in. The implications were many and none of them were good.

"So you're lonely?" You raised a brow. "That's why you kidnapped me? Because you need someone to vent to?"

He shook his head, a gentle but unsettling smile playing on his lips. "While I appreciate a good listener, that is not why you're here, dear."

"I'm bait then." You voiced your other suspicion.

His grin widened. "I can see why he fancies you."

"He'll just seal you away again." You said with as much confidence as you could muster.

"Not if I have you in my hands." He reminds you of your place by wrapping his fingers around your neck. "You make quite the lovely hostage."

"I'm just one of his many lovers." You bluffed. "He's not going to fling himself into your trap for me."

"Do not underestimate yourself, darling. He chuckled. "I hear his thoughts. They are inescapable, just as are his emotions. I know exactly how valuable you are to him."

You sucked in a breath. He had a point. Your relationship with the Wangsheng funeral consultant wasn't exactly a secret. His affections could be visible even to a stranger with the way he looks at you and holds your hand every time the two of you take a stroll through the bustling streets. It'd be a lost cause to try and convince him otherwise when Zhongli's thoughts are filled with adoration for you. As soon as you let go of that notion, another alarming one emerged in its place.

If Zhongli was that in love with you, could there be a tiny sliver of a possibility that his evil twin was susceptible to your charms as well? Just now, he couldn't help but reach out and hold you when it looked like you might fall.

"If you and him are so connected, then…" Your eyes rake his face, so reminiscent of the man that you're in love with.

If he says he's every bit as Zhongli as the Zhongli you know, then he can't exactly use you to gain any leverage. Zhongli's weakness would be his as well. You just had to confirm it. How would you go about that?

You gestured for him to lean in closer with a curl of your finger. Surprisingly, he followed your beck. It was almost as if his body was subconsciously accustomed to respond in this manner. You swallowed, still a bit unsure about what you were about to do.

The theory was, if he is affected by Zhongli's feelings for you, then he's pretty much wrapped around your finger. He'd react to you exactly the way his counterpart would if you make a move on him. He might be surprised and flustered because he doesn't see it coming, but once the initial shock fades away, you'll have him eating out of the palm of your hands. In your right mind, you'd never do this to a complete stranger. He was the one who claimed he was the same person as your lover, so naturally, it's his burden to prove it. You were simply conducting an experiment!

Without warning, you pressed your lips against his. As expected, he immediately tried to withdraw out of pure alarm, but as soon as your hand reached up to stroke his face, it was like something inside him recognized your touch. Your fingers threaded through his hair as if you were kissing your lover. He even sighs the way Zhongli does, readily melting into your kiss like his body was responding on its very own, chasing the fleeting intimacy like a beast starved.

A mere few seconds was all you needed to coax this hunger out of him, but once it had surfaced, stuffing it back into him was another matter. You gasped as the kiss took an unexpected turn. His hand cradled the back of your head against the stone pillar behind you as he kissed you back with a fervor you never anticipated. Pent up desire and desperation possessed him. His lips were already against your neck and his hands glided along your waist as he sought further closeness to you. You had thrown yourself at your captor to see if he'd give chase and he didn't disappoint. As indulgent as this experiment was, it had served its purpose.

"I— I believe you now." You panted after pushing him away.

"So you needed a kiss to be convinced that I was telling the truth." He remarked with muted disdain. "I am glad you got the result you seek, however," he paused to catch his breath, "I do not appreciate being subjected to an undisclosed trial."

"What are you going to do once he comes running? Are you going to seal him down here or something? You know, he's retired and is working at a funeral parlor right now. Are you going to go to work in his place?" In order to distract him from the kiss, you could only throw a pile of questions at him.

"I may kill him, but that must've crossed your mind already."

"If you and him are the same person, then it's obviously not going to be that simple."

Your captor narrowed his eyes at you, slightly perturbed that you were taking it so lightly.

"Like you said, you hear his thoughts and feel everything he feels. Can I assume that if he gets hurt, you also bleed?"

"That could be possible."

"You're not denying it, so I'm not far from the truth." You smirked. "It's not that you don't want to kill him. You can't, because you'll die too."

The amusement on his face melted away when you finished speaking. It must be unsettling to him how easily you figured him out, but that was a given. If he was Zhongli, then you also knew him well enough to hear what he was not putting into words. Your lover has always been a long-winded man, but even he clams up once in a while when it comes to information he doesn't wish to disclose. Rather than wring it out of him, you had learned the art of picking up on his subtle cues and body language in order to piece together a vague idea of what he was not telling you. This was how you had gotten him to admit his identity as the supposedly dead Geo Archon. You had gotten so exasperatingly good at peeling back his layers, both metaphorically and literally speaking, Zhongli now hardly has anymore secrets, save for this one standing in front of you.

"You can kill me out of spite, but you won't, because all that pain and grief is just going to get funneled into you. Am I right?"

Instead of yielding to you immediately like your lover so habitually does, this person grins even wider. A trace of unhinged excitement flashes in his eyes.

"Kill you?" He finds the thought entertaining, but abandons it without hesitation. "I would much rather propose a contract to have you imprisoned with me instead."

Your heart leapt in panic. "I'll take death over getting locked up in this hell hole with you."

A hint of genuine sadness rippled underneath his mirth. Being the perceptive person you were, you caught it before it disappeared.

As soon as the contradicting emotions sprouted up inside you, you had to stomp them out. You weren't about to get yourself emotionally attached to your kidnapper and you can't let him manipulate you into taking pity on him. Unfortunately for you, the brief waver in your gaze also didn't escape his eyes.

"It wouldn't be completely unfair as he has me imprisoned for much of my existence." He reminded you.

The distance between you shrunk once again as he leaned in. You already had your back against his pillar, with nowhere to escape, confined in this little play pen comprised of elemental constructs.

"Eleven months in a year."

You made an odd face. Was he trying to negotiate with you?

"I'm not staying with you."

"You can name your terms now or you can be my unwilling companion." He whispered against your ear. "I don't mind keeping you here against your will, as long as it makes losing my mind a little less unbearable."

"So choice is just an illusion?"

"I would prefer you to offer your freedom and company to me as opposed to having no say at all." He smiles.

"In other words, you get what you want either way."

"Precisely." He replied. "Ten months. I can spare you two months to finish whatever unfinished business you have."

You ignored his disingenuous offer. "How exactly will you keep me against my will if Zhongli can just march in here, reseal you, and take me back?"

"He will not take you if you agree to a contract before he gets here." He reminds you. "Must you keep testing my patience in this way?"

"I'll just wait until he gets here." You shrug.

"Nine months." He demands, slight irritation in his tone.

As if to demonstrate his irrefutable mastery over the environment, the ground beneath your feet began to shake again.

"Surely eight months in a year is not too much to ask." He says after your silence.

The entire subspace pulsated with Geo and began to churn as if a giant wheel were being turned in the distance.

"You don't frighten me, if that's what you're trying to do."

After that little test, you were certain that even if he had the power to end your life right here and now, he could never actually pull through with it. This was a beast with all his claws and teeth intact that could not lay a single finger on you.

"Are you truly so unwilling?" He brushes the back of a finger against your cheek.

"It's not like I'll get compensated for the time I'm going to be kept here against my will."

"I did not say you will receive nothing in return." A knowing smile crept into his lips. "You would consider it if I compensated you in some way?"

You should've kept your mouth shut. Now this bastard was onto you like a beast hooked on the scent of fresh blood. You wondered if Zhongli had already discovered your absence. How long would it take for him to find you?

"I'm not for sale." You crossed your arm. "You can haggle all you want, but I'm not selling myself to you."

"Anything can be bought, my dear."

"You don't have anything to offer that I'd want." You retorted. "At least nothing that Zhongli wouldn't be able to give me."

"I loathe the thought of harming you, truly…" The corner of his lips curled ever so slightly. "It's a pity that this affection does not extend to those around you."

"You're resorting to threatening me now?"

"If I must." He grins. The fingernails ghosting over your neck elongated into sharp claws. "Am I finally detecting a sway in your resolution?"

"Once he finds me, you won't have the chance." You huff, trying to keep up an unbothered front.

