#the tl;dr to take out of it is that i finally moved away from my mother's house and am starting back the uni!

[2plottwist]

Respite, Despite it All

Summary: After a long day of battling the horrifying creatures of the Shadow-Cursed Lands, you return to the Last Light Inn. Your lover, Astarion, has wonderful plans of pampering you. TL;DR Astarion is a soft gentle cutesy vampire boyfriend that treats you like you're a queen.

Pairing: Astarion x Elf!Reader, referred to with she/her pronouns

Characters: Astarion

Warnings: MDNI 18+, oral sex, fingering

Author: Emma:)

Word Count: 2.1k

Photo Credit: pay. on pinterest

Cradled in between wooden posts and crumbling stone was the Last Light Inn, a rare refuge in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. Within the room you had taken for the night, the curse felt even farther away. For starters, there was an actual bed- a luxury within itself. It wasn’t nice, by any means; some of the wood had rotted away, and the sheets scratched against your skin. But it wasn’t a bed roll, which was a huge relief for the aches that shot up your back and to your neck. 

The best part of it all was the wooden tub in the corner of the room. You couldn’t remember the last time you had bathed in an actual tub, or warm water, for that matter. You had to make do with the river Chionthar or another reservoir nestled deep in the woods for months. It had soap, a sponge, and bathing oils. Everything you needed for a perfect night of relaxation. 

After a grueling day of battling shadows and other sinister creatures in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, you finally made your way back to the inn. The weight of exhaustion bore down on you, every muscle aching from the day’s relentless combat. You had left Astarion at the inn, opting to take Halsin with you in order to give him a brief moment of respite. As you push the door open to your shared room, the soft flicker of candlelight greeted you, casting a warm glow over the stone walls. The faint smell of lavender wafted through the room, pushed towards your nostrils by the breeze coming through the open window. 

Astarion was folding a towel before he turned to greet you with a soft smile. “Hello there,” he said quietly. “I trust you had a good day, my sweet, even if I wasn’t there to brighten it?” 

You couldn’t help but smile as he stepped closer, his hands moving to help you out of your armor, each piece clinking softly as it fell away, leaving you exposed. 

“Come now,” he says, guiding you toward the tub. “Let me make up for my absence.” His touch is gentle, his hands firm yet tender as he eases you into the warm embrace of the water, sliding the curtain closed around you.

The water in the tub is deliciously warm, enveloping you in a comforting embrace as you sink deeper, letting the heat ease away the tension in your muscles. The steam rises lazily, curling around the candlelit tub. Soon, the curtain is pulled back, revealing that Astarion has also stripped. He sinks into the water beside you, the sharp angles of his face softened by the flickering light, making him seem almost ethereal. He leans back, the water lapping at his pale skin. His fingers lazily trail through the water before he reaches over, brushing a strand of hair from your face.

His touch is gentle, reverent almost, as he tucks the hair behind your pointed ear, his thumb lingering on your cheek. “You know,” he murmured, “this might be the one part of this cursed place that I actually enjoy.”

You smiled, your eyes half-lidded as you savored the feeling of his touch. “It does have its charms, doesn’t it?” you replied, leaning back against him. “Though I think it’s less about the place and more about the company.” Astarion chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest. “Flattery will get you everywhere, darling.”

A soft laugh escapes your lips, closing your eyes and savoring the moment. The warmth of the water, the faint scent of your favorite plant, and the quiet intimacy of being with him make it feel like the rest of the world has fallen away. 

Astarion shifts beside you, turning to face you more fully. He takes the sponge in hand, dipping it into the water before running it over your shoulders with a deliberate gentleness. The warm water cascades down your back. His touch is so tender, so careful, that it sends a shiver down your spine. He notices and smiles, a hint of that playful smirk you’ve come to love evident on his lips. 

“I’ve had centuries to master all sorts of skills,” he says, his voice low and velvety, “but I think I’ve found my favorite- pampering you.”

You sigh contentedly, letting your head fall back against the edge of the tub. He continues his gentle ministrations, the sponge gliding over your skin in slow, deliberate motions. There’s something in the way he touches you, as if he’s savoring every moment, every inch of you. It’s a side of him that he doesn’t show often, a softness that he keeps hidden and reveals just for you. 

Once he’s finished washing you, Astarion helps you out of the tub with the same gentle care. He wraps you in a thick, soft towel. His hands move over you in slow, careful strokes as he dries you off. When you’re dry, he guides you to a nearby stool, his touch light on your arm as he steers you into place. 

He grabs a brush and sits behind you on the bed, his fingers working through your damp hair. “I used to do this for my sister, Dal, centuries ago.” There’s a pause, the memory clearly bittersweet for him. “Of course, her hair was never quite as lovely as yours.”

You smile, leaning back into his touch as he brushes your hair with practiced ease. The bristles glide through your locks, the gentle tug at your scalp almost hypnotic. “How many sisters do you have?” you ask, your voice soft. 

“Three,” he replies. “But know I was only this kind a long time ago.. before Violet started putting garlic in our bunks.”

The braid he weaves is intricate, his fingers moving deftly as he creates a pattern. You can feel the care he’s putting into it, the way he’s making sure each strand is secure. It’s an act of love, one that speaks volumes. When he finishes, he secures the end with a red ribbon before leaning down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head. 

“There,” he murmurs against your hair, his breath warm on your scalp. “All done.”

You reach up to touch the braid. You turn on the stool to face him, your heart swelling as you take in the sight of him sitting there, his crimson eyes filled with a warmth that’s still so new and wondrous. 

“I don’t deserve you,” you say, leaning against his knees and wrapping your arms around his waist. 

“You deserve so much more,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Before you could respond, he placed a finger under your chin, tilting your head up and capturing your lips in a kiss. It was a kiss that spoke of promises, of a future you both hoped for, despite the uncertainty that surrounded you. 

When you finally broke apart, you found yourself smiling. “You’re right,” you said, your voice light with teasing. “I do deserve more. Like maybe you giving me a massage.” Astarion laughed softly, his breath warm against your skin. “In your dreams, darling.” He stands, offering you his hand. “Now, what do you say we retire to bed? I’m not quite done pampering you yet.” You take his hand, allowing him to lead you to the bed. He lies you down gently before trailing a hand down your exposed torso. He walks to the foot of the bed before climbing over it, carefully placing his knees by your hips. 

He smiles down at you, his naked form towering above you. He strokes your cheek softly, pausing at your mouth and softly dragging your bottom lip down. You place a gentle kiss on the pad of his thumb. 

“I love the way you feel beneath my touch, you know,” he growls softly, placing a knee inside your own, pushing your legs open. He leans in and kisses your forehead, your nose, your lips. You smiled up at him. It made his heart sing.

“Astarion…” you whispered.

“Shh,” he said softly. “Let me take care of you, love.”

You nodded, and his tongue slid across your mouth, and you moaned into the touch. His lips run down your neck, nipping softly at the tender flesh above your collarbone where he drinks from you. He continues kissing down your body, working his way to your breasts. His tongue flicks out, catching your nipple. Your breath catches at the action and you reach out to tangle a hand in his moon-kissed curls to steady yourself. You can feel the warmth pooling in between your legs, and you can only assume he can too as he dips his head, kissing your inner thigh. 

When he finally reached your core, he took his time, licking and nipping at your folds. He licked up and down before gently circling your clit with his tongue. You gasped, arching your back. “A- Astarion…” He chuckled softly, the feeling vibrating against you. “I’ve got you, my love.”

He teased your clit with his tongue, flicking it lightly. You moaned, your hands gripping the sheets. He groaned- he couldn’t help himself. You were so beautiful. He sucked your clit into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it. 

He paused, slipping a digit inside of you and curling it in swift motions. “Are you enjoying this?” he asked, his voice was husky with need. “Tell me.”

“Yes,” you whimpered. 

“Good,” he murmured. “Now, I want you to close your eyes and relax.”

You allowed your head to fall back against the pillow as he slipped another finger inside of you, pumping them slowly in and out of you. 

His mouth found you again, sucking on your clit harder than before. The combination of his fingers inside you and the sensation of his tongue sent waves of pleasure cascading over you.

“Come for me, my darling,” he murmured, pressing another kiss onto your inner thigh. “I need you to come for me.”

The order was enough to send you over the edge, your orgasm rippling through your body as your spasming walls squeezed his fingers. The sight alone was enough to have him falling into an orgasm right after you. 

After he cleaned up, he joined you under the covers. He pulls you closer, holding you against him. His arms encircle you, strong and protective, his chest rising and falling slowly with the steady rhythm of his breath. He rests his chin on top of your head, his fingers tracing the curve of your spine with the gentlest of touches. It was reverent, every movement a worship, as if you were a divine being descended into his arms. 

And perhaps, to him, you were. 

There’s a peace in his eyes that you rarely see, a calm that had been elusive for so many years. His voice is soft, barely more than a whisper in the stillness of the night. “You are… everything I prayed for,” he murmurs. “In those dark, endless nights in Cazador’s dungeon, when hope was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Though I didn’t know you then, I dreamed of you.”

His words hang in the air, heavy with the weight of his past and the lightness of the future you’re building together. He tilts your face up to meet his gaze, his eyes searching yours as if trying to understand how someone like you could care for someone like him.

“But you’re here,” he continues, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “And you’re real. Divine, in every way that matters to me.” He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, and then another to your lips, lingering as if to reassure himself that this moment is real.

He holds you even tighter, his arms a barrier between you and the world, as if he could protect you from everything just by keeping you close. “I never thought I’d find something—someone—worth praying for again. Yet here you are, proving me wrong in the most wonderful way.”

In his embrace, the horrors of his past seem distant, replaced by the quiet comfort of your presence. As sleep begins to claim you both, he can feel your heart beating against his chest, steady and strong, a reminder that despite everything, despite the pain and the darkness, you’ve found each other. And in this moment, that’s all that matters. 

[neptunelindseycosplay]

Finally made a skeleton arm for my Ianthe cosplay! Video does not do justice to how shiny this is. I debuted worst girl’s skelly arm at FanimeCon 2024 this past weekend and got a lot of questions about how I crafted it.

⬇️ Details are below the cut ⬇️

The TL;DR: Each bone was a piece of craft foam wrapped in gold spandex fabric (via tacky glue) and tacky glued and subsequently whip-stitched on to a matte black glove.

Why I chose the materials I did:

Comfort in cosplay is a very important to me, so I wanted to ensure that everything on my hand would be able move comfortably on my arm. Thin craft foam, spandex, and tacky glue were all materials that I knew could hold up to my hand flexing. Tacky glue has the added benefit of being non-toxic. I selected the “Thunder Hologram Spandex” from Blue Moon Fabric in “Gold Gold” as my fabric choice as I felt it could give some good texture and dimensionality to the individual bones that I knew would be pasted flat on the craft foam. I didn’t want to make the base glove, so I purchased one of the seamless gloves from WeLoveColors in black.

Patterning:

I traced my hand and looked up reference images of skeleton arms and used it to draw a skeleton hand fitting the dimensions of my own hand. For my forearm, I used a classic cosplayer patterning trick: I first wrapped my arm in cling wrap, then covered with duct tape. I then drew on the forearm bones based on my reference material. I used transfer paper to then trace the pattern on to the craft foam, and cut out the pieces with scissors (an x acto knife would’ve worked better but I couldn’t fine mine and I was feeling lazy). I kept my drawn pattern of the skeleton hand to keep my many foam pieces organized.

