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moonbaetarot · 9 hours

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Pick a pile

Positive and negative traits of your future spouse

1. 2. 3.

Pile 1

Positive

first I feel like your future spouse is positive in general they may have had some hardship in their life or growing up but they never let this get to them they learned from it and kept moving. This person is very loving they have a lot of love for themselves but also for you and their loved ones. Your future spouse knows how to love because of things they went through this person treats people how they wish they were treated. They are very successful especially money wise. They are very good at planning I feel like their future is something they think about a lot. They are empathetic and Loyal. They cherish and are very grateful for what they have. They are very smart aswell they may have a really high education. This is giving me Matilda vibes she was such a smart kid but she wasn’t always loved at home. I feel like nothing can bring this person down they are always on their “high hopes”.

Negative

Your future spouse Dosent like being committed to things they may get bored really fast. This person dosent like when they don’t have control over situations. They hate physical change they may not like to move homes a lot or move around a lot. This person may be very blind to the truth they don’t do much research or care what could go wrong only what could go right there a bit naive. I do see the person having problems due to their childhood or the way they were raised. This person very much avoids the problems in their life like the problem could be right infront of them and their looking the other way. They carry to many burdens, stress or work on their shoulders this person may be high up in their career so it always falls on them and it’s just to much for them to deal with it may even cause sleepless nights or health issues. They may not know the balance between work and play But Their work doesn’t go unseen but what it unseen is what it’s doing to them.

Thank you for reading loves! 🤍

Pile 2

Positive

Your future spouse stands up for what’s right there not just going to let someone be rude for no reason or talk about them they are not going to let anyone disrespect you. They know how to enjoy themselves they know how to take care of others aswell. This person is very friendly and nice they may have a lot of close and personal friendships. They are a very mutual person they have a “everything happens for a reason mindset” but they also learn from the experience. Your future spouse is a huge family person family means a lot to them the family they came from the family that they are going to have they just really love and appreciate the home you Two will have together. You are this person’s fairy tail ending. This person knows how to forgive they give people a second chance to change there actions they see the good in people. This person may comes from a really good family and set of parents.

Negative

I feel like this person try’s to help out more then they can give they may give someone 20 dollars just to prove that they can help others out even tho they only had 20 dollars left themselves. They try to give blessings to others but they are not pure or for the right reasons. They care a lot about what other think about them they want people to see them in a high value or light. I feel like this person takes a lot of wrong turns in life like they think that it will help them but it ends up hurting them in the end. This person has to many options and choices in there life it makes them confused and they mess up whatever they are doing. They may be very indecisive and let other people influence them. They went through something some kind of journey that changed them in a negative way.

Thank you for reading loves! 🤍

Pile 3

Positive

This person is an overly positive person I feel Iike they attract a lot of good things just because they are a very happy upbeat person. they have a lot of new fun things always coming to them they may be a very good at manifestation wether they know it or not. They are very creative and have lots of good ideas they may even be a really good cook or baker. This person whether they are male or female gives loving mother vibes a family persons. I do see you having kids and family with this person. Theirs something very pure about this person aswell they are very much a lover boy/girl they have always wanted a true loving relationship. This person achieves whatever they want they daydream about it and the next day they have it. They have very good useful skills aswell. They are very successful to they don’t just get what they want they earned it aswell.

Negative

They get bored very easily there are always out and in they can’t stay still or committed a lot. They also move around to fast they start a lot of things and never finish them or like starts off very strong and it Burns them out quickly. I feel like some things they do backfires or Dosent do them justice the way they thought it would. They like to get back at people who have done them ill they don’t really believe in karma they want to do it themselves. This person has to sides to them they may have been a bad person in there past but they are no longer this way or they appear one way but act another. This person may feel the need to always defend themselves or have a guard up. I feel like this person loves to be peaceful and have harmony but people come across them with ill intentions a lot so they feel the need to act on it.

Thank you for reading loves! 🤍

#pick a card #pick a photo #pick a picture #pick a pile #pick an image #tarot cards #tarot deck #tarot reading #tarotblr #tarotcommunity #pick a reading #pick a deck #pick a crystal #free tarot #daily tarot #tarot

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violetasteracademic · 2 days

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The Glass Coffin: HOFAS x Elriel

Many HOFAS spoilers ahead!! This is an INTENSIVE post on all the Elriel coding in HOFAS, so strap in! This is largely a theory post and my personal interpretations, so take it or leave it! It's all in good fun.

Let's start with The Glass Coffin. When it comes to the analysis of the songs Bryce played for Azriel and Nesta in the much beloved and much dissected bonus chapter, I have seen a lot of conversation around Stone Mother and significantly less (if any?) around The Glass Coffin!