"Oh, I have quite the time to persuade you, darling. You can rest assured that he will not find you so easily. While I can hear his thoughts, he cannot access my mind. Such is the nature of our bond, so that what I carry on his behalf does not find its way back to him. While he can sense that my seal is broken, it will take him some effort to uncover this location."

Your lips parted in shock as his words dawned on you. This entity in front of you was at one point a part of the man you call Zhongli, your lover. The reason the person you met was such a selfless, considerate, and pleasant presence was because his darker, more troubled side had been literally cut away and sealed off from the rest of Teyvat so aa to not disturb the peaceful harbor he had painstakingly raised along the baron cliffs.

"Those things he'd never do…" The words drifted from your lips as they formed in your mind, slow and unsure. "They don't extend to you, do they?"

"You may consider my very existence an intentional loophole." He supplied.

You swallowed nervously. "What about the contracts he makes?"

He raises a hand to stroke his chin in thought. "I have been sealed away for as long as I could remember. When I had gone to fetch you, it hadn't occurred to me to challenge any of the contracts that he had bound himself to. Perhaps I can slaughter a few of his subjects to see if—"

"No! Absolutely not!" In a fit of panic, you pressed the palm of your hand against his lips to stop the rest of his sentence from spilling out. "You will not be killing any innocent people!"

He chuckled, but the sound was muffled underneath your hands. The warmth of his breath caused your skin to tingle so you quickly removed your hand from his face.

"How exactly do you intend to stop me if you are trapped here?"

A pair of stone cuffs emerged from the stone pillar behind you, molding around your wrists. Another pair wrapped around your ankles, effectively restricting your movements. His question had effectively shut you up as well.

"Precisely. You cannot." He smiled ominously at you.

"Wait!" You shouted after him as he walked off.

He stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn around, waiting for your explanation.

"Did he split you off before or after he became the Geo Archon?"

"After." Came his reply.

"Then that means you're still bound by his contract to protect Liyue. You can't hurt anyone even if you wanted to."

He turned around to face you, walking back at a leisurely pace. Once he was close enough, he reached up to stroke your face, a doting gesture, but it sent shivers up your spine.

"I'm afraid you are misinterpreting what a contract is and what it is not. A contract simply ensures that the party who chooses to dishonor an agreement faces the stipulated repercussions. It does not prevent one from breaching it if they wish to do so."

"Oh." You gave a dejected sigh.

"Not to worry. As long as you give me your word to keep me company for eight months out of the year, I will promise you that no harm shall come to the people of Liyue."

"Eight months is too long."

"Very well, then. Seven months."

"Six."

"I accept your terms. You may back out of this contract now, but this would be your last chance."

"Half a year." You muttered under your breath. "As long as you keep your end of the agreement."

A part of you still hoped Zhongli would barge in at any moment and put an end to this ridiculous hostage situation. Would he really let you be sealed away with his evil twin for six months in a year? You didn't even want to imagine what life would become for you during those six months of involuntary confinement. Was Zhongli really that inflexible when it comes to contracts?

"Why do you even want to keep me here in the first place?" You narrowed your eyes at him.

"Why would I not?" He simply laughed.

There was nothing sinister about the sound this time. He looked so harmless, innocent even. For a moment, you could not tell the difference between this individual and the retired archon you so adored.

"You seem rather confused still as to why I have gone out of my way to bring you here, my dearest. To say that I am simply fond of you is putting it lightly…" His tone softened as he neared. He leaned in, brushing his lips against the sensitive rim of your ear.

You drew in a shallow breath as his words simultaneously tickled your mind and your senses.

"There is no need to overthink it. Now that you've agreed to give me your precious time, I promise that your stay would be most fruitful."

He pressed a kiss to your forehead. A tingling sensation bloomed underneath your skin, spreading throughout your body. Suddenly, a chill shot up your spine. Your head was stark clear. You fell forward, right into his waiting arms as the stone cuffs released their hold on your limbs.

With the contract a reality, you were now only able to spend six months of the year with Zhongli. The other half of it, you were bound to his twin. It can't be that bad, since he proved he was just as fond of you as his more level-headed counterpart. How would your lover take the news of having to share you?

[luckyartdrawer]

100 FOLLOWERS MILESTONE!!! MER AU!!!

Y'all chose the MER AU to celebrate, and so say hello to some fishy boys! They are all quite happy to see you, though some seem to show it more than others!

Cookie cutter shark Sun can't wait to take a bite- I mean- erm- rather a hug out of you! Either way he's quite excited!

Threadfin Eclipse would rather all eyes be on him, but he would settle for just yours! His colors shifts in every way, he's hoping your eyes won't stray!

Jellyfish Moon doesn't mean to be so imposing -- towards you anyways. He just wants to see you and everyone happens to be in the way!

This is technically a PT 1 to the celebration, as we have a Royal AU to roll out the red carpet for as well due to a tie in the poll!

PT 2 is made!

vvv Sketch/line art and yapping below!!! vvv

Sketch/Line art

Hehehe I just had to share. I am so proud of how the lines came out. Sketch cleaned up as lineart method my beloved.

Uagh I keep looking back and seeing so many things I could do. I might update the images secretly one day, but for now I think I need to let it be free in the world before I just never finish lol

Welcome to my yap sesh! Thank you all for being here, I hope the wait was worth it! <3 I am very proud of this and spent soooo so long rendering it. (What was i thinking doing 3 characters end my suffering /J)

Here's some random factoids about these sillies!

Sun: Born in the depths. He is a dime of dozen of cookie cutter sharks, all of them insistent of taking chunks out of anything and anyone they can find. Sun at least has some restraint when it comes to mers he likes, but he always wants just one nibble! Sun tends to warm up fast to mers that give him a speck of attention and care. Cookie cutter shark mers are known to link up with mates as soon as possible, but Sun insists that he hasn't found the perfect fit yet. No one is tasty enough for it! Everyone needs to compliment the other! Sun is the fastest of the 3, relying solely on his speed and jumping out of hiding spots to catch prey. His sharp claws pierces easily and the long webbing between his fingers makes it really easy to ensnare prey in his grasp!

Moon: Born in the depths. Jellyfish mers are rather uncommon, being known as a mostly solitary species. Unlike their animal counterparts, Jellyfish mer go alone after maturing, not even inclined to search for a mate, though they can if they so desire. They live the longest of any mer species. Their transparent bodies keep their form hidden from prey as their bioluminescence lures them in. Moon is the slowest of the 3, but it does not matter to him. To hunt, he floats in a comfortable spot, amping up his bioluminescence and fanning out his ribbons to attract prey. If a victim gets within his vicinity, his ribbons will quickly wrap and tangle around them, sending painful stings and intense damage to the prey. While effective, there are times the mer will sit in one spot for days having not attracted any food. He can hunt directly like other mers, but he'd have to rely on his transparency over speed in order to get close enough to catch them, his melded fingers make it even harder to grasp prey directly.

Eclipse: Isn't actually born a deep sea mer but spent most of his life in the depths after finding out how delicious specific creatures are and how much attention his looks get him. His skin and scales are iridescent and he loves to flaunt them when he can. Eclipse tends to be very carefree, though also the most gentle when interacting with other mers. He is inclined to view anyone as a potential friend or more due to being omnivorous, though no many has caught his full, dedicated attention. He's not territorial, not competitive, and doesn't care where he goes as he can eat just about anything. Hunting wise he is the most tactical, using his colors and thick ribbons to lure and confuse prey. He isn't the fastest nor the slowest, but his long hands increase his likelihood of catching prey he otherwise would have been a little too slow to grasp.

Yeah i.... I ended up having a lot of fun coming up with these guys

Especially moon, those of you who know KNOW, but man... my moon bias is so strong.

I even have this cute expression idea where he can control how his cap looks and uses it for his own protection. When sometimes when sleeping or defensive, he will tuck in his tail, arms, and sometimes his ribbons within the cap and then, like a string bag, it closes off his entire body from the world. He's in his own cap bubble!!! When embarrassed or trying to physically interact with someone without fear of hurting them, he'll tuck in his ribbons and scrunch his cap around his head. He'll look a bit silly, and you can't touch his face, but you can hug him safely and play with the soft round cap that now encases his head. (His tail/neck ribbons have no stinging abilities, they're just glowy for lure purposes!) his coloration is mostly inspired by the Man-O-War but his species is more fantasy then based off only that like the other two are with their respective fish, so that's why I just call him simply a Jellyfish for now :3

Sorry about that... I still love all 3 of these goobas and have ideas for them though! Maybe one day I'll get a fic going for them, not saying anytime soon because I have TOO MANY to work on rn, but just know they are swimming in my head.