“Gilding”:

For this section, I will be referring to the foam pieces as having a “right” and “wrong” side. The right side is the side of the foam that will be lying up, and the wrong side is the side glued to the base glove. I rolled out my gold spandex fabric, with wrong side facing up with a layer of parchment paper underneath. I applied a thin layer of tacky glue using a brush on to the right side of the foam, then pasted it down to the wrong side of the gold fabric. I left plenty of room between the foam pieces glued to the fabric as I would need to wrap the edges of the fabric over to the wrong side of the foam.

Once the tacky glue was dry, I cut out the pieces, being sure to leave an allowance of fabric around the foam to be wrapped over to the wrong side of the foam. Each bone contained many convex and concave curves, so I clipped and notched the fabric allowance as necessary. See guide below:

Once the fabric was clipped and notched, I used a brush to apply tacky glue to the allowance on the wrong side of the fabric. Then I folded the allowance over to the wrong side of the foam, held in place, and used a hair dryer with my free hand to help accelerate tacky glue’s slow dry time. Once the glue was tacky enough to hold the wrapped fabric in place, I let completely dry on parchment paper wrong side of the foam down.

Attaching to glove:

Now that my bones are dry, I can attach them to my glove! To initially place down the pieces, I put the glove on to my arm, used a brush to apply tacky glue to the wrong side of the fabric wrapped foam piece and then placed on to the glove, using a hair dryer to help speed up the glue process, then moving to the next piece once every piece was set. For this step it is extremely important you use a non toxic glue, as some glue will seep through the glove and get on your skin. It will take a while for the glue to dry, so be patient and take some time to watch some TV or listen to a podcast/audiobook.

I made sure to show it off to my cat.

Once dry, I carefully removed from my arm. I knew immediately I couldn’t get away with solely glueing the pieces down. I had some gold metallic thread in my stash already, so I used that to whip stitch each piece on to the glove. Metallic thread can be a little annoying to work with, so be sure to look up some tips online before purchase some.

Then I was done! I definitely think this is one of the coolest things I’ve made. I’ve been brainstorming how to make this for quite some time, so I feel very accomplished and so happy other people appreciated my handiwork.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them!

[blue-ten]

Windows 11 and the Last Straw

Bit of a rant coming up. TL;DR I'm tired of Microsoft, so I'm moving to Linux. After Microsoft's announcement of "Recall" and their plans to further push Copilot as some kind of defining feature of the OS, I'm finally done. I feel like that frog in the boiling water analogy, but I'm noticing the bubbles starting to form and it's time to hop out.

The corporate tech sector recently has been such a disaster full of blind bandwagon hopping (NFTs, ethically dubious "AI" datasets trained on artwork scraped off the net, and creative apps trying to incorporate features that feed off of those datasets). Each and every time it feels like insult to injury toward the arts in general. The out of touch CEOs and tech billionaires behind all this don't understand art, they don't value art, and they never will.

Thankfully, I have a choice. I don't have to let Microsoft feature-creep corporate spyware into my PC. I don't have to let them waste space and CPU cycles on a glorified chatbot that wants me to press the "make art" button. I'm moving to Linux, and I've been inadvertently prepping myself to do it for over a decade now.

I like testing out software: operating systems, web apps, anything really, but especially art programs. Over the years, the open-source community has passionately and tirelessly developed projects like Krita, Inkscape, and Blender into powerhouses that can actually compete in their spaces. All for free, for artists who just want to make things. These are people, real human beings, that care about art and creativity. And every step of the way while Microsoft et al began rotting from the inside, FOSS flourished and only got better. They've more than earned trust from me.

I'm not announcing my move to Linux just to be dramatic and stick it to the man (although it does feel cathartic, haha). I'm going to be using Krita, Inkscape, GIMP, and Blender for all my art once I make the leap, and I'm going to share my experiences here! Maybe it'll help other artists in the long run! I'm honestly excited about it. I worked on the most recent page of Everblue entirely in Krita, and it was a dream how well it worked for me.

Addendum: I'm aware that Microsoft says things like, "Copilot is optional," "Recall is offline, it doesn't upload or harvest your data," "You can turn all these things off." Uh-huh. All that is only true until it isn't. One day Microsoft will take the user's choice away like they've done so many times before. Fool me once, etc.

[brinconvenient]

This is a long tale, but I appreciate you taking the time to meet my friend Chris and help her out if you can.

TL;DR: my friend, an elderly queer woman I met when she was homeless just lost everything she owns in a fire at her first permanent home she had after becoming unhoused. Luckily, she and her cat were not home at the time. Please help if you can by donating or boosting.

This is a queer elder who needs our help. I'm hoping tumblr can come through for her

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fire-took-chris-baileys-home-they-need-help

Here's the long tale:

A friend of mine just lost everything except herself, her cat and the clothes on her back to a fire at her apartment (her first after being homeless for years) on Friday. We learned yesterday that nothing from her apartment is recoverable. Please help!

(Long post with cute cat pictures behind the readmore)

I met Chris one Sunday afternoon after driving past her three times as she sat on a bench outside our local library after closing. I stopped to ask if she needed a ride, and found out that she was homeless, staying in motels when her SSI came in and on the street when it ran out.

As the years have passed, I've learned a lot about her. Despite her parents kicking her out at 17 when she was outed to them as gay, she went back to school and became a social worker, working in several Chicago hospitals through the 80s and 90s, and, like a lot of queer women in the caring fields at that time, tended to and provided comfort and care for (among others) so many gay men, young and old, living with and dying from AIDS, from the earliest days of the disease through the availability of the triple cocktail and to the brighter days of hope.

Through it all, she had relationships with women in a time where that was something that wasn't always safe to do. Some were good, some bad, and some resulting in her losing nearly everything, but she struggled through. She quit social work in 99 or 2000 when her mom got sick and passed away, and then stayed out of the workforce to care for her dad until he passed in 2006. Those experiences impacted her deeply, and she became permanently disabled during that period, leaving her living on SSI, and struggling with her own mental health. She eventually lost her condo, and bounced in and out of apartments and motels.

When I met her in Sept 2019, I helped her get back into the motel she'd been staying at and bridging her to her next check and then making sure that she could stay there, and reliably get her maintenance meds and start rebuilding her life and credit.

This is her and everything she owned as we left her hotel room for the final time on Valentine's Day 2022.

The cat there is Bailey, her constant companion since they adopted each other in September 2021. They've both been through a lot and are absolutely the picture of "Who rescued whom?"

We started having biweekly dinners and I worked with her creditors and tried to get her credit score back into a good place, and helped her get banked and fixed up with access to the Internet and just help her feel more solid and stable in her life.

Just over 2 years later, in February 2022, we were finally able to get her into a senior independent living apartment, her first permanent home since about 2017. She had no furniture, but with some secondhand pickups and occasional pickups, we got her something resembling a home.

It wasn't perfect, and she had her grumbles, certainly, but it was her home. It was a place that she could launch from to recover and consider moving some place even better, if she chose.

However, Friday, July 14, Bailey had an afternoon vet appointment. Everything was fine when we left, but when we got home, with Bailey in a carrier in the backseat, we were shocked to see what looked like a million emergency vehicles & a whole lot of seniors sitting on the grass.

Chris and Bailey came with me to take my daughter into the city that evening, giving the situation 2 hours to develop and for us to get more information. We heard a few newsradio updates and saw this story on abc7, getting the sinking feeling that that balcony looked too familiar.

When we got back from the city, we were able to drive around the back of the building and confirm that this was her apartment.

We were able to get back to the building on Tuesday and get into the apartment to get her medications, but everything is water damaged from the sprinkler system (with all of its stagnant water) and the firehoses. All her furniture. All her clothes. Her bed. Her degrees. Gone.

Everything she owned is gone. She literally owns less now than when she was homeless. She's despairing and trying her best to keep it together, but she's lost so many homes in her life, going back to when she was 17 and her parents found out she is gay and kicked her out.

This all feels like too much. Please help. Please donate what you can, and share where you're able.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fire-took-chris-baileys-home-they-need-help

[queer-ragnelle]

So, regarding your novels, what made you write backwards? I'm so curious about it.

TL;DR I started writing in Mordred and Galahad perspective. I then became possessed by the "older" characters and went "back" in the timeline to write their origins (starting with parentified Agravaine). I did this several times until I ended up with Ragnelle/Gawain as book 1, "the beginning," of what turned into an Epic many books long.

Let me give you a timeline...

1900s: I am born and develop Arthurian brain worms.

21st century: The worms declare Ragnelle/Gawain are my favorites and I write their Wedding multiple times for fun based off what can be gleaned from Wikipedia and retellings as I have no medieval resources at my disposal.

February 2020: I think Mordred and Galahad would make neat narrative foils and write a short story about them playing chess.

March 2020: The plague. I'm furloughed from my job. Writing becomes my full-time focus. I write 60,000 words in Mordred and Galahad perspective, plotting their story to be a trilogy.

June 2020: I'm back to work but I'm still writing. With money and curiosity at my disposal, I begin hoarding Arthurian books. Local quirky secondhand bookstore owner had an Arthurian fixation in his youth—I clear his shelves. He asks if I'm a medievalist major and I have to break it to him I'm just a High School drop out at the mercy of the Tell-Tale knights chattering in my head. I learn more lore. I splurge to buy the Vulgate cycle. I'm forever changed.

Late 2020: Reading medlit and retellings and watching all the movies super charged the brain worms. The Vulgate especially. I develop an obsession with circumventing the Orkneys/Welshmen blood feud with the power of gay sex. (Joan Wolf did it first in her 1988 book The Road to Avalon with Agravaine/Lamorak.)

January 2021: Historical research shows that Islam didn't exist yet during the 5th/6th century I'd been writing in. I order Zoroastrianism by Mary Boyce to make sure I'm depicting Ragnelle and Gromer's religion properly. But it's nbd their page time is minimal as background characters right? ....right?

2021 continued: The Agravaine/Lamorak brain worms take on a life of their own as I'm hospitalized and bedridden. Chronic pain and isolation become my themes. I write endlessly on my phone from bed. 2/3 novels are completed and readable straight through with a third book in pieces. These are currently at a combined total of nearly 140,000 words. (Plus the notes file with scenes I haven't moved yet...whoa.)

Late 2021: I rediscover old Ragnelle/Gawain stuff and decide to write about their wedding. Again. But this time with legit sources. Except Ragnelle isn't some ambiguous character of color, she's now very specifically Persian [Iranian] Zoroastrian. So the whole thing takes place in Persia and research goes crazy. Someone gives me their college log in so I can download and hoard essays and textbook PDFs. I do beta-read trades with people in facebook groups (bad bad idea) and yet...

End of 2021: I get sample edits from various editors including one guy who insulted my "lack of education" and said emulating J. R. R. Tolkien's old style didn't work anymore and I should take inspiration from The Hunger Games....for my queer romance in Persia. Right. Anyway I pay the $100 for the pages edited so he'll go away and continue searching for my unicorn editor....

2022: Ultimately facebook group scouting finally yields results as I stumble upon a fellow Ragnelle/Gawain enthusiast who would become my editor!! Editor says I have to cut the giant book into thirds, so what is now book 1 ends up chopped.

2023: I'm still revising book 1, now titled The Moonlit Knight, with my editor. All the while I'm drafting book 2, sporadically cheating to write in other books including an Elaine and Perceval book that appeared out of no where, and scouting out beta readers. One beta reader came via a tumblr mutual who connected me through instagram. A second beta reader discovered in a discord server. Another beta reader from a different discord server. So on and so forth.

Early 2024: Beta reading continues, until I have readers for every angle I require; queer people of all flavors, Zoroastrians, Arthurian enthusiasts, Jewish readers, people with DID knowledge etc! Slowly but surely I work through revising the book with all these wonderful people to a final 95,000 words!