The Glass Coffin is played next after the Stone Mother. And it is a ballet.

What is the The Glass Coffin?

My friends, it is Sleeping Beauty.

Now we all know that many suspect Elriel to be a Sleeping Beauty retelling. And I'll be honest, I take a lot of the mythology or "retellings" with a grain of salt when it comes to SJM, because she doesn't do incredibly loyal retellings but takes bits and pieces of inspiration. I suppose it's up to you where you draw the line of a retelling, or free IP inspiration. But one thing to understand about IP is that Sarah J. Maas would have to get Disney's permission to call her work a retelling of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Much like Beauty and The Beast, she did not "retell" the Disney princess movie, but the original La Belle et la Bête by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve published in 1740. So with that little lesson in intellectual property, lets look at the story of The Glass Coffin, because it is actually quite interesting:

A magician forces a proposal on a Maiden using his magic. The Maiden is repulsed by the use of magic in the proposal and rejects him. The Magician turns her brother into a stag, traps her in the glass coffin, and enchants the land around them.

There is a LOT to unpack here. I do not think Lucien is "The Magician" in this story. Instead, I think the Cauldron is, and I do think that the use of magic to force a proposal is a very close parallel to what Azriel discovered in HOFAS: That the Cauldron had been corrupted by the Asteri to serve their will. If you have read all of the books in the multiverse, you know that there is no other SJM universe where mating bond rejections happen. There is no other universe in which there are unhappily mated pairs forced together because the function of the mating bond, at a base level, is simply to produce the most powerful offspring. Mates in other worlds are true soulmates, and they fall in love before discovering they are mates.

In HOFAS, Azriel listened to a song from The Glass Coffin. He also listened to the story of Silene, and learned that the Cauldron was corrupted by the Asteri. It is not a theory or interpretation that the Asteri curate powerful bloodlines to ensure they have the strongest food from the souls that they eat. It is a fact. So it is not a jump to interpret that the Cauldron's corruption by the Asteri, and mates that are not a good fit on a soul level but forced together to produce powerful offspring, are one and the same. At this time, both Azriel and Elain have discussed feelings of repulsion or discomfort regarding E/ucien's bond. There are also negative consequences to a female rejecting the bond, as there were for the Maiden in The Glass Coffin. Rejecting a bond can lead to madness on the males end in Prythian because he believes he is entitled to her, just as the Maiden rejecting the Magician's proposal led to him trapping her in glass and enchanting the lands so no one else could have her.

This is already quite interesting, but it gets even more powerful as you continue to breakdown the Elain coding in HOFAS.

This line basically started a war:

"I can hear your heart beating through the stone." She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer, "Can you hear mine?" (ACOWAR, chpt. 24)

Now many people have used this to claim she is Lucien's mate, because she can hear his heartbeat. Though only a few pages earlier, we had this moment:

Elain can hear Feyre's heartbeat. She says if she listens carefully, she can hear hers too. At the time, we all assumed she was talking about Nesta. And yet we've discovered that Vesperus, an Asteri, (or Valg, depending on which theory you vibe with) was also a beating heart under the stone.

Inside a glass coffin.

More than that, we have this passage:

We now know that the Prison was once the Dusk Court, and just like UTM, The Hewn City, and Ramiel, it is encapsulated in stone beneath the mountain. Within the stone of the Prison lies the long buried heart of the Dusk Court. When you look back at Elain's line to Lucien, and see that she is staring out at the city, looking for answers at the heart she can hear beating beneath the stone, and not Lucien, this all starts to click together in a brilliant way. And the imagery, the island having a soul nurtured and blossoming under her care, has Elain written all over it.

Now, the reason I bring up the Hewn City here is because I believe there is a reason for Elain's lifelessness and distress in the Hewn City that has nothing to do with her wearing the color black.

In HOFAS, we discover a few important things about Earth Fae. Lidia discovers in her time on Team Archives what the Earth Fae did, and what their powers were used for:

Earth Fae were used on Midgard to discover ley lines of power to create powerful strongholds. One important thing I have noticed is that all Fae on Midgard are said to come from either Erilea or Prythian (at least that is all that is mentioned) and yet there is no indicator of where the Earth Fae come from. it is my personal belief the Earth Fae are from Prythian. Yet the entire Dusk Court disappeared, and their story continued on Midgard. It is my belief that Elain is not only a Seer, but that she has also been gifted with the Earth powers that have since been lost on Prythian, priming her to both restore Earth powers on Prythian as well as the Dusk Court.