So many ideas, so little time......

Once again THANK YOU ALL!!! It is so lovely to see y'all here despite my whacky upload schedules. I always tell myself I should make more simple things sometimes just so I can get the ideas out faster, but then my hands always do something else smh. Hope you all find this art and my future works quite delectable! <333

[grox]

Buying one of those "dogs shitting" novelty wall calendars as a gag gift for your boss without looking through first cause you dont like calendar spoilers, and he unwraps it and pages through it and you see his smile fade and his face journeys from perplexed to legit disgusted, atmosphere in the room loses any and all joviality, the people peeking over his shoulder retch, you finally look too only to see that like, every picture for every month is of a dog, like the same dog, clearly in distress each time, just fucking blasting ridiculous amounts of shit out its ass, sometimes throwing up an equal quantity and force at the same time, and like 3/4ths of the pictures are indoors, seemingly a different house each time or at least different rooms, sometimes what appears to be a veternarians office, all taken with a real life trained photographers camera- I'm talking rule of thirds framing, proper lighting, dynamic and interesting angles, 4K image quality- like, you can see every matted hair, every chunk in each puddle, lovingly edited in post and rendered, people are screaming, pages turn, every month the dog gets noticeably more ill and decrepit, by the time he flips to december its completely fucking skeletal and shitting with the same efficacy yet still, boss doesnt even rememberr who the fuck gave it to him, he's mad as hell, he starts swinging, . bodies are piling up, someone pulled the fire alarm,

[gallifreyanhotfive]

What Stories Are About the Academy Era? A Guide

@zombies-sold-cheap

Context:

Stories set in the Academy Era/Otherwise Early Days are sparse to say the least (even Divided Loyalties only shows you the Academy through a dream), but you can actually piece together a pretty decent chunk of the Doctor’s early life (while it still remaining very mysterious) using the Expanded Universe. I've done a lot of infodumping in my time, so I'll do my best here by typing up my personal reference guide to this era. Anyway:

Theta Sigma and his friends would attempt to climb Mount Cadon. At the peak, you could apparently see all of time, but they never got to the top because of hallucinogenic snow. While attempting such a climb, Vansell broke his leg, and Theta Sigma fixed it with a time bubble he made from a sonic wrench and some twine. (Audio: Devil in the Mist)

Theta Sigma and Koschei traveled into the past of Gallifrey in search of Valdemar. Theta was horrified by the power that Valdemar represented, but Koschei was intrigued. (Novel: Tomb of Valdemar)

Theta Sigma time-locked his dorm room so thoroughly that even centuries after he graduated they hadn't managed to undo it. (Audio: Time in Office)

Theta Sigma also once used the food machine to get mercury for his own science projects and in doing so almost caused his professor to regenerate. (Audio: Time in Office)

At some point, Theta Sigma and Koschei traveled to the planet Machasma and used sonic agitation to get them out of trouble. (Audio: Darkness and Light)

Theta Sigma, Koschei, and three others were part of a band called the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five (see: my username). Theta Sigma played the perigosto sticks, and Koschei played the drums. (Novel: Deadly Reunion)

Millennia came from a wealthy family and was gifted in temporal engineering. She and Rallon had a "thing" for each other (wink wink) (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Theta Sigma once made High Tutor Albrecht regenerate in an incident involving a perigosto stick and a temporal feedback loop. He was reprimanded by Borusa for this. (Novel: The Time Lord Letters)

Koschei was obsessed with the Necronomicon. (Short story: The Nameless City)

Runcible was the hall monitor at the Academy and regularly got into conflicts with the Deca because it was his job to make sure students were in bed after dark. They have mutual hatred of each other. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Indeed, the Master would one day stab him in the back and kill him. (Television: The Deadly Assassin)

Drax built a skimmer and would sometimes use it to take Jelpax home because they lived close to each other. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Theta Sigma attended Ushas's 94th birthday party. (Novel: The Death of Art)

Theta Sigma engineered a dangerous bacteria that rendered all multicellular life that came in contact with it comatose. This was a huge scandal on Gallifrey, and the Academy thoroughly hushed it up and had all samples destroyed. However, Ushas kept a sample and would one day use it in a scheme as the Rani. (Audio: Planet of the Rani)

Koschei taught Theta Sigma hypnosis. He'd also hypnotize others a lot because he thought it was amusing. (Novel: The Dark Path)

Mortimus once asked Ushas out but was so thoroughly rejected that he thought she wasn't interested in dating at all. Unbeknownst to him, Ushas later had a relationship with Magnus. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Theta Sigma and Koschei were bullied by Torvic. Theta was eventually forced to kill Torvic to save Koschei's life, but when Death came to offer Theta to be their disciple, he had Koschei take his place. He forgot about this deal and lived for centuries under the impression that their places had been swapped and that it had been Koschei to kill Torvic. (Audio: Master)

Despite this, he apparently drew pictures of Torvic in his diary. (Short story: The Three Paths)

Theta Sigma was also bullied by Anzor at the Academy. Anzor would use a galvanizer to make Theta do his navigational homework. He also turned another student named Cheevah into a crystal and threw him off a bell tower. (Audio/Novel: Mission to Magnus)

Koschei was in charge of organizing the end of term parties, but the Eighth Doctor recalled that they weren’t good. (Comic: The Glorious Dead)

Theta Sigma and Koschei would sneak out of the Capitol and go drinking with the Shobogans. (Novel: The Eight Doctors)

Theta Sigma was given an avatroid named Badger as a young child to act as his friend, protector, and tutor. He apparently gives bone crushing hugs. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Theta Sigma did not have a good relationship with most of the House of Lungbarrow. Indeed, his first memory is of Satthralope smacking him so hard he could not walk afterwards. (Audio/Novel: Cold Fusion)

Satthralope would also let the drudges attack Theta if he refused to come to dinner. Drudges are basically servants of the Houses, about two and a half meters tall, and strong enough to hold a fully grown Time Lord in one arm. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

One time, those at the House of Lungbarrow wanted Theta Sigma to return home for Otherstide and even sent Badger to collect him. Theta refused, so they contacted his professor Delox, who proceeded to expel him from her classroom after chastising him on his family in front of the entire class. After this, Theta appeared to exhibit many of the signs I associate with a nervous breakdown. Distressed, Theta came up with an idea that would prove he wasn't what they all said he was - he would go after the Toymaker. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Millennia and Rallon were the only two to join him on this trip, the rest of the Deca thinking them mad. They stole a Type 18 TARDIS, and after making it to the Toyroom, Rallon's body was basically immediately taken over by the Toymaker. The Toymaker had Theta play a game of Capture the Flag. He turned Millennia into one of his dolls, and Theta returned to Gallifrey, the only survivor. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Because of these events, Theta was put on trial. The only two to attend this trial to support Theta were Jelpax and Magnus. Vansell showed up but only to reveal that he had been working with the CIA, having been tasked with watching Theta. Koschei and Ushas had been off working on a research project at the time. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

While Theta, Rallon, and Millennia were gone, Mortimus ran away from Gallifrey, which made many think he had gone with them, and eventually also ended up in the Toyroom. (Novel: Divided Loyalties) Other accounts suggest Mortimus left Gallifrey later, so perhaps he returned after this trip.