Mid 2024: But now...it needed a cover. I commission a tumblr mutual and work for weeks with them on that, still editing/revising and having betas read book 2, Sunshine's Lady, which is currently almost 132,000 words long and half edited/beta read.

September 2024: I still haven't published. lol. But the process takes a long time and has a lot of moving parts!

So why do I actually recommend this method? Well, this has been hugely helpful to write foreshadowing. Forgetting for a second the blueprint drawn from Arthurian Legend itself, I know how my story with my version of the characters is going to go, so I can set all of that up way in advance. It's all well and good to know (spoiler) Arthur dies at the end, but it's never been about the conclusion so much as the journey there and the unique perspective of whichever character the author has chosen to focus on. I mean, Godfrey Turton's The Emperor Arthur is Pelleas point of view. He's instrumental at the battle of Camlann. It's the same with Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles and our one-handed friend Derfel, the reasoning for which isn't revealed until book 3. The world is your oyster! Fixate on your special character and set that shit up and pay it off!!!

Knowing what you're writing toward is extremely helpful during the drafting process. Even if it's only vaguely shaped it'll develop detail as you revise. Other than Derfel's missing hand, the best example of this I can think of is in Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. It has a huge fanbase on tumblr for a reason, it's just an insane amount of set up you're not even aware of until the impact slams into you many books later and you're left going, "Whoa.....it was there the whole time." Mind blowing. I want have half as much narrative resonance as that.

Another thing that came of this is, since I wrote Agravaine/Lamorak first, and I'm obscenely Ragnelle obsessed, she pops up in their pov as a hag, only for them to not realize she's one and the same as Gawain's bombshell wife they "meet" later. I wrote this as the lads first, but it's extra funny now that, actually, the reader will experience Ragnelle's perspective first. Hottie uncursed Ragnelle does know she met them before, but feigns otherwise. So it's very fun to see the same encounters happen a second time a few books later. Agravaine is like, "Okay granny whatever. Bye... :^/" and Lamorak is like, "That granny was weird but I like her! :^)" meanwhile the reader is like, "AHHHHH! I KNOW HER!!! YOU FOOLS DON'T KNOW HOW IMPORTANT SHE'LL BE AHHH!!!" At least, that has been the beta reader reaction, which is gratifying. Even better, the books can be read out of order, so actually if you read Agravaine/Lamorak before Ragnelle/Gawain, it works in reverse, too. So if the reader knows who Agravaine is from reading his perspective, when Ragnelle or Gawain runs into him, the reader will realize who he is before it clicks for the point of view character. I had a lot of fun developing all of this across the series for multiple characters, it certainly happens more than once.

Wow that was long but I hope it makes sense and gives you an idea how it all went down. Thanks for taking an interest and I hope you enjoy my books when they're out. Take care! :^)

[xuune]

I'm a pretty young artist and I'm not sure what I need to start off with.

Anatomy or color?

tl;dr there's no correct answer for this.

but you can start off by asking yourself what do i want to draw? what do i want to draw right now? depending on your subject, what style you want to learn/do (painted, linework) then that can determine how you think while you draw.

however, you won't and never will learn one thing into completion and then move onto the next, its a continuous process of learning and relearning.

you can learn either anatomy or color one at a time, or dedicate time split for both. imo, you learn both best together. either way, you learn both continuously for the entire time that you will ever engage with drawing. there's always a lot to learn.

i feel like a lot of beginner artists get wrapped up on thinking that one should be prioritized over the other, so my answer to this question is long:

the usual route people go to for this question is to focus on fundamental studies. in the few semesters of fundamental courses i had, our structure was this:

learn solid forms, shape, lights, grayscale values, perspective AND gesture/figures

continue building on gesture/figures AND start learning color(traditional painting)

continue with gesture/figure + start learning anatomy AND continue learning color (digital painting)

we start off with many other basic building blocks first before getting to anatomy/color, but those basic blocks are essential to building up how you think when practicing both. but where do you put this in practice while drawing for fun? this is time dedicated for studying fundamentals, after all. schooling helps, but a majority of us start out as self taught, especially since there's a multitude of free learning resources online.

if your preference of learning is to do things one step at a time, then maybe dedicating your time to fundamentals is the way to go. there's lots of educational resources out there to help build these fundamentals. at the top of my head, here's a few resources for anatomy: proko, sinix design, glenn vilppu (great for gestures). if there's anything to take away from this regarding anatomy, its to practice perspective, form, gesture, and figure first and foremost. anatomy dives deeply into more complex forms. start simple before you get overwhelmed.

unfortunately, i dont have many resources to give you in terms of learning fundamentals for color. i primarily learned off of experimenting and studying off of other artworks. i've already covered a lot on my thought process behind how i think when painting, so that post might be insightful the moment you get more into using color.

now, im gonna assume that you haven't had formal schooling in art (either not yet, or won't), but you spend your time drawing for fun. and now you want to dedicate a bit more time and practice into anatomy/color. i started off self taught, so i can relate.

earlier, i mentioned this question:

where do you put [fundamentals] in practice while drawing for fun?

when looking at your question again, i think of this: do i want to practice fundamentals as i draw for fun?

there's definitely a difference and spectrum between "going balls to the wall crazy and drawing for fun" and "using my drawing time for studies/practicing fundamentals."

if your answer is yes to that question above, then you're on the right track for seeing how this works in practice the moment you participate in both "drawing for fun" and "practicing fundamentals" for self practice.

in any drawing i do, i want my subjects to be posed as [xyz], but i also want the final illustration to look like [xyz] for color.

i gather references for both posing and color, and while drawing i look to study both at the same time. with posing, im looking at refs to study anatomy as i draw. sometimes i may only use one ref photo, or multiple, but either way im checking for various information like what are the proportions, how might the skin fold, what areas of body have soft/hard edges, what might these limbs look like when foreshortened, etc. with color refs i study them to analyze how another piece of artwork is doing something that i'd like to achieve in my own art. this goes back to things i've mentioned here.

in short, the time drawing for fun is also a time to put fundamental practice in place that helps build your skills as an artist. either way, my advice is to learn as you go and have try to have fun while you practice.

in the end, this is my perspective when i look at this question. others may disagree and have a different opinion, but at the end of the day, everyone has a different process on how they practice and grow as an artist.

this was lengthy, but this is an extremely broad question that goes beyond choosing one or the other, and there's reasons why that is. i hope i explained this well enough and that it answered your question in some way!

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

The Guardian, Chapter 3

I needed an emotional break after working on so much Théodred stuff lately (I ♥️ him, but he dies!) so I did some more of my continuing Haldir story. Parts one and two are available for catch up, but the TL;DR is Haldir finds a small girl lost on her own. They can’t speak to each other because she only speaks Rohirric (though he’s now taught her a few basic Sindarin words), but he’s taking her to other elves who can help figure out who she is and where she belongs. This is my Haldir, who is a gentle, sweet person but is EXTREMELY reserved and kind of awkward, whereas Mildrithe is…not. Chapter 4 (next week) will finally be from her perspective!

(Art by the incomparable @brigwife )

************

Haldir let Mildrithe sleep until the morning sun stirred her on its own, an errant beam of light slicing through a crack in their little tree shelter and falling across her closed eyes. She blinked them open slowly and yawned, and he was relieved to see no traces of the previous night’s frightening dream still on her face. Her calm expression, however, was in sharp contrast to the chaos that framed her cheeks and surrounded her entire head when she sat up. Her hair, freed by the river from the messy remains of her old braid, had dried in a riotous amber cloud that sprang away from her scalp in all angles and directions.

As he watched her repeatedly attempt to push the same curls out of her still sleepy eyes, he raised a hesitant arm to help but then quickly lowered it again. It was one thing to carry her over rough terrain or to let her take his hand when she was frightened–such actions were necessary for her safety and well being. They were part of his duty as a protector. But for him to touch her hair now was something else entirely. To initiate that kind of personal contact, even just to use his own hands to tame those curls and wrangle them back into a simple binding, felt deeply presumptuous to him. That was the job of a parent, someone who saw not only to the protection of life and limb but also to the provision of nurturing care. It wasn’t his place, and he worried that she would be made just as uncomfortable by it as he was. But even as he resisted the notion, he also balked at the idea of leaving her intentionally disheveled. It felt like negligence to deny her the dignity of a neat appearance and the practicality of getting that hair out of her face when it was easily within his power to help.

Before he reached a conclusion in his own mind, she let out a frustrated huff and stood to fish around in her pockets, eventually pulling out a short leather band. Thrusting it at him, she plopped down in his lap, either oblivious to his startled gasp or choosing to ignore it, and looked back at him expectantly over her shoulder.

“Min feax.” She pointed an exasperated finger at her head.

He had been a soldier long enough to recognize an order when one was given, even if the exact words were unfamiliar. Swallowing his hesitancy, he gently smoothed the hair back from her face and raked his fingers loosely through it. He winced a little each time he hit a knot that tugged at her head, but she made no complaint and soon her unruly halo of frizz had been subdued enough that he could weave it into a strong, tight braid that he tied off with the band she’d provided.

He leaned around to get a look at his work from the front, and the sight of the face looking back startled him. Cleaned of old dirt and mud by the river yesterday and now with her hair neatly done, she looked even younger and more out of place than before. More fragile. He felt a clench in his chest and dropped his hands to his sides.

She turned her head back and forth, feeling the braid swish around behind her neck, and gave him a satisfied nod before moving off his lap and out of their little shelter. He gathered up his things, checked to be sure every ember of their fire was out and then joined her. They each took a swig from their water canteen and had a few bites of the food that remained in his pack, and then they set off again deeper into the forest.

Their misadventure in the river the day before had actually sped them along their path, the swift-moving water carrying them further and faster downstream than they would have made it solely on foot. He estimated now that they could reach the safety of a temporary patrol talan by nightfall and then the closest staffed post, where more help would be available, early the next day.

As they walked, she kept her usual place close by his side, but she occasionally skipped a few steps off their path to look closer at a clump of bright orange mushrooms or to point out a long, fuzzy caterpillar inching its way across a fern frond. When they passed a small glade that was nearly carpeted in delicate, bell-shaped white snowdrops, she gave an excited squeak and plucked several to bring along. Separating one out, she held it up to him. “Niphredil?” The Sindarin came from her mouth slowly but clearly.

He nodded. “Niphredil, very good. You remembered.” He accepted the proffered flower and admired it before tucking it into a pocket. She took several blossoms of her own and put them behind her ears or pushed them into the plaits of her braid, and when she looked up at him for approval he nodded again and smiled.

They made steady progress, and her pace was faster than yesterday, perhaps the result of the extra sleep she had that morning. They walked mostly in silence, though she occasionally talked to herself in a low voice, mumbling just loudly enough that he could hear the unknown words strung together in an amorphous mush of sound. As she talked, he wondered how she would describe this whole experience to her fellow Rohirrim one day. Would she remember only the terrors she had faced, or would she make room in the tale for the beauty of his beloved Lórien as well? For the golden leaves of the winter’s mallorns or the brilliant field of stars that shimmered above the treetops like silver dust? For the frost-tipped woodland flowers that sparkled in the first light of day?

Amidst these thoughts, a strange and unexpected question suddenly formed in his mind–how would she remember him when she told this tale to others? What would she choose to say about the quiet, solemn elf who appeared unexpectedly in her life and looked after her for a short time? But no sooner had the question emerged, unbidden, than he shook it out of his head, reproving himself for idle thoughts at a time when he should be focused on the task at hand.

Their way was smooth and uneventful until the early afternoon, when he began to notice a slight change in her gait as they walked, a minor favoring of her left foot. When the favoring grew worse and she began to limp outright, he brought them to a rest and pointed to the foot. She reached down and gingerly drew off her battered boot, exposing a woolen sock that had worn through at the toes, all of which were now rubbed raw and bleeding.