What does this have to do with the Hewn City?

Earth Fae experience distress when they are in places where the magic is dead or warped, and they are the only ones that can feel it:

Bryce mentions she forgets the Earth Fae even have magic, because what they can do is often unseen.

If Elain is in possession of the lost Earth power, she would have been able to feel her power literally shriveling up and dying anywhere that has been warped by that magic.

And then of course we have the fact that the cave on Prythian is an exact match to the Cave of Princes on Avallen. We end HOFAS with all the weapons in the possession of the IC, the knowledge that there are cache's of magic hidden in the lands, and that there are places where the magic has been twisted and must be freed, one being the Prison/Dusk Court.

This was the imagery used once the magic was freed on Avallen, and it took its true, lush, blossoming form:

If what is true on Avallen will also be true once the Dusk Court is freed on Prythian, answer this question honestly: When you read this imagery- blooming vines and roses, beautiful and surreal, the land seeming to know her, small blooming flowers nestling around her body and in her hair- who do you think of? Who could this possibly be alluding to back in Prythian?

Elain's coding was all over HOFAS, and Azriel's "what if the Cauldron was wrong storyline" continued. These statements are true, even if none of my theories about her being an Earth Fae are right, though I know I'm not the only one who believes that is where we are headed!

The fact that The Glass Coffin is Sleeping Beauty, and that Azriel listened to it, may not be a powerful statement on its own (though I think it is). But the fact that the Cauldron corruption was revealed, and The Glass Coffin is a story of a woman who was entrapped due to her rejecting a proposal forced by magic, and Sarah used the Glass Coffin again with Vesperus, potentially tying her back to the heartbeat Elain can hear if she listens closely, it's all just too much to ignore.

I was personally overwhelmed by all of the Elain and Azriel nods in HOFAS. I think they get buried under all of the criticism in the book. I am so excited to see where everything goes, and I hope you had fun going down this rabbit hole with me!

#elriel #pro elriel #elriel endgame #elriel theories #elain x azriel

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dododrawsstuff · 2 days

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Ikevil OC Atlas Fowler

Edit!!!!: the profile template was made by @natimiles

“The star that burns twice as bright, burn half as long” ~ Estella about him

“Where does your loyalty lay, little Robin?”

I'm on a trip with my family this week, so I have plenty of time to work on my OCs and catch up to the expression requests remaining

I had a lot of fun desiging him and his curse (that I took inspiration from filibusterfrog's "Umbralysis") and ended up making a ref sheet of sorts, but I'll still draw his back and some other expressions, other than his little shit smile. I still feel like I can improve him a lot, but I'm impatient and wanted to share him with you.

More about him under the cut! And as always, I'll keep tweking this post as I think of stuff to add or change. Hope you like him!

OC taglist: @olivermorningstar @keithsandwich @scummy-writes @aquagirl1978 @sh0jun @mxrmaid-poet @violettduchess @floydsteeth @lorei-writes @ikeprinces-stuff @flimflam707 (let me know if you want to be added or removed from the taglist)

I'm also tagging some people that showed interest in him on my other post, let me know if you don't want to be tagged and I'll remove you @errethebunny @bicayaya @natimiles @venulus @rou-luxe

Name: Atlas Fowler

Age: 27

Birthday: Nov 22

Height: 181 cm

Affiliation: The Circus

Hobbies: Collecting information, baking, pissing off people he doesn't like

Skills: Singing, styling hair

Likes: Chocolate chip cookies, freedom

Dislikes: Fish

Resents: Disloyalty

Weapon: Daggers

Personality: Atlas is a very charming and charismatic man, always displaying a pleasant smile, he is a natural entertainer. He is always in a good mood and is very positive, almost as if he doesn't even experience bad emotions…?

Beneath that facade he is arrogant and thinks he is untouchable, and believes his ability is a blessing, rather than a curse. The thing most valuable to him is loyalty, he despises betrayals the most.

He is smart and cunning, and is not afraid to use his ability to get information for his own benefit, though he mainly uses it on people who have been unfaithful.

Curse: Peter Pan

It makes so that Atlas’ shadow can move independently from him. He can know what his shadow experienced while apart from him, allowing him to be “at two places at the same time”, he has full control of the shadow and prefers to use his powers at night, as to not rise suspicion from others.

Atlas also discovered a peculiar characteristic of his ability, he can divide his emotions between him and his shadow, it acting almost as a storage for him. The curse manifested when he was still an infant, so he had some time to figure it out on his own.