Theta Sigma was on the same zero-grav hyperball team as Padrac, who he called "Paddy." (Audio: The Eleven)

Theta and Koschei's "kindergarten spat" apparently almost destroyed the planet. During this time, Theta used to call Koschei "Scabby Knees." (Audio: Blood of the Time Lords)

Theta Sigma had no friends in his very early life. Instead of creating imaginary friends, he had an imaginary enemy called Mandrake. Mandrake was actually a dead lizard he pinned to an engine part that Theta would defeat using a stick. (Audio: The Widow's Assassin)

There was a Hermit who lived behind the House of Lungbarrow on the mountain. Theta Sigma once went to him, depressed and full of despair, and the Hermit showed him hope in yellow flowers. (Television: The Time Monster)

Shimmerlings live in the time vortex, but after a storm, they were stranded on Gallifrey and dying. A very young Theta Sigma saw the Hermit throwing them into the Untempered Schism to save them. Theta asked him what was the point because he wouldn't be able to save them all before they died, and the Hermit taught him the value in saving who he could, despite not being able to save everyone. (Audio: Crossed Lines)

Theta Sigma was the Time Tot Hide And Seek Champion for 42 years in a row, which apparently drove Ushas nuts. (Comic: Weapons of Past Destruction)

When Maris - a retired CIA agent - was hired to find out where Theta Sigma, now probably the Doctor, had run off to in the TARDIS, Ushas and Koschei kidnapped her, interrogated her in an attempt to find where the Doctor had gone, and eventually almost killed her when she knew nothing (she was extracted from the situation before she could be murdered). (Short story: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir)

After graduating, Magnus rose quickly in Time Lord society, which Borusa felt threatened by. Borusa had the CIA manufacture evidence implicating Magnus in treason, leading to him fleeing Gallifrey and becoming a renegade. (Novel: Timewyrm: Exodus)

Koschei befriended a professor at the Academy named Salyavin because he wanted access to the restricted libraries. He wanted to find The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, an act which was illegal. Salyavin took the blame for this, was sent to Shada, and stole the book (since he was condemned anyway, he might as well). (Short story: The Legacy of Gallifrey)

Theta Sigma and Ruath, another student at the Academy who was obsessed with vampires, once electrified Borusa's perigosto stick. (Novel: Goth Opera)

After the Academy, Koschei attended a ritual with Theta Sigma and Susan, then likely called Arkytior, in Arcadia. Here, he gave her a toy, which was actually a communication node that he planned to use to find Theta and her if they ever left Gallifrey. (Audio: The Toy)

According to one account, Koschei led students at the Academy in a coup against Lord President Pundat the Third and tried to convince Theta Sigma to join. Pundat died of stress soon after the revolt and was replaced with Chancellor Slann. There was a second coup, but they were overheard by the authorities trying to yet again convince Theta to help. After each coup, there were bloody reprisals against the students, but Theta, who was not involved, had his memory wiped. Koschei assassinated Slann, but the students weren't ready for another go. He ended up fleeing Gallifrey. (Short story: Birth of a Renegade) There are, however, many other accounts of him fleeing Gallifrey.

Koschei and a "friend" were locked in a bathroom of a bar in the Tower by the Time Lords after a prank gone wrong. The two fought, and the friend left Koschei behind in the Tower, where he remained locked in for centuries. (Short story: Rebel Rebel)

Theta called Vansell "Nosebung" and continued to do so for centuries. (Audio: Neverland)

Theta Sigma came in fourth place in the Time Lord Academy Sprint Championship. (Comic: Space in Dimension Relative in Time)

Theta Sigma fed a snapping wart fowl to Valyes's summer project, and Valyes still holds a grudge over this. (Audio: The Next Life)

Flubbles are koala-like animals with six legs. Theta Sigma used to keep one under his bed at the Academy as an illegal pet. He almost got caught when she went into heat and started performing her mating call. (Novel: Island of Death)

Theta Sigma used to chase tafelshrews - a species almost like rodents - through the snow of Mount Cadon. (Short story: The Three Paths)

By some accounts, Theta Sigma was loomed, and by some, he had parents. In a version where he had parents, his father and Mr. Saldaamir were once working in the House and were therefore ignoring Theta. Because of this, Theta, at this point a small child, caught a cobblemouse and set it loose in the House, interrupting their plans. (Novel: Unnatural History)

A cousin of Theta's - Glospin - used to bully him quite a lot. He once claimed to find evidence in the Loom pointing to the fact that Theta did not belong in the House of Lungbarrow. If this was believed, Theta Sigma would have been executed. This caused the two to have a physical altercation. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

During this fight, Glospin got a genetic sample from Theta, allowing him to force a regeneration into a Theta lookalike. Then, Glospin murdered Quences, the Kithriarch of the House of Lungbarrow (basically the head of the family), before regenerating again, thus framing Theta for the murder. This was because Glospin wanted to become the next Kithriarch instead of Theta, but because of this, the House of Lungbarrow buried themself (the Houses are sentient, did I mention that?) for centuries. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Despite doting on Theta (and Theta generally being his favorite), Quences had been convinced by Satthralope to disown him when he announced he didn't want to be a Lord Cardinal. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Some of Theta's cousins include Quences, Satthralope, Glospin, Innocet, Arkhew, Owis, Salpash, Luton, Rynde, Jobiska, Maljamin, Farg, Celesia, Chovor, DeRoosifa, and Almund. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Grandfather Paradox was also of the House of Lungbarrow from the same generation as Theta, but of course, he never actually existed. (Novel: Christmas on a Rational Planet)

Pandad VII issued a Burn Edict on Braxiatel, but Braxiatel killed his would be assassin. As punishment, Braxiatel was forced to take up the mantle of Lord Burner for some time, the personal assassin for Lord President Pandad VII. He was ordered to erase an old man and his granddaughter (wink wink) who were fleeing Gallifrey from history but refused to do so and let them go free. That very same day, Pandad died when a power relay that was in his office overloaded, but an inquiry led by Braxiatel found that this was an accident. Just an accident. Nothing shady going on here. (Audio: Disassembled)

Magnus tried to drain the Artron energy from a giant sphere from the time vortex. Theta Sigma opposed him and used the gun of a member of the Chancellery Guard to stop him from draining the energy because he had learned that the energy was alive. This set the energy free. Magnus never forgave him for this, and their friendship ended. (Comic: Flashback)

Theta Sigma had a great aunt lived in a house high in the mountains. She would sing him lullabies. The Eighth Doctor said she was "terrible." (Audio: Together in Eclectic Dreams)

Anyhow, I'm spent, so I'll post this now. Might add on some more later lmaoooo

Don't forget to check out the next part in the reblogs!

[illwilledomen]

I recently became VERY interested in your Minecraft stuff, and I'd like to ask a question... In one of drawings, an illager tells Steve that "We can cheat death too," does this imply that the players CAN actually respawn just like how we can in Minecraft and if they can respawn how does it work?? And how do the villagers react to Steve just respawning?

Yes, they can!

Since you’ve been looking through my stuff you probably already know that players in Abiogenesis are constructs. While I sometimes call them robots, they are technically more like golems and whatnot, which are powered by magic, except far more advanced. The little metal port above a player’s heart is their soul core, and that is, you guessed it, where their soul lives, and what gives them life and sapience. Players can regenerate flesh on their body that has been lost or sustained damage in an injury. If the damage is so severe (or done to a specific vulnerable area like the neck or stomach, aka something that would be fatal) the player “dies” temporarily so it’s body can devote all it’s energy into repairing itself.

How does this work?

Well, their soul core sends the soul into stasis. It is temporarily phased out of the corporeal realm. In the Abiogenesis/Minecraft world, when anything living dies, its soul phases into a non-corporeal dimension called the Otherside and releases magical energy in the form of Experience. This occurs with players, however, what allows them to return is the fact the soul does not travel onward. It is tethered to the port, and only temporarily stays in the O.S. Eventually, once the body is fit to return to, the soul makes its way back into the port, and the player is alive again. These periods of “death” usually last 24 hours, though severe structural damage can render them dead for up to a week. They will not respawn in their last place of rest like in-game, wherever their body lies will be where they awaken.

Players lose a small amount of Experience when they die, and will wake up delirious and faint, with minor memory loss. Sort of a “death hangover”. They will also be ravenously hungry, as their bodies need to regenerate the calories lost from fixing their body. They also may experience trauma symptoms from the cause of death (e.g, death by fire makes them frightened of a campfire or a fireplace) though these will eventually subside.

Players can be killed permanently. Netherite is strong enough to destroy the soul core, as is extreme heat (im talking instantly vaporized levels of heat) and the Void. The Void obliterates all corporeal matter that is not voidborn upon contact, so a player falling into it will straight up cease to exist. There would be no afterlife in the Otherside, just Nothing — complete oblivion.