It never ceased to surprise him how quickly the bodies of mortal beings betrayed them. Though not often, he had fought alongside men in battle before, and he had seen firsthand how they took injuries more easily and healed with more difficulty. Some elves looked down on this fragility of men, but he found it oddly moving. To go through the world and face the very same risks and dangers while trapped in a body that was so much more susceptible to hurts took bravery that he believed many elves didn’t appreciate and couldn’t match.

The pain in Mildrithe’s foot was nothing compared to a battlefield injury, but it did require redress or it would only get worse. He eased the sock off her foot and poured a little water from the canteen onto her toes to rinse lingering dirt away from the broken skin. While the foot dried, he searched his pack for anything soft and pliable, finally drawing out a felt square that he usually kept wrapped around his pocket knife and a few other small tools. Now he wrapped it carefully around her foot, trying not to put any pressure on tender places, and slid her boot back into place.

She took a few tentative steps back and forth and looked up at him, smiling, but the relief they both felt was cut short by a distinct cracking noise in the distance behind them. She didn’t hear it but clearly understood the way his face snapped to attention, and she immediately froze, one foot still raised mid-step. He strained for any hint of further activity, and soon it came, loud enough that even she heard it—the tread of heavy feet plodding through the forest, breaking twigs and rustling leaves as they went.

He shoved the ruined sock into her hand and lifted her up into the boughs of the nearest tree, setting her on the highest branch he could reach. She hugged herself to the trunk, both anxious and unsteady, and pulled her dangling legs up into the protective cover of the thick green leaf canopy. He put a finger to his lips before quietly turning away and secreting himself behind another nearby tree to wait for the imminent approach of the intruders.

In a few minutes’ time, a trio of broad, stocky bodies came into view. Orcs. One was a bowman and the other two held short swords, and all three moved slowly, stopping every now and again to check and recheck the scent trail they followed. Haldir silently cursed the loss of his arrows, which had been claimed by the river when he dove in the day before, though in truth he wasn’t sure whether his bow still had its aim and balance anyway after having bounced off of boulders and all kinds of other underwater debris that might have bent the hard yew wood.

Without a better purpose for it now, he gripped the bow in his hands like a bludgeon and held his breath, listening intently to the sound of steps moving ever closer. His mind raced through strategy—timing, angles, approaches—but when the moment presented itself all he needed were his instincts. He sprang from his hiding place, taking a full-body swing with the bow at the nearest orc. It cracked on impact, but the force of the blow knocked the unsuspecting creature backwards and into a companion, sending them both sprawling to the ground. He leaped onto the first prone body, pressing what was left of the bow in his hand across its neck to hold it in place as he snatched the short sword from its side, and he slashed quickly across first one and then the other toppled opponent. As he attempted to stand, the third orc launched itself at him from the side, knocking the sword from his hand, and they grappled for a time, rolling across the leaf-covered ground as each sought to pin the other down or to land a debilitating blow. At last, using a forearm braced against the orc’s chest to force some separation between them, he managed to snake his other hand down to his belt and pull his hunting knife, jamming it into the orc’s side all the way to the hilt.

The dirty, rough hands clasped around his neck immediately slackened. He pulled the knife back out and the orc slid off him, rolling silently into the low brush that surrounded them. He listened carefully for several long moments, ensuring both that he heard no further breath from the three orcs he had just dispatched and no indication that others might still be coming. Hearing nothing but silence, he wiped the blade of his knife on a clump of grass, returned it to his belt, and went to Mildrithe.

She looked down at him from her perch in the tree, eyes wide and face pale. Her boot sat on the ground below her, having slipped off as she tried to scrabble further up the trunk to a higher bough, and her bandaged toes now dangled near his face. He reached up for her and she leaned forward into his arms so that he could lift her back to the ground. But no sooner had he put her on her feet and straightened up again when she cried out, her voice shrill with panic.

“Dreor!” In less than an instant, tears welled up in her eyes and she burst into heaving sobs.

His heart leapt into his throat. He spun around, expecting to see another orc headed their way, but there was nothing but calm stillness behind them. He turned back, but her sobs only increased as he faced her once again. He dropped to his knees, grabbing her shoulders and turning her in a circle, scanning for an injury of some kind. She had been out of harm’s way, but he could think of no other explanation for her cries, which came now as long, shuddering wails that shook the entirety of her small body.

He sat, frozen, his heart pounding with frantic energy but his mind stunned into confused paralysis. She had been in control of herself when he lifted her out of the tree. What could be causing this anguished distress, so unlike anything she had shown before? Dreor? Was she trying to tell him that she was hurt? Was she merely terrified, needing to let out the horror she had swallowed while hiding silently in the tree? Or some other horror brought back to life by this newest brush with violence and death?

He finally took her shoulders once more, attempting to force her focus to his face. “Mildrithe, what do you need? What can I do?” He could only hope that she would understand from his tone and expression alone what he had asked.

Her sobs continued, but at last she raised a small, trembling hand and pointed at his chest. Looking down, he saw a deep red stain spreading slowly across the front of his tunic, clear evidence of a wound he hadn’t felt or even been aware of. He pulled several layers of clothing over his head, laying bare a long gash that ran from his left shoulder to the middle of his collarbone, the handiwork of a sharp claw.

Bunching up his thin undershirt, he wiped his chest, and in the fraction of a second before fresh blood spilled out again he got a clear view of the wound. Wide, but not deep. The kind of injury that bled a lot but caused him no real harm or serious pain. But she didn’t know that. She had seen blood, and perhaps she assumed the worst. That he was seriously hurt. That she would be left all alone once again, only now even farther from home and having lost yet another protector.

He put a hand under her chin and tipped her face up. “Mildrithe, you don’t need to be scared. It’s alright. See?” He pressed the cloth against the wound again and tapped it lightly a few times with his fingertips, keeping his face calm and even as he did so. “It doesn’t even really hurt. It’ll be fine, I promise.” When her weeping continued unabated, he sat back on his heels, adrift in helplessness. He could think of only one thing to do, but he found himself oddly afraid to do it. If he got this wrong, if he somehow made everything worse, he would hate himself. But if the alternative was to do nothing, to let her just continue suffering alone in her distress, he knew that was more unforgivable. He took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around her.

She collapsed into him and hid her face in the soft curtain of his hair. They sat for long minutes holding each other as she cried, unable to just turn off her flood of emotions after the dam had broken. His cheeks blushed a furious red, but he held on tight and rubbed a comforting hand up and down her back, feeling at once broken hearted for her fear and immensely relieved that an embrace seemed to be what she wanted and needed.

When she had at last cried herself out and sobs were replaced by the occasional hiccup, she wiped her face with his sleeve and released her hold on his neck. Her eyes were swollen and red and she looked exhausted, but she managed a small, embarrassed smile. He gave her the water canteen and sat her against a tree while he set to work tearing his undershirt into strips, wrapping them around his neck and shoulder to cover the gash along his collarbone. By the time he was almost done, she had regained enough composure to come hold a loose end as he tied off the final strip, and he pulled his regular shirt and tunic back over his head.

As spent as she looked, she seemed to understand that they had to keep moving. Orcs rarely made it this far into the forest, and it nagged at his conscience to know that he could have stopped them much sooner had he been at his regular post as planned. But if there were three, there might be more, and they couldn’t linger here in the open. They gathered their things and set out again, and after several more hours of silent, uneventful trekking they reached the talan where he intended to spend their last night together.

She accepted the idea of climbing a tree and sleeping on a suspended platform with surprising nonchalance, perhaps having already used up all the energy needed to question or wonder at the day’s events. When they were settled safely on the talan and she had a few bites of food, she curled up next to him again and dropped quickly into wearied sleep even though the sun was barely below the horizon and the mild glow of twilight still surrounded them.

Her cheek rested against his ribs, and he spent a long time simply watching her head gently rise and fall in time with his own breathing. He tried to imagine what Idhrien would think to see him in this position, and he pictured her sitting quietly across from them, her bright, thoughtful eyes watching her husband with both surprise and pride. They had talked many times about starting a family of their own, but only in general terms–something for a later day–and he had always wondered in his heart whether he had the makings of a good parent. His father had been a cold presence in his childhood, and Haldir worried that his own natural reserve might come across as a similar coldness to those in his life that he loved deeply. Gazing at Mildrithe cuddled up to him now, it seemed that maybe his concern was unfounded. Maybe this was proof that he could figure out fatherhood just as he had figured out many other challenges before. Or maybe he was ridiculous for even thinking about it in this situation, holed up on a talan with a child that he barely knew–that wasn’t even his kind–and would be out of his care entirely as soon as he reached other wardens the next day. He sighed and stared up at the stars, lost in a swirl of thoughts, until the soft trill of birdsong replaced the chirping of crickets and the first rays of sunlight returned to the forest.

The morning passed easily with a quiet breakfast and early start. The air was cool, but not unpleasantly so, and within a few hours they had come within scouting distance of the wardens’ post that he knew lay just ahead, out of sight. A familiar whistling signal soon emerged from the trees, and no sooner had he answered it than his brother Rúmil appeared, slipping out of the brush where he had been expertly concealed. Mildrithe drew closer to Haldir’s side, edging behind him as Rúmil approached, but she still followed him forward, reassured by his own calm and no doubt also by the striking similarity between this newcomer and her guardian of the last few days.

“Maedol, hanar,” said Rúmil, placing a hand on his chest and inclining forward slightly.

“Mae govannen, honeg,” replied Haldir. They each threw an arm loosely around the other’s neck and pressed their foreheads together.

“We weren’t expecting to see you here,” said Rúmil when they separated. His eye trailed down to the bloodstains on Haldir’s clothing, but his evident concern was quickly dismissed with a wave of the hand.

“I wasn’t expecting it either, but sometimes fate forces a change in our plans.” He took hold of Mildrithe’s elbow and inched her out from behind him.

Rúmil cocked an eyebrow at his brother but smiled down at her and gave a courteous bow. She offered a hesitant smile in response. “Pedig edhellen, píneth?”

She looked to Haldir, who answered on her behalf. “She doesn’t. At least, not more than the few words I’ve taught her. She’s a Rohirrim. Her name is Mildrithe.”

“I see.” Rúmil studied her face for a long moment and bit thoughtfully at his bottom lip before looking back at his brother. “And what is she doing with you?”

He listened intently as Haldir described how he had found Mildrithe and what little he knew of her, and as he listened Rúmil’s expression became ever more grave. He shook his head sadly when Haldir reached the end of the tale.

“Yesterday we received a report from Haedirn of dead men found over the border by the Celebrant, only a few leagues from your post. Six of them, headed further north but ambushed by orcs before they made it to the marshes. No women and no survivors, or so he thought. But it’s hard to imagine that a child of men ends up lost and alone so close to such a massacre by pure coincidence.”

Haldir frowned. “None of what you say sets my mind at ease. And if orcs attacked this group at the border, they have only grown bolder since. Three followed us as far as the Hithglad, and there may be more.” He looked down. “Being drawn away from my post has left us without good scouting information.”

“Well that, at least, is a problem that can soon be addressed,” said Rúmil. “One of the wardens here can take the girl the rest of the way to Caras Galadhon, and then you’ll be free to return to your post and reset the watch.” He squatted down in front of Mildrithe, and they eyed each other with cautious interest. “You say she is a Rohirrim? Are you certain?”

“As certain as I can be when I can’t ask her directly. But I’ve heard enough Rohirric in my life to recognize it. That’s the language she speaks, I’m sure. Why?”