One thing Atlas doesn't know is the fate of those afflicted by the Peter Pan’s curse, every single one of them uses their shadow as a way to get rid of "troublesome" or "useless emotions", but as they keep pouring those negative feelings, the shadow begins to gain sentience. In the end it usually kills its owner and itself in the process.

Backstory: When he was little his parents got freaked out by seeing him playing with his shadow, they thought he was cursed, or possessed but nothing they did cured him. What broke the camel's back for them was when Atlas told them the culprit of a series of murders in the neighborhood and days later the police caught them, when his parents asked how he knew, he explained that his shadow had seen it and told him.

Not too long after that they tried to get rid of him, but the church nor the orphanage wanted to accept him, since his complicated background preceded him. Until they found an itinerary circus, they lied and abandoned him there. Most of the crew were kind and welcoming to him, especially Estella, the magician, she became a mother figure for him and the reason he decided to follow her steps and become a magician.

Random headcanons:

He learned to style hair from Estella, she says that presentation is everything for a magician

After every presentation, the circus crew gets together to bake chocolate chip cookies

#dodo ocs #oc atlas fowler #my art #ikemen series #cybird #cybird ikemen #artists on tumblr #ikemen villains #ikevil #ikemen villains oc #ikevil oc #my beloved #I made him >:)

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fumifooms · 2 days

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Namalin

Namari x Falin

Easy short rarepair spotlight post for prosperity~ This one I didn’t think of on my own for once, I don’t know if it’s just I forgot the decided-on ship name or what but I remember seeing really nice art and a couple posts about it that I can’t find again 💔 Namalin warrior you are out there and not forgotten ty for making me see the light

I like that Namari’s critical of Falin! I have a whole character analysis on Falin if you’re interested, but it’s generally well noticed that people around Falin idealize her a lot. Laios, Marcille and Toshiro all put her on a pedestral of ultimate goodness in the world, a saintess if nothing short of perfection. Sounds like Chilchuck felt sort of creeped out by her vibes, uncomfortable because he couldn’t read her, so unlike Namari it seems he preferred steering clear of her rather than debate opposed ideologies like he usually does. Makes sense if unlike Namari his issue is with her cryptic aura rather than the stances she does show. "… The dungeon is no place for soft hearts" my ultimate namalin scene <333 It’s fun because while this scene is there to show us a lot of things, mostly to establish Falin’s characters better as it’s the first flashback of her we get, the conflict in it is more than anything else Falin vs Namari in how they contrast and clash and approach situations differently. Namari wants security in swift effective violence and thinks Falin too soft for her own good when she prefers a pacifist approach and promotes compassion even for the "undeserving" in Namari’s eyes. Falin steps between the battle ready Namari and the ghost, fearless. Falin effortlessly gently exorcises the ghost without one step back, quickly. Falin proves someone wrong. Falin proves someone wrong.

I love thinking of Namari being surprised when she learns new aspects of Falin. I like Falin having the power to shape people’s views on her. With Falin ships the most fun part for me is usually that point where Falin/the relationship becomes a clean slate: the person realizes they haven’t been seeing all of her, realizes there’s more of her they hadn’t noticed or that she hadn’t shown, that there’s change, a shift in the views on each other and the dynamic a bit.

Namari often feels like an external view looking in to me… I need to make a proper analysis on her but like. I made a lamari post once (analytic more than personally invested rip sorry) and I go with the same Namari take here, I think she’s someone who tends to have an outsider view on people and relationships if that makes sense, she’s a coworker before anything else and she’s content staying at a distance, she’s not objective per se but she tries to keep feelings out of her choices and how she sees people (her lil arc on not staying to save Falin despite the existing camaderie but in the end asking to work for the Flokes more because she wants to stay with them). She’s serious no nonsense on the job but friendly off the job and likes having casual friends, but she’s not… She doesn’t really feel connected to the group. She’s so focused on doing her job, even if she does get impulsive and passionate and too assertive for her bosses’ tastes, so focused on working her reputation and life from the ground up that that professionalism and attitude limits her social life. It doesn’t help that her reputation makes her widely judged, so she probably enters social spaces on the derensive. The closest person she was to pre-canon as far as we knew was Chilchuck and even they have a very "coworker I get along with" dynamic more than friends, with a similar sense of boundaries, humor and world view. Also like canon says a few time, the party didn’t really try to get to know each other well pre-canon, didn’t hang out after work often no one knew where Marcille was from and no one thought that was weird (also how no one had the instinct to ask about Senshi’s past) etc, the notable exception is we’re shown Namari and Chilchuck hitting taverns together and having a grand time. Everyone’s fine with things as they are, they get along decent even if not everyone considers each other friends exactly. Where I’m getting at is that to me, it feels like she tries keeping emotional distance. Emotional distance from people in general being something which in my interpretation of Falin is also present, which would make it a theme and common thread interesting to explore imo. But yes like, Namari looking at Falin, and how everyone treats her, and being more skeptical, seeing her for what she is a little more, maybe even uncharitable. "Why is everyone treating her like she’s all that? She’s gentle sure but seems like a doormat to me" and then one day she comes running up with her mace ready to cave in someone’s face to protect Laios. So yeah… Keeping her distance but one day Falin offering her some gentleness that feels very too personal for someone who’s not used to being genuine and simply showing that they care… Them talking a bit which leaves her stumped and mindblown in a quiet way when Falin defies her expectations. Namari growing on Falin when she stays and decides to open herself up more, or when Falin ends up reading her really well like she’s shown to do with her parents and Marcille’s worries. She’s very attuned to worrying and why and when different people do it especially when it comes to when they worry for others, perhaps because she does a lot of that too, so I think she’d nail down how Namari does care for the rest of the party and it’d make Namari feel seen both in a warm validating way and in a scared naked way.