Villagers would be freaked the hell out for starters. Steve isn’t fully aware he isn’t a biological person (he suspects it, but he’s sort of in denial), all he would know is that he feels sick and there’s a huge chunk of time missing. Since the village steve lives in knows Steve and trusts him, they would not necessarily take it as a bad omen. They would likely hold a village meeting about it and try to make sense of the whole shabang. Reinard had a religious vision regarding the Hosts shortly before he adopted Steve, so he already believes deep down that Steve is, in some way, blessed by the hosts. This, alongside Steve’s other player-y quirks, would solidify that in his mind.

[edenesth]

The Way to His Heart [14]

Pairing: general!Seonghwa x wife!reader

AU: arranged marriage au (Joseon era)

Word Count: 3.8k

Summary: Life has been hell ever since your mother's passing many years ago. Despite being from a prominent family, you've never received the privileges associated with it. It only got worse with the arrival of your stepmother and her daughters. When the intimidating General Park was in search of a wife, your father seized the opportunity to dispose of you, simultaneously securing a connection with the powerful general—killing two birds with one stone.

Part 13 | Fic Masterlist | Part 15

"J-Jinjoo? Is that you?"

Your breath caught in your throat as you observed the scars scattered across her body, wounds that hadn't been there the last time you saw her. The severity of her punishment was evident, and judging by the marks, it seemed unlikely they would fade anytime soon, if ever.

The younger girl smirked bitterly, "Are you happy now? All five of us have been beaten nearly to death, left with scars that will likely never fully heal in this lifetime. Mother will serve until the day she dies, and the three of us will pay for a good chunk of our lives!"

As if anticipating your inquiry about the former minister, she shook her head and balled her fists, "Father has endured enough beatings and torture to render him almost paralysed, and guess what? He's been exiled to god knows where. If you want more details, perhaps you should ask your husband about it."

Your heart sank at the mention of Seonghwa, "Wh-what do you mean? Your punishments were determined by His Majesty. Why would my husband be involved—"

She scoffed incredulously, "Did you truly forget who General Park really is? He sat back and enjoyed the show while we suffered, allowing the torture to happen. That absolute monster—he did this to us; he ruined our lives forever. I mean, sure, we weren't great to you either, but look at you now, Lady Park. It's all thanks to us that you're who you are today."

Noting your silence, she continued with a sly edge, "Though I wouldn't celebrate too soon if I were you. Who's to say when he'll show his true colours once he's grown tired of you?"

Before you could respond, Hongjoong appeared at your side, his tone laced with disbelief, "Worry about yourself first, peasant. Oh, the audacity of this young lady. Do you even realise who you're addressing? How dare you try to twist this around and play the victim? You and your family got what you deserved. Count yourself lucky that you're still alive and well, hm?"

The dressmaker turned to signal the factory owner and the elderly man immediately rushed over anxiously, "S-sir, what brings you to this part of the factory? P-please, allow me to escort you out."

Halting the man, Hongjoong gestured towards your stepsister, "This one right here was being disrespectful to Lady Park. Would you mind teaching her a good lesson for me? Otherwise, I may have to reconsider our choice of fabric supplier."

Suddenly realising her mistake, Jinjoo trembled like a leaf under the owner's stern gaze. He bowed repeatedly at you and your friend, "O-of course, sir! Rest assured, I'll ensure she never forgets her manners again. You have my word!"

As Hongjoong guided you out of the store, you remained silent, your thoughts swirling from the disturbing revelation that the general had been involved in the punishments of your family.

Walking alongside the dressmaker, the weight of the revelation bore down on you like a suffocating blanket. The image of Seonghwa, once your loving husband, now tainted with the sinister aura of someone who could watch others suffer without flinching, haunted your thoughts. Sure, you were there to witness him extracting the confession from your father, but you never fathomed that he would actually be involved in the subsequent punishment.

Your stepsister's words echoed in your mind, stirring up a cocktail of dread and uncertainty. Could it be true? Have you really forgotten the true nature of General Park? The man you had once trusted implicitly now appeared in a new, unsettling light. The realisation sent shivers down your spine as you contemplated the implications.

Fear gnawed at your insides as you entertained the chilling possibility that if he could inflict such cruelty upon your family, what would stop him from doing the same to you if ever he grew displeased? The thought sent a chill down your spine, leaving you questioning everything you once believed about the man you loved.

Throughout the remainder of the day, you remained unusually quiet, your thoughts clearly elsewhere. Hongjoong opted not to pry, deciding to wait until you were back within the safety of your home before broaching the subject. Despite his efforts to lighten the mood and draw a smile from you, it seemed futile. He was acutely aware of the impact Jinjoo's words must have had on you, especially given your delicate emotional state. After enduring years of mistreatment, he could see how trusting others fully must be an immense challenge.

Later that evening as you sat down for dinner together, he finally broke the silence, setting down his chopsticks with a sigh, "What's on your mind, Lady Park? You know you can talk to me, right?"

You paused at his question, pondering whether to confide in him about your inner turmoil. How would he respond? Would he be disappointed in you? After all, the general was his close friend. It seemed likely he would take Seonghwa's side and defend him. Though your husband hadn't given you any reason to doubt his affection thus far, his decision to hide this information from you must carry some significance.

"It's nothing, Hongjoong. Maybe I'm just feeling a bit weary after our day out," You mumbled, resuming your meal and hurriedly stuffing more food into your mouth to avoid conversation. He frowned at your behaviour and gently intervened, placing a hand on yours, "Hey, hey, slow down. The food isn't going anywhere; it's all yours."

With his arms crossed over his chest, he shook his head disapprovingly, "Who are you trying to fool with that lie? You might be able to deceive anyone, even your dumb husband, but not me. You were perfectly fine until you ran into your... into her."

You froze, caught red-handed in your attempt to deflect. You should have known better than to think you could fool Hongjoong with such a feeble excuse. Instead of scolding you, he softened, uncrossing his arms and leaning in, his eyes full of understanding.

"Listen, I'm sorry I wasn't there by your side to defend you earlier. I should have prevented all of that from happening today; it's entirely my fault. When I heard what she said to you, I knew it would affect you. And now, seeing you like this, I can tell I was right. Don't you dare believe any of her ridiculous words, you hear me?"

Setting down your chopsticks shakily, you turned to face him, despair etched clearly on your features, "But Hongjoong, what if there's truth in what she was saying? Wh-what if he eventually grows tired of me? Will I end up suffering like all of them too?"

The dressmaker didn't have the heart to berate you, understanding your doubts despite the internal frustration he felt at your stepsister for undoing all the trust you had in Seonghwa with just a few words.

He released a deep breath and offered a smile, "Have you forgotten everything I've told you about how he's different when it comes to you? He would never do anything to hurt you; I can vouch for him. As ruthless as General Park can be, he reserves that side only for those who deserve it. Your family deserves every bit of the punishment they received for the harm they caused you. You shouldn't feel any guilt for them, you know?"

Hongjoong leaned in closer, his tone softening, "Trust me, she's just jealous of you. It's obvious she's envious of the life you have now, and she's intentionally trying to stir up trouble between you and your husband. Don't let her get to you. You and Seonghwa have something special, something she'll never understand."

As his words sank in, you felt a slight sense of relief wash over you. It did make sense that Jinjoo would resort to such tactics out of jealousy. After all, her resentment towards you had always been evident. You felt ashamed for entertaining the possibility of your husband hurting you when he had only ever been good towards you.

However, the memory of the scars on your stepsister's body lingered in your mind, knowing the ones on your father and stepmother were even worse than what you've seen. While you recognised that your family deserved the consequences of their actions, the realisation that Seonghwa had played a part in their suffering made you feel sick to your stomach. Your emotions were in disarray; it was difficult to act nonchalant after learning the unsettling truth.

Despite the turmoil raging within you like a storm, you didn't want to add to your friend's concerns. Putting on a smile, you nodded, "You're right, Hongjoong. I must be silly to let her words affect me like this." You forced a light chuckle and went back to your meal, hoping to change the subject.