Rúmil pulled a small knife from a bag that was slung over his shoulder, and turned it over in his hands so that the hilt faced Mildrithe. She paled at the sight of it and grabbed onto Haldir’s leg, burying her face in the fabric of his tunic. Haldir gave his brother a sharp look.

“Put that away, you’re upsetting her.” He ran a hand gently over the crown of her head and down to her shoulder, where he rested it.

“Haedirn took this from one of the dead men at the border,” said Rúmil, standing up and holding the knife out now for Haldir’s view. “Do you see the charging stag engraved there? That’s a Dunlending symbol, the device of one of their clans that lives now in the Loeg Ningloron. And yet she clearly knows the knife. So if she is really a Rohirrim as you say…what would she be doing in a group of Dunlending men on the move?”

Haldir breathed out a long, slow sigh. He had always known that something horribly wrong must have happened to ever put Mildrithe in his path, but the true weight of her circumstances was easier to forget while her tragedy was still abstract and undefined. To imagine her now in the midst of that ambush, terrified and helpless, filled him with both anger and pity, and he gave silent thanks to Eru that she had somehow escaped. And yet Rúmil’s question was far from the only unknown remaining. Did she know those other men were dead? If she knew, would she be sad, or would she be glad to be free of them? Where could the elves take her to be reunited with her own people if her only connection to those people lay now in a field by the river, hastily buried by Haedirn and his companions?

She pulled back from his side at last and ventured a wary look in Rúmil’s direction before turning her eyes back to Haldir. He pushed the uncertainty and sorrow from his face, if not from his heart, and smiled encouragingly. Today, at least, she was safe, delivered to the protection of this post. Where she went next and what fate ultimately lay before her was not his to control. He had his own obligations to contend with, duties that weighed on him, and no one would think twice at him returning to those duties as quickly as he could.

And yet, as he contemplated that possibility now, a dull, aching feeling crept into his chest and settled heavily on his heart.

**********

Min feax = Old English/Rohirric for “my hair”

Dreor = Old English/Rohirric for “blood”

Maedol, hanar = Sindarin for “welcome, brother”

Mae govannen, honeg = Sindarin for “well met, little brother”

Pedig edhellen, píneth? = Sindarin for “do you speak elvish, little one?”

[Don’t @ me if the translations aren’t perfect, I tried! 🙂]

@konartiste @dancerinthestorm @emmanuellececchi as requested

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

status of babbit's life yeehaw

tl,dr: busy moving and a couple of other big life things that just complicate things, but well on the way to being back to normal! new fic chapters and better quality art coming soon.

tl,wr (too long, will read):

Helloooo what's up its me, Babbit. or Rabbit. or Bones. or Idiot Moron Menace Child, idk im not picky lol

i know a lot of you guys have been wondering wtf is up with my upload schedule lately and the extreme lack of even basic content and also i am extremely aware that i have not updated my fics in a few millennia and for that i am very, very sorry. this post is to answer a few questions you might have, if anyone was curious about the 'reason' instead of just the 'when.'

my family and i have had a hell of a year, y'all. like, jesus christ, i really hope things level out and calm down for a while once we're moved in to our new apartment bc god damn we are so tired. the list goes: 1. we got kicked out of the house we were renting-to-own bc we wouldn't be able to afford the new rate, so they gave us two months to find a new place to live (not long enough, it turns out) and then foreclosed to get us out. 75% of our belongings were still in the house when we had to leave. that includes all of our christmas ornaments- including the ones kept for decades, and the ones made by me and my siblings, and the fancy ones made from blown glass. 2. the first night out of the house, one of our dogs, freaked out by the strangeness of the situation, panicked and slipped her harness and ran off. that was over a year ago. we haven't seen her since. 3. my cat got very ill and became unable to eat. she passed away almost exactly a year ago. she had been 14-15, and had been my baby since i was maybe 8. 4. one of the tires on my dads car blew out. during the night, while it was parked on the curb so he could put the spare on in the morning, one of the in-tact tires was fucking stolen LMAO 5. we applied to rent at so many places and got rejected so, so many times. it costs money to apply, btw. we're talking like $200+. no, u don't get that money back. 6. i lost my job bc knowing i would have to work 8 hours at a job that stresses me out to the point of exhaustion (at a place where no one takes me seriously and would actively laugh at me when i try to express my need to step away for a minute) sometimes paralyzed me and made me sick to my stomach and made me feel unable to leave the house, and i called out one too many times. a day after my birthday, too! 7. just recently, like within the last week, my dad's car got fuckin totalled!!!!!

THE GOOD NEWS IS WE OFFICIALLY, FINALLY, AFTER A SOLID YEAR, HAVE AN APARTMENT!!!!! I'LL HAVE MY OWN ROOM AGAIN!!! THERE'S AN ENTIRE KITCHEN!!!!!!!

the 'oh god' news is we still have to move in, and replace a lot of the stuff that we just couldn't take with us when we moved out (mostly stuff like bookshelves, dining table, dressers, etc) AND get the few things we could cram into a storage center out and moved into the new place, which isn't a lot but at the same time is more than we can realistically handle on our own. and then, we have to get my mums cats (a pair of kitty sisters that we had to temporarily house with my aunt, who got tired of looking after them and let them outside to be outdoor cats a few months ago. yes, this was an extremely shitty thing to do, and we've been working hard to get them back safely) AND my gecko (who my cousin has been looking after, even tho feeding him worms freaks him out LMAO yes i plan on compensating him) moved in, as well... basically oh my god there is so much to worry about but at the same time it's nice to have to worry about it bc it means we're making progress sdkfhsjdkfhdsjfh

basically i am just so tired but so busy and also thinkin abt so much im so sorry for lack of stuff but i am so looking forward to being able to bounce back, pls stick with me, it'll be sorted out soon i think and then i'll hit y'all with some good stuff i promise!!!!!!!

anyway thank u guys i love u and appreciate u all for sticking around

[chikkou]

ok i was waiting until my laptop got here to finally tell all the bullshit thats happened in the last like. 5 months lol. cause its a lot to type

im gonna put it all under the cut so no one has to read if they dont want. its a LONG fucking story.

tl;dr:

ok so for basic background, for the last two years or so, i was living with a roommate in connecticut. the roommate was my (now former) best friend since middle school. in july of this year his behavior totally shifted, and he started picking fights with me out of nowhere, told our high school friends a bunch of straight up lies abt me to make me look like a horrible roommate & person, and just generally became a two-faced dickhead. in the end, it turned out to all be excuses to justify his decision to move out (unofficially, name was still on the lease) so that he could live with his boyfriends and not pay any bills. at the time i was really devastated by this bc i felt totally betrayed by this person i had been close to since i was 12/13, but frankly after everything else that happened i barely fucking think about it now LMAO. this is set dressing more than anything else

so anyway, i had been living alone since about august, that was the last time i saw him in person. i wasnt handling the situation well because i had spoken to my high school friend and found out the extent to which hed tried to paint me as a slovenly, horrible roommate, to the point of telling actual lies about really dumb stuff (which didnt work btw - my friends, god bless them, were more concerned about my mental health than anything and thought i was going down a depression spiral, which my former friend told them he was helping me through. they believed me right away once we finally did talk). all that is to say, i was going kind of crazy lol, and i decided to go back home in october just for a short while, to recharge my batteries and all.

i was gone for a couple of weeks, not very long. i felt MUCH better after being with my family & friends in person, as i felt pretty isolated from everyone (my hometown is in new york, i was only 2 hours away by train but scheduling times to visit was sort of a hassle, so i only did it once every couple months). my grandfather and mom dropped me off at my apartment in early november, we were very lighthearted and discussing my next steps, since my shithead friend had been behind on rent more than 5 times (i always paid my half on time) and i was facing eviction because of it. we get to my apartment, i go to open the door, and it wont open. not that its locked, it just straight up WONT open. my grandpa tried to ram the door with his shoulder, and nothing. hes a strong ass dude, and this door wouldnt budge for anything.

my mom managed to get the kitchen window open and climb in that way, and it took both her and my grandpa pulling/pushing at the same time to force the door open. i wont even dress this up: there was mold. fucking. everywhere. on the floor, on the walls, all over everything i owned. i have pictures (had to take them for insurance) and im not even going to show them because they are beyond fucking disgusting. everything i owned was soaked in water and mold, and i do literally mean EVERYTHING. it was very warm in there too, like the temperature of a swamp. i was in a haze after that. i just remember sobbing, like genuinely heartbroken sobbing, as i wandered around looking at everything that was ruined. my mom & grandpa had to go and get maintenance because i was just utterly useless, and they were equally horrified & said they'd never seen anything like it.

i managed to save some items that were irreplaceable (journals, notebooks, etc) and whatever clothes werent utterly soaked in mold. all of my cookware, my books, my laptop & desktop (i cried the hardest when i saw the desktop) - it was all ruined. we found out later that the water boiler in my apartment had a catastrophic failure while i was gone, which caused it to constantly send water back through the pipes, empty, and refill itself. my bedroom was directly above the boiler downstairs, so it got the most significant amount of damage. all told, i lost like 95% of the things i owned. it is possible that i could have saved more, but the amount of mold in that apartment made it a genuine safety hazard for me to even be in there, so i had very limited time to grab what i could. the cruelest irony of all that? my shithead ex-friend's room, which was on the other side of the hallway, was pretty much untouched. he lost absolutely nothing lol.

so immediately, i had to leave the state. i moved back to ny with my family. my mother - who had a stroke last year following a diagnosis of an exceedingly rare neurological disorder, AND had two separate brain surgeries to improve her quality of life - was in the process of getting evicted. the landlord didnt give a fuck about any of my moms situation, not her being disabled, not her being widowed, not her having 3 kids under the age of 18 to care for - he just wanted her out so he could increase the cost of rent on our house. at the same time as all this was going on, i got saddled with a $600 electric bill (likely caused by the water heater's malfunction), which neither insurance nor the apartment would pay, so it came out of my pocket. in addition, i found out in december that i was also getting laid off.

we had nowhere to go and couldnt afford to live anywhere in the tri-state area. we had no choice but to move somewhere much cheaper, and since my mom already had a friend living in a mid-atlantic state, we chose to move there. the eviction went through in january and we had less than 2 weeks to pack all our shit, find a place to live, and get the fuck out. needless to say, we were not successful lol.

we stayed in my grandparents 1 bedroom apartment for about a week, then all of us drove down together to stay with my moms friend in her 3 bedroom apartment (she has 5 kids, 3 of whom live in the apartment). my moms apartment, which was supposed to have been ready by january 31st, still had people actively living there. the property manager kept promising us it would be next week for the entire month of february, to the point that my mom got fed up and chose to rent a small house instead. the reality of being essentially homeless for that time was beyond horrifying, and having anywhere between 8-10 people in that house (my cousin also moved with us, but he stayed in a hotel for the first week) was more taxing than i can express.

but things have gotten a lot better since then. i also found a cute little house to rent just up the road from my moms, and its very cheap for its size. i still havent found a job yet, but thanks to what was essentially the liquidation of everything i owned, ill be ok for a couple months more. im slowly but surely repurchasing all the things i lost and trying to acclimate to the new environment. things are still not totally stable right now, but they are slowing down, and at this point thats all i can really ask for lol.

so yeah. if u were wondering why i suddenly stopped posting after literal years of posting every day, thats why LMAO

[ikatako38]

Another Update

Do people even read these anymore?

Hi!

TL;DR: read last paragraph (bolded)

First of all… I miss you all so much!!! As I always say, thank you so much to everyone reading this for sticking around. It really means the world to me.

This summer has been extremely rough for me. I don’t need to rehash the details, I’m your curious I believe I gave some in a previous update. The important part is that I’m finally doing better now. For the first time in over a year really, I finally feel like I’m same strange enough to begin focusing on myself a little bit again, rather than just surviving. And part of that is making time to write and engage with fandom!

At the same time, it is also sadly true that, especially with the Grand Festival behind us, the Splatoon fandom is slowly going dormant. Many of the Splatoon creators I know are moving on to different fandoms. Especially for a Splatoon 2 fic, the interest level is understandably small and ever-shrinking. Much of today’s Splatoon fandom never even played the second game or Octo Expansion. And a lot of that is due to my own timing; I’ve been behind since the beginning, and long hiatuses squandered much of the wave of interest coming from Splatoon 3.

That being said, I can try to be proud about the things I did accomplish in that time. A Discord server that’s a bit quieter but still thriving after nearly two years, my longest single project ever at over 500 pages, tons of beautiful fanart that I still look at often because they make me so happy, so many friendships… some short-lived but others genuine and hopefully long-lasting—and above all, so many amazing memories that I hope I can cherish for years and years.

And that’s really important for me to remember. Truth is, and I don’t even think I fully recognized this until now, but I’ve definitely been struggling with a feeling of failure surrounding TPWCH. And that’s in no way because of, but rather really in spite of all you readers, who have been nothing but supportive, often not just as a fan but as a friend. So that you for that! ^_^ But what can I say, I’m hard on myself. That feeling makes me avoid writing, which only increases the feeling of failure, and so on and so forth.

But putting it all together, I have no idea why it took so long, but I’m finally realizing that the kind of engagement I’m clinging to is just not possible anymore… and not because of any fault of my own. People just… move on. Fandoms ebb and flow (hah). Even I haven’t been nearly as involved in Splatoon as I used to be.

So… I’m going to try to fully let go of that blame and regret. I used guilt to motivate myself, and it worked for a while, but eventually it just burned me out. I used to think it was cliché and dumb, but I really do need to learn to just write for myself and my friends (yes, that includes you!)

So, what’s the plan then?

My plan, for now, is to do something I haven’t done since the very beginning of the fic: create a buffer. My obsession with pushing content the moment it’s ready has not only caused me stressed but also a poorer reading experience for you all.

I’m going to take down the Part 1 Recap. Then, I’m going to keep working on the Part 2 Recap, Chapter #22.5, and Chapter #23. The nice thing about this is that I can work on them in any order I want, or simultaneously! When I finish, likely near the end of the year, I’ll post the Part 1 Recap, Part 2 Recap, Chapter #22.5, and each part of Chapter #23 at regular intervals. That should give me some time to work on Chapter #24 as those are releasing, and we’ll see where things go from there! By then, I’ll be headed to Japan, and who knows what that will be like!

That may feel like a long time away, but don’t fear! I’ll also be posting Sneak Peeks here irregularly, so you can still have a little content to hold you over and keep up the excitement!

Thank you as always to everyone who has had an impact on my life through this fic! You all mean so incredibly much to me 🥹

[datmoongamer]

Massive Golden Age Cayde-1/2 and Micah Abram loredump

TFS spoilers. You have been warned.

Reddit mirror here.

TL;DR: Cayde played cards with Micah when her parents were busy sometime after he shot at her and grabbed her. She remembers. He doesn't.

I couldn't find a video of their full dialogue in this quest online, so here it is. Lotta important stuff regarding Cayde-1/Cayde-2(?), Micah Abram, and how much they remember today.

Bolded text: what you came here for.

Asterisk*: Supplemental lore linked at the bottom.

Video of the full dialogue (minus the quest intro in the Arbor of Light): youtube link

(Didn't record Micah's beginning dialogue about Anwar*. It was about how Anwar was a close associate of the Speaker and that although he was interested in Darkness, he was unflinchingly loyal. If anyone did, please drop a link!)

The Final Shape Looms

Three days before the allied assault.

(Guardian approaches the Pyramid)

Cayde-6: Europa- I ain't even there, and I can feel all that cold in my bones.*

Micah-10: Do... you remember Europa, Cayde?

Cayde-6: Bits and pieces, yeah. I ain't a big fan of numbers lower than six, but there's still pieces of them in here, rattling chains. Haunting.

(Guardian runs into Cabal)

Micah-10: Guardian, my fears were correct. Anwar's signal was last detected inside the Europan Pyramid. Complicating matters, you aren't alone here.

There is a detachment of Cabal that landed a few hours ago. Elsie sent me data on their movements.

Ghost: They don't appear to be Witness-aligned forces. This could be more of Otzot's people.

Micah-10: I'd heard rumors of some fracturing after Calus's death, but... I don't know what to make of this.

Cayde-6: Well, some people feel more comfortable with a leash around their neck... whether it's guiding them to behave, or misbehave.

(Guardian enters the Pyramid)

Cayde-6: Seems as though the Cabal have made it inside the Pyramid.

Micah-10: Scans from Ghost show movement near the heart of the structure and unsettling activity inside.

It's like the Pyramid is reacting to your presence, anticipating something.

Cayde-6: Did you ever figure out who was flying this? Crow gave me a lowdown on the situation, and that part was, y'know, suspiciously blank.

Micah-10: We did not.

(Guardian moves through the Pyramid)

Micah-10: Cayde? Do you remember anything from your first Exo incarnation?*

Cayde-6: Some. Ain't... exactly happy to talk about what I do, either.

Micah-10: Was there a child?

Cayde-6: I think. I don't know. I remember bits and pieces. Shadows of faces. It's all... it's a jumble. Micah. Why?

Micah-10: [sighs] It's nothing. It can wait for a more private moment.

(Guardian enters the statue room)

Cayde-6: Oh, that's one of those big, screamy statues.

A dissenter: What is done must be undone. Your time is running out. Your time is running out!

Cayde-6: Aaand they're screaming here too. Cool.

(Guardian kills Valus Dralgur, the Exiled)

Ghost: I'm having a hard time picking up Anwar's signal. It stops here, at the statue.

Micah-10: Oh. [exhales] Oh no...

Elsie just... found him. [clears throat] Shards of him. Anwar. At the Ziggurat.

Ghost. I... No... He's dead?

Micah-10: We should go collect his remains.

Ghost: We'll go right away. I'm... so sorry, Micah.

Micah-10: [sighs] Me too, Ghost.

Cayde-6: Hey, kid. Why don't I come down and meet you? We can chat about whatever. Anything, your pick.

Ghost: Thank you, Cayde.

The Veiled

Return to the Arbor of Light to discuss next steps.

Micah-10: I've... [sighs] never told anyone this, but I knew Cayde. Before he was a Guardian. Before I was a Guardian.

We were both on Europa, before the Collapse. I found out about it after the BrayTech facilities on Europa were unearthed.

I... know Guardians aren't supposed to go digging into their pasts, but I did. I found my Exomind archive... [takes deep breath] I found myself.*

[sighs] Micah Abram. I grew up on Europa, and even then, I was struggling to understand my identity, in so many ways.

As a child, I was having dreams- visions sent to me by the Traveler. I didn't understand them then, but I do now... It was preparing me.

For this. For loss. For losing people. Like Anwar. Like Cayde.

Cayde was the personal bodyguard of an Ishtar Collective researcher named Maya Sundaresh. He was an Exo before I entered the program.

He... helped me. When my fathers were away on work, Cayde would talk to me. Play cards. Teach me how to cope with isolation.*

Cayde doesn't remember. And... that's OK.

I can hug him, one last time. And remind him that he was missed. That he saved me.

*Anwar: Ghost Stories: Pressure. He and another Ghost, Dejana, search the ruins of Tower North and talk about the Speaker.

*Cayde on Europa: Legacy's Oath Helm. Cayde-6 has a flashback about Cayde-1, who was guarding an Exoscience factory with Knox-4. A kid (Micah Abram) startles him, and Cayde-1 shoots at her (she was a young boy at the time).

*The child Micah asks about: Your Friend, Micah Abram: LETTER 5, Your Friend, Micah Abram: LETTER 6. Micah Abram tries to sneak into an Exoscience factory. She is disturbed by the conversation the guard Exos- Cayde-1 and Knox-4- are having, so she runs, but she's caught by Cayde-1. Cayde-1 shuts down after catching her. Micah escapes.

*Cayde and Maya Sundaresh: Cayde's Treasure Island Book. The journal of the previous versions of Cayde. Cayde-2 (or Cayde-1?) was a bodyguard for Maya Sundaresh, and he was in love with her.

*Micah, before the Exomind project: Embraced Identity. Micah Abram, 17, female.

*Micah's dreams and her busy parents: Your Friend, Micah Abram: LETTER 7. Her parents were busy. She had dreams about being an Exo before she became one.

Micah's gender: She was female when she entered the Exomind project, which means she transitioned before she became an Exo. Your Friend, Micah Abram: LETTER 2 has her saying she'll grow a beard and her father, Wesley, says he has a son in Lost Lament: Locate Dead Exos.

Ace and Queen: Cayde-6 — Mementos from the Wild. Once upon a time, there was probably a real Ace and Queen, but Cayde-6 does not remember them, as per The Man They Call Cayde: Bad Beat. It is likely that his imagined versions of Ace and Queen are based on Micah and Maya.

[friendlybowlofsoup]

Addressing My Recent Hiatus

Hello Everyone,

I wrote this post thinking it would be quick, but it ended up taking me about five hours to put all the words down coherently. As such, I will put the TL;DR here:

I am okay, but I have been grieving the loss of my dog since last year. Writing was put to the background until recently, but I'm slowly getting in the groove again, so I can only ask for your continued patience.

I am still trying to figure out a good system to keep myself in check, but moving forwards is all I plan to do, so hopefully, only good news ahead ^^

Below is the full explanation of the situation, but serves more as an outlet for me than information for you. Feel free to ignore it, as I leave my send-off here.

To everyone, I am truly thankful for the kind messages and asks received during my break. Although you didn't know it, seeing those messages in my email and discord made me feel less isolated, and I hope to return your kindness tenfold through my work.

--

In November, my dog passed away in a sudden accident. I have parted from beloved pets before, but never in such an abrupt and cruel way. Because of Covid, I spent every single day of the last three years at his side, and within the first few months of moving out again for school, he was gone before I could say goodbye.

I have been struggling to process it. It feels like it was my fault, that this happened because I had moved away. I convinced myself that if I lost him because of my studies then I should at least do it well, and so nothing but schoolwork could lessen my guilt. Honestly, I still can't shake this feeling, but I also don't want to keep doing this to myself.

This past week was my spring break, and I have been working to get back to my hobbies. My family and I cried and grieved together, and my friends have been enduringly supportive--with all of their help, I finally forced myself to sit down and write after three months, and today, I was able to make this post to all of you.

GotRM will be, as always, slow-moving. School continues to go on, and I'm still not in the best headspace, but I will put in an effort to write more everyday.

Things are looking up. I am better than I was before, and I am happy to be back (´꒳`)♡

Expect some asks to be answered in the coming weeks! I am writing with a rusty hand again, so please critique me on anything funky as it comes up.

Thank you again for your continued support of GotRM.

- Mei

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for ghosting 2 of my closet friends?