Though the dressmaker felt somewhat reassured that you acknowledged his advice, he sensed you were still troubled by what you had learned. He could only hope that with time, you would be able to move past Jinjoo's words. The last thing Seonghwa needed upon his return from war was to find his beloved wife fearful of him.

Damnit, I shouldn't have taken her there.

"General Park hasn't arrived yet, you say? Well, who would have thought he'd become such a loving husband? This Lady Park must be quite remarkable for him to—"

Rolling his eyes, the general heard the familiar deep voice gossiping about him from outside the main tent, where meetings would take place. With a loud clear of his throat, he pulled open the flap and entered, his presence immediately causing everyone in the room to straighten up, "I'm here now, Mingi. It would be great if you could cease your idle chatter and get to work at once."

"S-sir! It's been a while, you look good—"

"Save it, Officer Song."

Acknowledging the command with a salute, the taller man swiftly proceeded to the central table, laying out numerous documents detailing the strategies he had developed, "Yes sir, here are some of the plans I've drafted thus far."

Seonghwa nodded approvingly and approached him. As he listened to his colleague's explanations, a satisfied smirk graced his lips, affirming his keen judgement in promoting the right individual.

General Officer Song had risen to become one of the most esteemed military strategists in Joseon, all thanks to General Park's recommendation. Your husband was notoriously difficult to impress, but Mingi's exceptional talents caught his attention during a particularly challenging battle many years ago. Despite being a mere low-ranking soldier at the time, he devised a brilliant plan that ultimately turned the odds in their favour, leading to an epic victory.

"Ruhon is known to be rash in their decision-making; their impulsiveness is evident in their sudden attack plans," The taller man explained, his fingers tracing over strategic points on the map, "We can capitalise on this by striking where they least expect us. Through my research, I've identified blind spots that will catch them off guard. May I have authorisation to deploy troops to these locations, sir?"

The general nodded decisively, "I have faith in your judgement, Officer Song. You've never let me down in all our years together; I'm confident this time will be no exception."

"Thank you, sir."

Once all the necessary arrangements had been finalised and everyone had been briefed on their roles, the meeting came to an end. While the other officers and soldiers hurried off to relay the information discussed and carry out their assigned duties, Officer Song lingered behind, sharing a knowing look with the general.

Taking a seat beside the person he considered his friend and mentor, Mingi offered a genuine smile, "Congratulations on your recent marriage, hyung-nim."

Returning the smile, Seonghwa gave the taller man a pat on the back, "Thank you, Mingi-yah. I hope you've been well these past few years. Once this is all over, might I hear news of your own wedding?"

Blushing faintly, the strategist shook his head, "Unfortunately, I haven't found my one yet. But I am happy for you, general. Everyone in Joseon seems to know about your new wife and her difficult past. I'm just glad you found each other. I heard you were granted a few days with Lady Park before coming here. How is she holding up?"

The mention of his wife brought a pang of discomfort, evoking memories of your heartbreaking farewell. Throughout his journey to the war site, your husband couldn't shake the image of your tear-stained face, "She's... she's handling it better than I expected, or maybe that's just what she's showing me. When I told her about my departure, she didn't break down. Instead, she smiled at me with understanding and simply asked when I would be leaving."

"Huh, did she really?" Mingi mused, a hint of admiration in his tone, "I suppose now I understand why you're so smitten with her. It seems she's truly as delightful as the rumours claimed." Even from the snippets of what he had heard, the strategist could tell that Lady Park was indeed an extraordinary person, and he could see why Seonghwa held you in such high regard.

With a nod, the general's expression grew sombre, "Indeed, she truly is. But I won't lie and say I'm not worried about her," He admitted, "When she first arrived, I treated her poorly. I mistook her for just another spoiled brat, only to learn she's suffered a life far worse than mine. I'll never forgive myself for that. From that moment on, I vowed to give her nothing but the best. You know, I had plans for a grand wedding, a chance to make up for everything..."

Officer Song's face mirrored your husband's solemnity as realisation dawned, "Then this war happened..."

"Yeah, but that's not all," Seonghwa continued, his voice heavy with worry, "I just... God, what if I don't return to her? I've only just found her..."

Bowing his head, the general felt overwhelmed by his concerns. Mingi placed a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder, "Have you forgotten who you are? You're General Park of Joseon, the King's most trusted warrior. If anyone can make it out of this war unscathed, it would be you. Trust me, you will make it back to Lady Park. And you better invite me to that wedding of yours." The strategist said, his words laced with a touch of humour.

Despite the weight of his worries, your husband chuckled softly, nodding gratefully at the reassurance, "Of course, Mingi."

Before the two could continue their conversation, a soldier barged into the tent, panting heavily, "General Park! Some of Ruhon's troops have been spotted approaching. We need you out there!"

Alright, let's get this over with.

Meanwhile, back in the general's estate, you found yourself in your usual spot in the pavilion. Lady etiquette books lay scattered around, forgotten as your gaze drifted distantly over the tranquil lotus pond.

Regardless of the overwhelming emotions that had consumed you the day before upon learning the truth about your family's punishments, you couldn't deny the longing in your heart for Seonghwa's presence. Being alone in the pavilion now felt even lonelier than before. Accustomed to his warm embrace, his absence left a void that seemed impossible to fill.

However, as you contemplated the absence of your husband's comforting presence, conflicting emotions surged within you.

No matter how hard you tried, you simply couldn't shake the unsettling realisation that the same hands that held you close were also stained with the blood of countless others. Hongjoong's reassurances echoed in your mind, yet a nagging doubt persisted. While he assured you that the general would never harm you, your moral compass grappled with the knowledge that he was capable of inflicting pain without hesitation, regardless of justification.

It just felt so... wrong.

"Ah, is this the famous lotus pond you've mentioned, Miss Jang?" The unexpected voice startled you out of your thoughts. Turning to confirm your suspicions, you let out a loud gasp at the sight of the fourth prince standing before you.

You scrambled to your feet immediately, performing the formal bow, "Y-your Highness! What brings you here?"

Rushing up behind Yeosang, the head maid panted heavily, bowing deeply before you and shooting an apologetic glance, "Mistress, I am so sorry for not alerting you of our guest! His Highness showed up spontaneously without making an appointment prior and wouldn't allow any of us to announce his arrival."

Eunsook nearly had a heart attack when one of the maids informed her that the prince had arrived unannounced, waiting to be greeted at the entrance of the estate. Jongho was absent, having gone out with a few other servants to replenish household essentials. Rushing over, she found that Yeosang had insisted on surprising you personally, leaving her flustered and anxious. With her master now at war, it was evident to her that His Highness was attempting to make an advance on you.

The prince couldn't help but grin at how adorably confused and caught off guard you looked, "Yes, that's right. I wanted to surprise you, Miss Jang. Are you surprised?"

Quickly regaining your composure and summoning the poise of a noblewoman, you nodded, "I guess I am, Your Highness," You said before turning to dismiss the elderly woman with an assuring smile, "It's alright, Eunsook. I was growing slightly bored anyway. Come, Prince Yeosang, let me show you around, and you can tell me why you've decided to pay us a surprise visit."

Recalling his fondness for flowers, you led him through the winding paths of the estate's gardens, each turn revealing a new burst of colour and fragrance. Sunlight danced through the leaves, casting dappled patterns on the well-tended flowerbeds, "Now, I know our humble garden obviously cannot compare to the ones in the palace, but I am very proud of our servants' hard work. What do you think, Your Highness?"

While your eyes remained fixed on the colourful flowers, the prince's gaze was captivated by you, his admiring gaze lingering on your graceful movements amidst the blooms.

"I agree; I think it's absolutely enchanting. While it may be humble, it surpasses the beauty of any of the palace's gardens." He remarked, his words carrying a subtle double meaning. He wondered if you could discern the implied compliment; he was indirectly comparing you to the royals in the palace. In his eyes, you outshone any of his sisters, his father's concubines, and all the potential candidates ever presented to him.

Yeosang found himself torn between amusement and slight disappointment as you appeared genuinely oblivious to the deeper meaning of his words. Your reply, however, pleased him, "Thank you, Your Highness. It seems you have good taste," You attempted a joke. Fortunately, he laughed in response, "I think I do too, my lady."

He halted his steps and turned to you, "I have a question," He said, and you nodded, encouraging him to continue, "Go on. Ask away, Your Highness."