TL;DR: 2 of my closest/longest friendships ive had were ended by me stopping any and all communication, either unprompted or prompted. i dont feel any urge to talk with these people again, and i do not want to rekindle these friendships.

i (19ftm) have had only 2 friendships were i would consider the other person a "best friend". the first one was when i was in middle school (12-13). this other person, we'll call K(at the time 13F). now back in middle school i was what would be considered as the cool kids say: Cringe. super obsessed with undertale AND homestuck, a big 1-2 punch.

i met K through our homeroom class, and we really hit it off well. she was funny, great at art, and also loved undertale (she was the one who actually got me into homestuck, but thats besides the point). we hung out constantly, always chatting and swapping art tips, that sorta thing.

when i moved schools in 7th grade we became distance friends. not long distance bc we lived 30 min. away from each other, but we didn't get to see each other everyday anymore. eventually we started dating, but i didnt really feel content w the relationship at the time (i didnt know i was trans/gay yet lol).

one day i told her i was taking a break from social media/discord for a while until i sorted myself out, and then i would be back. i never spoke with her again after that and i felt like shit for years for ghosting my at the time girlfriend. i didnt take the break with the intention of ghosting K, it just kinda happened. she deleted her discord and i don't remember her tumblr so i have no way of communicating w her anymore. we knew each other for about 3-4 years, and dated for about half of that.

my other friend we'll call T(ftm). I met T my freshman year, when i was 14. T is 2 years older than me, so he was 16 at the time, a sophomore. T and i really hit it off well, and we hung out all the time after school, and talked over discord daily. he did a lot for me ill be honest, and helped me through an identity crisis when i realized i was trans and also gay.

however, when T graduated he started to drift away. i was still a junior at the time but we stayed in contact the best we could. i started driving so i would visit him in his apartment on weekends. however things really nose dived my senior year. i was 17-18 and all my friends had graduated, so i was already feeling pretty alone.

i kept trying to find comfort in T but he just kinda faded away. he found a new friend group of ppl closer to his age and they started hanging out more. i knew some of these people from our school, and was even friends w one of them, but for some reason he insisted on keeping me separate from them.

things boiled over when our mutual friend from this new friend group decided to throw a halloween party, but had to cancel last minute. time skip to november 1st and im picking up T to go rollerskating, and to my surprise he hops in my car out of breath and says "sorry it took so long, i was cleaning up after a halloween party!" and went on about this party he threw the night before with all his friends from the other group. T explained to me that he didn't invite me bc "i wouldn't know any of them".

i was pissed. really pissed. i stopped making plans to hang out with him, but to my surprise so did he. we stopped chatting daily, and the last time we spoke was april of last year. i sent him a final message in may trying to spark another conversation but he never replied. so i gave up. i stopped talking to him.

then i realized the pattern of me growing extremely close with someone only to ghost them. i know T basically ghosted me but i also stopped putting in the effort so i feel i still hold some of the blame. even when i last saw T in person i avoided him like the plague, and i just pray that if we do see each other again he does NOT recognize me.

What are these acronyms?

[nav-i-nav]

My thoughts on OMORI and its message

I feel like I should talk about the impact OMORI had on me as a whole and recent posts made the thoughts I had after finishing the game for the first time come back, so here we go!

Remember this is my own interpretation, so don't take anything I say as the irrefutable truth! Likewise, feel free to add anything I might've missed in either tags or reblogs! I love hearing about other people's interpretations of the game!

Lastly, please forgive me if something I write isn't clear or easy to understand, I just needed to get this out of my system, so apologies for any typos/formatting issues ヽ(*。>Д<)o゜!!!

TL;DR: OMORI is a complex game about acceptance and choosing to move forward, and how the choices you make will influence the path ahead of you.

There are two routes the player can choose to follow during OMORI, as well as three endings you can reach based on those choices. The true route (which can lead you to either the good ending or the bad ending) and the hikkikomori route (which leads to the neutral ending).

As I've stated in previous posts, I firmly believe this game is not about "unconditional love" or "always forgiving"; rather, it's about not running away from your mistakes and confronting, accepting, and moving past them.

The hikkikomori route

One thing I've seen a lot of people do is disregard the fact that Sunny completely forgot about Mari's death. Yes, even if Headspace Basil or Stranger remember, and even if Something is a constant "reminder" of the truth, Sunny does NOT remember this UNTIL the day before he moves away, which in turn leads to him looking for Basil and thus, this resulting on a fight breaking out between the two of them which lead us to the hospital, where we choose one final time.

We know the cycle and resetting of Headspace has happened AT LEAST four times before the events we see in the game thanks to this dialogue found right before the Black Space segment of the game.

What we don't know is if Sunny actually remembered the truth during those instances or if Omori managed to put a stop to it. Personally, I like to believe this is the case. Why, you ask? Simple. I like to believe the hikkikomori route is but another one of these cycles.

Nothing special happens, nothing that alters Sunny's routine. Sure he is going to move away, but he still chooses to isolate himself in his house and wait until that day, doing nothing but the occasional chore and sleeping. He doesn't open the door for Kel, there are no external stimuli that indicate something is wrong and the ones that are already present inside the house have been blocked (the piano room, the closet, the backyard). And so, there is no reason for Sunny to question anything. There's no reason to accept or forgive anything.

To Sunny, Headspace is real. To Sunny, the truth is that his name is Omori and that he goes on all sorts of adventures with his friends while his dear sister stays behind. This is the truth he's accepted for four years, the life he's taken on and the life he'll continue to live should he not open the door.

Sunny has forgotten himself. He cannot accept the truth or forgive himself because of this. Daddy Longlegs confirms this thanks to the following dialogue:

Not only that, but Sunny also starts seeing himself as Omori in the mirror at the end of the hikkikomori route, which only solidifies the fact he has lost himself at this point and has given in to the safety of Headspace.

Lastly, let's not forget one of the biggest differences between the true and hikkikomori routes—the "boss" fight. Whereas in the true route, it's Omori, in the hikkikomori one, it's Stranger.

Something really interesting is the change of Stranger's dialogue between the true and hikkikomori routes. Here is the dialogue during and after the fight we have against him:

There is a distinct aggression that Stranger lacks in the true route. Stranger is the embodiment of everything Sunny wishes to forget. No matter how hard he tries to separate Basil from the incident, the truth is that he will always be linked to Mari's death one way or another, and, as Daddy Longlegs says:

However, even if Sunny didn't open the door, the fact he is moving away remains. We know this causes Sunny some sort of uncertainty and discomfort, as seen by the "Time" area in Black Space. Sunny is aware something will change and that causes him anguish. It's both figuratively and literally, a timer. To leave and forget or to step outside and find out the truth.

The reason Stranger is the final "boss" of the hikkikomori route is precisely because he is the last obstacle Sunny must "overcome" before he's able to fully forget himself. He is moving away and he's chosen to go with it, to let go of the past forever and completely abandon his identity as Sunny to embrace Omori fully.

Stranger, of course, knows that Sunny has chosen to turn a blind eye to the truth, so as a last attempt, he forces him to face him, to confront everything he's run from, and try to snap him out of it. But by this point, Sunny has given up all hope. He refuses to accept the truth, he refuses to see the pain and suffering his actions have caused, and so, Stranger backs off. Because he knows that at this point Sunny is far too gone.

The true route

With that out of the way, let's focus now on what is canonically considered the true route of the game. We all know what happens: Sunny opens the door and steps out of his house for the first time in years, which leads him to reconnect and mend relationships with old friends and make new ones, all within the span of three days until he moves away.

This is already a huge difference to the alternate route, as he actively interacts with all sorts of people and environments, allowing him to explore the real world and reconnect with it again. Of course, Headspace's influence is still present (as seen by the Headspace imagery that we can see around Faraway on the first day we go outside), however as time goes on, these disappear and instead Sunny starts remembering memories he had buried deep underneath the vibrant colors and fantastical aura of his dreams.

We all know this, so why am I bringing it up?

Thanks to all the stimuli that he's being exposed to, Sunny is able to remember more and more of what happens. He can no longer run away because Mari's death is a fact that he is constantly being reminded of by the world around him. Little by little he pieces what happened back together right until the sleepover he has with everyone else at Basil's house.

During three days, Sunny begins remembering who he is, and although Omori is him, he is not Omori. He is not as strong as him, nor is he able to ignore his fears like his counterpart. Just like the branch coral dialogue indicates:

Omori can mimic a human, but Sunny will never be an empty husk. His human nature remains above all and that is precisely why he can only run for so long. One way or another, Sunny must confront his mistakes and choose.

He can still run away by not opening the door on the second day, he can still escape during the sleepover by choosing not to save Basil, but by this point, he's already faced with the truth.

Now, let's talk about Basil and Sunny's fight. Although Sunny realizes Mari's dead, he doesn't learn the full truth until after Black Space. Again, one of the main things that distinguishes these routes is what happens with Stranger after we've explored this area. The main difference is that, unlike in the hikkikomori route, in the true route, Sunny knows that he has people he can count on. He knows he is not alone, as stated by Stranger:

Sunny is no longer isolating himself. He can finally see that people care about him and that he counts with them. This is reinforced by Hero, Kel, and Aubrey's dialogues right before the fight with Omori:

As well as Basil's before Sunny enters his house for the last time>

Both of these scenes happen right before Sunny takes the initiative to confront and accept what he's done. The difference between the true and the hikkikomori routes is the fact Sunny is no longer alone and he trusts that he'll have his friends by his side until the very end.

And then, we reach the final moment. The final decision.

Just like how Stranger was the final boss for the alternate route, we stand before Omori, who readies his blade as he blocks your path. Sunny has learned the truth, he has seen what he's done and now he has to fight. To prove that he is ready to move on.

Omori has been Sunny's shield for so long. So now Sunny must show Omori he is ready to let go and be himself.

This is the difference between the journeys we go through on each route.

The reason I believe that the hikkikomori route ends with a “neutral” ending is because Sunny never faced the truth. He didn’t even try to do so, instead choosing to hide away and forget, rejecting the idea that Mari died once again. Whereas in the true ending and the bad ending, he accepts this fact and embraces it. He sees the incident once again and remembers the role he had in everything that happened over the course of four years. And then he chooses if he wants to move forward or not.

Let's look at the cutscenes that play after the fights with Stranger and Omori respectively. (I will be using the good ending cutscene for the true route):

One of my favorite things about these is the fact that in the Hikkikomori route Sunny is still submerged in the darkness of Black Space. He is still blinded and therefore he can't see those who still care for him, those who cheer on him and wish him to move on. Instead, all he sees is Omori, because that's all he's known for four years. He is the only one who's been able to provide comfort to him because he won't let anyone else inside.

This changes during the true route, and regardless of what happens in the fight, one thing is clear: Sunny has accepted the truth. He is no longer blind to what happened, and he has finally come to terms with it. Only then does he decide if he wants to take the next step forward or not.

My thoughts

If you've read this far, thank you! Now, you must be wondering what does all of that have to do with the game's message. Well, I'll get to that.

First, I want to make one thing clear. I firmly believe Sunny's journey is not one of forgiveness but of acceptance.

Sunny's been stuck in an endless loop for roughly four years. All he's done is relive the same stories and go over the same path again, just as the following dialogue shows:

He will never be able to move forward unless he accepts the truth. What's done is done, and no matter how many times Headspace is reset, Sunny will never be able to undo it.

This is why the hikkikomori route is a neutral ending compared to the bad ending, even if the outcome is considered worse but most of the fanbase. Because in the hikkikomori route, Sunny never took a step forward. Nothing changed. Meanwhile, in the bad ending, Sunny knows what he's done and he chooses to take his own life as a response. He took a step forward but didn't have the courage to take the next one.

This leads to the last ending. In the good ending, Sunny takes two steps forward instead of one.

In the secret cutscene for the true route's good ending, when Sunny and Basil’s Somethings disappear, it isn’t their guilt or their regret. Rather, it��s the delusions (both literally and figuratively) that have blinded them for so long, the delusions that made them unable to move on. And now they can finally see past them and find each other.

They can finally accept that YES, Sunny killed Mari, and YES, both of them hurt the rest of their friends AND each other with their actions.

That’s the first step for them to heal.

But it’s definitely not the last one.