"Even with all these beautiful flowers here, is your favourite still the lotus?" Your heart skipped a beat at the mention of the lotus, a symbol closely tied to memories of your husband. Determined not to show any hint of turmoil, you nodded and answered steadily, "Of course, my prince."

The prince kept his smile intact, "Hmm, I see. Is it solely because the general dedicated a pond full of them to you?"

When you remained silent, he clarified, "What I mean is, if you had the freedom to choose, which flower would truly be your favourite? Instead of accepting what's given to you, I believe you should have the right to make your own choice." It was another subtle suggestion that you should be able to choose your own path, including your life partner, rather than conforming to arrangements made for you.

It appeared that you had grasped the underlying meaning of his words this time. You blinked rapidly as you gathered your thoughts before letting out a chuckle, "Ah, I suppose that hadn't crossed my mind," Shifting the topic, you continued, "Anyway, let us move on from idle chatter. Why don't you enlighten me on the purpose of your surprise visit, Your Highness? With my husband away, I'm unsure if there's anything I can assist you with."

Sensing your slight discomfort, Yeosang decided to get straight to the point, "Right, I'm aware General Park is currently away, bravely fighting for our country. That's precisely why I'm here—I was hoping you would be able to represent him at my upcoming birthday banquet. Her Majesty, the Queen, has also expressed her desire to meet you in person."

Your eyes widened at that, "Sh-she has?"

« Preview of Part 15 »

Feeling like you were left with little choice but to agree, you accepted the prince's invitation to his upcoming birthday banquet, scheduled just a week away.

Since bidding him goodbye, you had confined yourself to Seonghwa's study, burying yourself in your studies. The weight of the upcoming royal event weighed heavily on you. It would mark your debut in royal circles, and facing it without your husband by your side added to your nerves. Could anyone fault you for feeling anxious?

You contemplated seeking help. While Eunsook was supportive, her knowledge of palace affairs was limited. Would Hongjoong or Yunho be able to offer insight? Perhaps Jongho, with his years of service to the general, might have some valuable advice.

A light bulb went off in your head when you remembered San, the King's royal secretary. Surely, he would be the most knowledgeable about the matters you needed help with. However, your enthusiasm waned when you realised you had no means of reaching out to him. Moreover, you doubted he would have time to spare for a little woman like you, given his busy schedule.

Palming your forehead tiredly, you suddenly noticed a shadowy figure loitering suspiciously outside the study. Their silhouette, visible through the paper walls, didn't resemble anyone familiar, and it sent a shiver down your spine. If it had been one of the estate staff, they usually would have announced themselves.

Jumping to your feet, you instinctively grabbed the inkstone from Seonghwa's desk, preparing to defend yourself. With cautious steps, you approached the entrance where the unknown person lingered, apparently trying to catch a glimpse of you, "Who's there? I know you're not one of my staff. If you do not reveal yourself, I won't hesitate to hurt you!"

Your yelp escaped when the individual abruptly swung the door open in response to your words, "Woah woah, it's just me!" He reassured, causing you to pause with the stone halfway raised as you blinked in recognition, "O-oh, it's you..."

Scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, he apologised, "I'm sorry for startling you, Lady Park. In case you forgot, my name is Wooyoung. I'm here on the general's orders to assist you should you need anything."

Dun dun dunnn! Wonder what Prince Yeosang has up his sleeves heeheeee anyway, I just wanted to tell y'all that I'm about to have another crazy week ahead. So, like this part, the next one is probably gonna take a while too😭

Also, Happy Lunar New Year to those of you who celebrate it! As always, thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts! <3

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[boxturret]

One Tenth Scale Mata Nui

Mata Nui is a cool place, but did you ever feel that it was a bit...big for what it was?

The official maps put the island at 357 kio long, which if you take to be a stand in for kilometres¹, would make the island 357 kilometres long.

This lines up roughly with what we can see in the concept art: they say that Mata Nui is around the size of Denmark, the real measurement being 368km, and it matches with what we see in the Mata Nui Rising cgi video.

So that's all well and good, Mata Nui is 357km long, the GSR itself is 3300km tall, all hunky-dory, as long as you ignore some guy named Greggory yelling about how the robot is actually much bigger, but its fine to ignore him.

But now, actually consider what this means. Denmark is by no means a small country, it has a population of 6 million and would take hours to drive across by car on modern roads. Now that isn't an issue really, but in most media depicting the island its shown to be a place that can be traversed by foot or on animal back in a reasonable time frame.

But now let us look at this earlier map:

Initially the most interesting thing to me on this map was the 3rd measurement: the height of the Mangai volcano²

Now on the one hand, this was cool, now I know how tall to make the volcano, on the other hand... 23km seems pretty big.

It is. 23km is higher than Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the solar system, standing at only 21.9km. So that's pretty big. This made me start thinking about how far various things are apart and how long it would actually take and using some very VERY generous numbers I started plotting out how long it would take to actually get from place to place.

It wasn't very pretty. In the Mata Nui Online Game it would have taken Takua roughly 5 hours to walk from the beach to Ta-Koro, and another 18 to get to Onu-Koro using the highway. Now this would be fine in an epic like Lord of the Rings, but in Bionicle Mata Nui is consistently treated as a place people can pretty quickly get around on.

The Toa are running all over the place and bumping in to each other. Kopaka getting in to the Caldera at the top of the Mangai volcano isn't the equivalent of climbing 3 Mt Everests in a row, its just something he does [correction: It wasn't the caldera, but a lava pool half way up the mountain, so just 1.5 Mt Everests]. Takua travels all over the island in a pretty small amount of time, unless we're supposed to insert day long journeys in between every screen transition.

But then I noticed something. Something very interesting.

Now lets look at the two keys for the sizes on the released and the early map:

Seems pretty consistent, the sizes of the island are the same, a Toa is 1.6 bio on both (incidentally a real Toa figure is approximately 16cm tall), everything seems to match.

But then I counted the zeroes.

The old map has a kio being not 1000 bio, but 100!

You can even see it on the other version of the map.

Now this is incredibly interesting! This shrinks Mata Nui to 1/10th of its commonly accepted size! It goes from being the size of Denmark to being the size of the Isle of Man.

Which....really works a lot better! This turns Takua's trip from the beach from a 5 hour hike to a short half hour walk. This turns the cable car to Mt Ihu from a massive 70km mega structure to something that's dwarfed by real world constructions.

I don't think this is a mistake either, looking at the details of the map.

You have much finer details, such as these ice shelves collapsing in to small icebergs, whereas on the full sized map some of the larger chunks of ice are kilometres across.

One of the major things it includes are the mesas that can bee seen in many of the promotional renders set in Le-Wahi which are nowhere to be seen on the final map. At this 1/10 scale the plateaus seen would match up well with the massive mesas seen in monument valley in terms of size, but with the final size they would be absolutely massive (10 times as big if you can believe it!)

So suffice to say, I don't think this is just a case of a zero being dropped, it really seems to line up with the level of detail on this earlier map.

But what does this do to the GSR? I hear you cry, well it varies. Going by the earlier numbers it would simply be 1/10th the size, so 330km tall instead of 3300km, so still very large, but depending on the size relationship between the robot and the island it could be as "small" as 180km

The island in this picture is roughly the same size as normal, just covers more of the GSR. The final GSR's head is so proportionately tiny compared to its body that the Mata Nui island had to be very small to cover it. But in any case, a robot "only" 180km tall standing up is still going to tower over anything, its many times higher than airplanes fly, its taller than most clouds, really it would be quite consistent with this render:

So, in conclusion, an earlier concept of the island of Mata Nui has it being 1/10 of the size of the final, and that size seems to work better with what we see in various media from the time, and works better with the story.

Personally this is what I'll be going with in terms of the scale of the island going forward, as it really fits with my vision of the setting and works well with all the story and media from that time.

¹-I don't care about someone saying a bio is 4.375966487787¾ feet, feet aren't real and neither are you. ²-Mt Ihu is NOT the highest point on the island, the GSR isn't Pinocchio with a big pointy nose, this has never been reflected in any visual media.

thank you for reading/have a nice day

Update: I have made a companion post with many renders of George visiting places on the island to hopefully better illustrate the scale.