Trauma doesn’t go away so easily. And sure, life will be rough for a while. But at least they’re LIVING. They finally see things for what they are, and they are able to move past them and try to forgive themselves.

Maybe they won’t forgive themselves. And their trauma is never going to go away. But at least they’re no longer trapped in a lie and can choose what they want to do with their lives.

This is why, to me, OMORI is not about forgiveness. The story never shows Hero, Kel and Aubrey's reactions to the truth because this isn't what the game wants to focus on. Sunny's journey is for him to accept the truth and come to terms with it. But it's not the only journey we see along the way. Take Aubrey for example. She too came to terms with her actions towards Basil during those four years, and although there is not a conclusive ending to this, we see how she realizes her actions weren't justified no matter how hurt she was and she chooses to try and make amends.

Choices are extremely important in Omori. Sure, we can choose if we want to run away from an enemy or fight it, we can choose if we want to buy an item or not, we can choose to play the minigames or do the side quests we get along the way. But at the end of the day, the choices we make determine the future of the characters.

By opening that door, we can see the different outcomes of the story. And to me, that is just how real life is. We don't know what will happen in the future, we don't know if we are going to hurt others or if we'll regret our actions once everything's over, but what's important is to have the courage to make those decisions in the first place, the courage to accept when we're wrong and then choose to move forward or not.

Omori has taught me that making mistakes does not equal you being a terrible person. It is your choice to learn from those mistakes and improve. No matter what, you must have faith in yourself and those around you, and know that even if you didn't make the "right" choice, you can learn from it and you can become a better person thanks to it.

And I think that's beautiful.

[soulsty]

....dude Fi was designed to look 13-14 according to the devs. it's really creepy that you ship her with anyone tbh, ESPECIALLY Ghirahim. she's literally a child. says a lot about you imo

Alright alright alright, let’s clear this up.

!DISCLAIMER BEFORE I START!

Do not mistake this post as me trying to excuse weird shit. Ew. I hate pro-shipping. Get it away from me.

Now into the nitty gritty-

Quoting DIRECTLY, from Hyrule Historia, it is on my lap as we speak

“• Looks 13 or 14”

Does this concept art look a lot like our finalized Fi design? Yes it does. This is the second closest to the finalized version in the book

So let’s go over more of this, and the several reasons why I think this isn’t canon.

“• metallic texture”

That didn’t stick around. I often joke that everything in Skyward Sword looks like it’s made out of fondant, and while her clothing does, her skin and wings looks much closer to porcelain.

“• a naive cuteness”

uhh, sure? She never seemed naive to me, but she is still cute so… that stuck I guess?

I don’t need to go over the last bullet point, because that is just true lmao

But here’s the kicker! Right?

“Like the Fairy Queen in Wind Waker”

The Fairy Queen is obviously a child. We know this, look at her, she also flirts with 12 year old Link iirc

But what makes this design look like the fairy queen? The hair does, it’s exactly the same, just parted on the opposite side. The grey-blue color is really similar. Her… eyes? But wait… that’s the same eye type as the regular Great Fairies? And Ghirahim?

She didn’t even carry over the circular toon style eyes in her final design

I’m pretty sure I could assume the Great Fairies in WW are meant to be adults right? Other versions always have been, and they very clearly look like an older version of the Fairy Queen… so why does Fi’s finalized design actually look a bit more like them? From the pointed eyes to the strong nose-to-eyebrow ridge, she’s starting to look less like the Queen to me…

But let’s go back to the concept art. What else does it say?

These are the same design as the other one that says she looks 13-14, just a bit less detailed

hmm… huh… that’s interesting. Her gem changes color? Well, that’s not canon

Wait what? “Connected to the arm, which is why it bends.” She has arms under her wings?

THEY TOOK HER GODDAMN ARMS

So yeah, in that same design where she “looks 13 or 14” she had arms. Do with that what you will

How about we dive even deeper into Fi’s concept art, hmm?

It seems pretty clear to me that she wasn’t meant to be a child character from the start, some of these designs appear child-like (the one next to the iron man design in particular), but lots of these are also just women

But okay, okay, let’s take a step back from Fi’s concept art. How about Ghirahim’s, what does his say?

The same age as Link? This mfer is 17?? Jesus Christ, talk about the jock kid in high school

Jokes aside, I don’t believe that, he refers to Link as a child the entire time, all of his concept art pre-finalized, just looks like old men, so I assume that moreso meant they were straying away from that design element.

I would also like to mention that Ghirahim’s concept art states in his sword form “He shows emotion without using his eyes”

While very clearly showing a picture of him expressing with his eyes, something that remains consistent in-game as well. So this could be translation error, or just… idk honestly it just doesn’t really make sense lmao

The tl;dr of all this concept art talk is this:

Don’t take concept art as fact. As an artist, concept art is literally that. A concept. I have made designs with elements that have been changed drastically by the finalized version. It’s all a process.

SO! Now that we’re done with the concept art, let’s actually move to references from the game.

At the beginning of the game, this is said, by Gaepora and Fi

Link is referred to as “a/the youth” multiple times, as opposed to Fi being referred to once as “youthful in likeness yet wise with knowledge immeasurable.”

Youthful in likeness. Not an actual youth, and the youthful in likeness thing could not even necessarily tie back to saying she looks 13-14, just that she looks young. Youthful is a very large age-range after all.

My second point about in-game… Scrapper. This doesn’t really lead too far, because we have no idea how “old” Scrapper is “supposed to be”, he’s a robot, he has less of an age than Ghirahim and Fi, BUT he’s allowed to be an absolute simp, to the point of calling her “Mistress” non-stop, so idk, that just doesn’t read as something a child would go through to me.

UPDATE: more evidence on the front of Scrapper, when he firsts meets Link, he explicitly doesn’t want to help Link because, and I quote “Serving children is very low in my task priority.” Then Fi appears, blah blah blah, you can’t carry the windmill propeller in your pouch, right? Then Scrapper says “Who are you!?” And does what I can only describe as his version of an AWOOGA (what being “zrrt-FWOOOSH”, paraphrased) and continues, “Your name is…Fi? Should I call you Mistress Fi? Are you looking for something Mistress Fi? …I…understand. At your request, I will carry anything, regardless of weight or destination…”

So there you go, serving children is very low in his priority, Hylia was around at the same time the LD units were active, so Hylia would’ve known about the Scrapper units priorities, (assuming they all have the same priority list) so why would she make a child? Just why? And in the same vein, why would Hylia make her servant sword-spirit a child in the first place, that doesn’t make any sense 😭

Looping back around to where this all started, what does “looks 13 or 14” even specifically mean? She looks that age, not she is that age. And I’m not going to go Lolicon topic with this, I’m not here to say “she’s like 1,000 years old! So of course she isn’t a child!” I’m here to say, lots of people look older, or younger than they actually are. She’s almost the same height as Link, so if she were meant to be around his age, she’d probably be around 16, and if she’s 16, and Ghirahim is 17 according to his concept art, where did your argument go?

Speaking realistically, Hylia probably designed her to look young and ‘cute’ so she wouldn’t scare Link. Let’s be real, her personality is intimidating, and she was going to be projecting herself into his dreams, so if she had a intimidating appearance (like some of her old concepts), Link would probably be afraid of her.

That’s all. I could go deeper into some of these points, and add on other things, but I think some stuff is self-explanatory.

Now, even if you want to discredit everything I just said, Ghirahim and Fi are both adults in all of my work. Unless explicitly stated or shown otherwise.

I draw and write them how I envision them in my head. In Skyward Sword, I have always read both of them as adults. I have not aged-up Fi for this ship, that’s fucking weird. They are both adults.

[heartscrypt]

Hii! I have a question about your thoughts on jamiazu.

Do you think that Azul would ever be able to confess any romantic feelings for Jamil? If so, how? And if not, would they be able to get together in any other way?

Sorry if this is a weird question, just curious.

thanks for your question! it is SO not weird at all i really enjoy stuff like this. actually i am going to go on a huge ramble that goes on a little tangent so like. LONG POST AHEAD!!!! be warned!!!!!

anyways. azul is always confessing his romantic feelings for jamil whether he knows it or not. in every interaction. because he's so damn obvious. hope this helps LOL

in all seriousness though. i really like to think that azul is kind of cursed to be a hopeless romantic despite it going against all of his pragmatic sense. i mean. he's a child of divorce who hates leaving things up to chance and he believes in getting something back whenever he gives something away. being head over heels with someone goes against his whole nature, so i think it's definitely a new thing for him. he won't recognize that his feelings are romantic right away because he'll be too busy trying to justify to himself why he's investing so much time and energy into a guy that Clearly wants nothing to do with him and won't give him the time of day. its business, guys, i swear.... stonks.....

i think once he does come to terms with it though. it starts leaking through in Every Interaction he has w/jamil. in every encounter, azul basically ends up saying I Love You without actually ever speaking it out loud. whether it's through his actions (like getting jamil gifts / offering to help out without any genuine expectation of repayment) or or his words (like implying things about them being good together / complimenting jamil excessively). things he did before he realized, but they just have so much more Weight to them now that he Knows he likes the other in a very Non-Platonic-Business-Partners way. he doesn't intend for it to have that emotional weight but its fucking impossible for him to hide and he does NOT know what to do with himself.

he keeps pushing forward regardless because some part of him hopes that his feelings will reach jamil but he also does it with the expectation that jamil will push back like he always has and that's completely fine by him because never actually directly admitting that these feelings are romantic means that the rejections also stay platonic and that is. Way easier to bounce back from. because god forbid jamil sees at who he is behind all the walls he's put up to protect his most vulnerable and emotional self and ends up hating the real azul too.

tl;dr: i don't think azul would go out of his way to make a real, honest confession of his feelings. but he's so obvious it actually hurts to watch

---

ok so. as for jamiazu get-together:

maybe im like super biased b/c im a sucker for narratives that involve jamil learning to shake his passivity and going ahead and Taking what he wants. but i always think that any scenario where jamiazu gets together has to be initiated by jamil somehow. azul can make the first move and several moves after that but jamil has to be the one to make the Final move if that makes sense.

i don't have like. one set get-together scenario but i have a couple that i like to rotate in my head sometimes. most of them involve azul being a failgirl and getting caught off guard because i think it's funny and jamil also thinks it's funny. here are two for your viewing pleasure:

azul makes a pass at jamil that is romantic-coded but could be interpreted as platonic. jamil seizes the opportunity to turn it Explicitly into a romantic thing and fluster azul to no end about it.

azul: there's a new tasting menu at the mostro lounge if you'd like to come with me and try, i'd love to see what your discerning palette makes of it ^__^!

jamil, very casually: yeah sure. why not. i'll go on a date with you

azul, who did NOT expect a yes so his head is about to explode in t-minus 5 seconds: oh, uh. that's .fantastic, actually— wait. ....DATE?!?!?;!?

jamil corners azul and admits romantic feelings first. bonus points if it's a situation where any romantic confession would be incredibly out of the blue. and the way that jamil says it is like dropping a bomb on azul

like in potions lab. azul's concentrating very hard on pouring an exact amount of a substance. jamils watching him and at some point out of nowhere he breaks the silence in between them by going "i think i like you. in the romantic sense". azul's concentration snaps immediately and he fumbles the beaker into the cauldron out of sheer WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING. it explodes in both of their faces. they both have no chance to address what jamil said because crewel is chewing them out for the next 15 minutes about lab safety. during the entire 15 minutes azul looks like he's been hit over the head with several bricks. Repeatedly. jamil's smirking the whole time though he dgaf. takes pleasure in flustering azul

anyways. im insane about these guys ♥️ if you stuck around and read the entire post im really sorry for writing so much i just have a lot of thoughts