[morlock-holmes]

Okay, guys, after reading a post by @centrally-unplanned I just took that ACX "AI Turing Test" that Scott Alexander did, and I am screaming, as the kids used to say.

You guys are way, way overthinking this.

I thought I would do better than average, and I guess I did; excluding three pictures I had seen before, I got 31/46 correct.

Not great if you're taking the SAT, but I feel like if I could call a roulette spin correctly 2 times out of 3 I could clean up in Vegas.

So, what is the secret of my amazing, D+ performance?

You have to look at the use of color and composition as tools to draw the eye to points of interest.

AI is really bad at this, when left to its own devices.

For example, here:

Part of the reason to suspect that this is AI is the "AI house style" and the bad hands that I literally only noticed right this exact second as I was typing this sentence. Even if the hands were rendered correctly, I would still clock this as AI.

The focal point of this piece ought to be the face of the woman and the little dragon she is looking at (Just noticed the dragon's wings don't match up either), but take off your glasses or squint at this for a second:

Your eye is being drawn by the bright gold sparkles on the lower right side of the piece. That particular bright gold is only in that spot on the image, but there's no reason to look there, it's just an upper arm and an elbow. The bright light source highlighting the woman's horn separates it out as a point of interest.

Meanwhile, the weird aurora streaming out of the woman's face on the left side means that it is blending in with the background.

In other words, the way the image is composed, and the subject matter suggest that your eye should be drawn here:

But the use of color suggests that you should look here:

That's a senseless place to draw the eye towards! It would be a really weird mistake for a human to make! In fact, I think there's a strong argument that the really close cropped picture of the face of the character is a strong improvement. It's still not a particularly good composition, but at least the color contrast now draws the eye to the proper points.

In fact, I would say that a good reason for my performance not being even better was this alarming statement at the start of the test:

I've tried to crop some pictures of both types into unusual shapes, so it won't be as easy as "everything that's in DALL-E's default aspect ratio is AI".

Uh...

So how about this one:

This is a lot better anatomically and in terms of the use of color and light to draw the eye towards sensible parts of the painting. The lighting makes pretty good sense in terms of coming from a particular direction and it also draws the eye to effectively to the face and the outstretched hand of the figure.

It's also a really flat and meaningless composition and subject matter that no renaissance artist would have chosen. What is this angel doing, exactly? Our eye is drawn to the face and hand, and the figure is looking off towards the left side, at, uh, what exactly?

But then I thought, "Well, maybe Scott chopped out a giant chunk of the picture, and this is just a detail from, like, the lower right eighth of some giant painting with three other figures that makes total sense"

This makes sense as a piece of a larger human made artwork, but if you tell me, "Nope, that's the whole thing and this is the original, un-cropped picture" I'd go, "Oh, AI, obviously.

All of the ones I had trouble with were AI art with good composition and use of color, and human ones with bad composition and use of color. For example, this one:

This has three solid points of interest arranged in an interesting relationship with different colors to block them out. I'd say the biggest tells are that the astronauts' feet are out of frame, which is a weird choice, and looking closely now, the landscape and smoke immediately to the right of the ship don't really make sense.

But again; I had to think, "Maybe Scott just cropped it weird and they had feet in the original picture."

Here's another problem:

StableDiffusion being bad at composition is such a known problem that there are a variety of tools which a person can use to manually block out the composition. In fact, let me try something.

I popped open Krita (Which now has a StableDiffusion plugin) and after literally dozens of generations and a couple of different models I landed on ZavyChromaXL with the following prompt:

concept art of two astronauts walking towards a spaceship on an alien planet, with a giant moon in th background, artstation, classic scifi, book cover

And this was the best I could do:

Not great, but Krita has a tool that lets you break an image into regions which each have different prompts, so I quickly blocked something out:

Each of those color blobs has a different part of the prompt, so the green region has "futuristic astronauts" the blue is the spaceship, the orange is the moon, grey is the ground and pink is the sky, which gives us:

Still way too much, so we can use Krita's adaptive patch tool and AI object removal to get:

I'm not saying it's high art, or even any good, but it's better than the stuff I was getting from a pure prompt, because a human did the composition.

But it's still so dominated by AI processes that it's fair to call it "AI Art".

Which makes me wonder how many of the AI pictures I called out as human made because one of the traits I was looking for, good composition, was in fact, actually made by a human.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

How would you go about writing in different languages? I struggle with a part where a group of characters are speaking in a language one of the mains does not know and the other one does, but i wish the reader knew what is being talked about. Another aspect is switching between languages when something is meant for the nonspeaker.

A expression in like of "switches to german" fills me with cringe and i feel like just wroting the part in german and adding translation is too confusing

Thanks for all the help with all the advice posted!

Writing Ideas: Using Different Languages in your Story

Keep both languages. Simply repeat the phrase. If you want your readers to understand the exact meanings of words from your source language, you can provide translations within the text. This strategy requires a lot of work for just a couple words, so it’s not practical to use it for large chunks of language. It works great if you only need to focus on a few crucial words.

Sprinkling of foreign language. Write in English, and use the foreign language as little as possible. If you can cut the foreign word out of the sentence without hurting anything, you’re probably fine. But if the meaning of the foreign word is key to understanding the sentence, then rework it.

Provide a glossary. The textbook method. The most comprehensive approach is to provide a glossary of non-English words used in your book. Nonfiction authors use glossaries much more often than fiction writers do. It might be an inappropriate solution if you are writing a lighter book. On the other hand, if your goal is complex cultural understanding, then this approach is by far the most thorough. Downside: The glossary approach requires significant reader buy-in. Not all readers will want to stop mid-paragraph to find a definition in a glossary.

Transliteration. Stick to one alphabet. Transliteration—the process of converting writing into a different alphabet—is a different issue than translation. Unless you have a specific, important reason to include words written in anything other than the Roman alphabet, transliteration is a more effective tactic. Things are more complicated when you are working with a language that does not share the Roman alphabet with English. Any English-reader can sound out Spanish words. The same isn’t true words written in Cyrillic or Hebrew text.

Don't fake it. Respect the language. Sometimes a project requires you to interact with a language you have no knowledge of. The simplest answer is to stick with the full translation method. This will allow you to bypass the problem altogether. However, if your project requires the actual inclusion of another language, you will have to do one of 2 things: (a) Consult a native speaker. (b) Study the language.

Play with language. In your first draft, you can let language run free. Write dialogue and narration in whatever way makes sense for your characters, your setting, and your own writing process. The collision of languages might lead you to unexpected and interesting places. You can—and will—worry about clarity problems when you get to the revision stage. Feedback from beta readers will help you determine what needs to be done for reader comprehension. If you find that you need to bring in any of the other strategies, you can do so at any point.

Full translation. Write it in English. Just because characters are speaking a language other than English does not necessarily mean that you need to actually write non-English words. Often, it is enough to simply indicate that a conversation is happening in another language. You can relate the speech through indirect dialogue. You can simply report the content of the speech, not delivering an exact quote. Because indirect dialogue is understood to be summary, it buys you leeway in how you render the translation. There is no expectation that you are capturing the actual words as spoken. But the full translation method can be used with direct dialogue as well. The 2 main types of translation: (a) Word-for-word translation is more literal, as it sticks to the strict meaning of source language words. (b) Sense-for-sense translation is looser, as it focuses on communicating ideas in the target language.

Narrative summary. Don't use this technique for crucial turning points in a scene. It's more of a shortcut so that you can get the point across quickly and then move on to the good stuff. But if all you need to do is get the point across quickly, then go ahead and summarize it. Sometimes, it's the most economical way to keep the story going, especially if your character doesn’t speak the language. What you lose in style you’ll gain in pace.

Untranslated. Some words are essentially untranslatable. Let it be. If you are depicting a language community where English and another language are routinely mixed together, you might leave some words untranslated. (This strategy can also apply when writing about a language community where people speak different forms of English.) The benefit of capturing the sound of speech can outweigh any reader confusion. Further, you might be writing for an audience who is used to hearing this mix of language.

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Here are some tips from the sources linked above. You can also find some examples using these strategies in the original articles. Try some of them and choose which ones suit your story. All the best with your writing!