We see in the tentacles chapter that she’s someone’s who’s very protective and looks out for her peers in a tough love way. She’s overbearing but it’s because she wants everyone to have the best chances. I like that she’s very confrontational and somewhat pushy and rude, but it’s tough love, it’s protective care: asserting herself to better protect and defend. The opposite of Falin’s type of care, quiet and self-sacrificial devotion. They’re barbarian x healer but they’re also bodyguard x bodyguard in their attitude and role. … What I want for them is slow burn slice of life of being coworkers and slowly getting to know each other better, pretty fluffy, but god, put this way they’d have the potential to be such a hot layered mess of insanely mutually devoted codependence… Falin taking a hit for Namari and Namari being scarred by it forever, lots of arguments about it, my god.

I like that she’s the fighter to Falin’s healer. I looove thinking of scenes of Falin healing Namari, necessitating touch and like, a moment of slowing down and sitting together in silence, too intimate, the perfect opportunity to connect that neither truly want to take until one day they do. I love how onesided I imagine the relationship would be at first. Again, as per my interpretation of Falin, I think Namari would have all these little observations and opinions on Falin meanwhile Falin really doesn’t think of Namari much at first. So Namari thinks a lot about Falin and thinks she’s got her pinned down but hasn’t (not that she’s fully wrong, she’d have credit and confront Falin on some of her flaws like the doormat thing), while Falin is very passive about Namari and doesn’t think deeply about her or anything but she read Namari’s insecurities and logic well. Not unlike how Laios was the one who seemed to understand Namari’s way of care the best in the party in the tentacles episode, and how he was very understanding of her choice and reasons. In Falin’s case it’s more like, the objectivity of passivity… She cares about Namari less than Laios who generally seeks to form bonds, so her lack of investment allows her a neutral perspective. In that way another parallel with Namari that I’m drawing, except Namari lets feelings from her opinions seeps in more… Onesided beef my beloved. I’m going insane save me this post was a mistake. I think Falin takes the crumbs of friendship and love where she can without expecting or asking for anything more than what’s offered, and I think her relationship with Namari (or anyone really) would start out the way it did with Marcille: the other takes the initiative and they end up spending time together, Falin is friendly but unattached until the bond gets gradually and wordlessly strenghtened through regularly spending moments together. So! I think Namari would need to take a lot of the first steps, which since again she’s confrontational & argumentative and doesn’t hold herself back on that front that could spark a lot of conversations I think. Ooor since Falin cares about Namari less than Laios and Marcille she allows herself to be bolder herself lol. Or also circumstances force them to spend time together like dungeon party getting separated shenanigans.

I think their personalities match cutely, I think falin would try to protect namari like she does others but also Namari simply doesn’t need protection, just support. And I think they’re complementary in that way that Namari’s friendly but also won’t sugarcoat things, and I think if she takes an interest in Falin it could go from there and she could develop some understanding of her and idk like an intrigued crush….

Namari wants stability & security & to, like, not be judged and rejected and exiled lol, to find her nest her pack the place where she feels good and wanted in. I think having a fitting partner would help in that (similarly to how the found family with the Flokes seemed to. Oh another parallel, Falin’s top priority is protecting Laios her brother and what Namari are a family figure) and I think Falin would fulfill that cozy protection and that warm ‘being seen and not judged’ feeling. But also Namari would run up to her and yell about her trying to sacrifice herself ever.

Another fun thread to explore: post-canon guilt for not having gone to save her. Sure, they weren’t close, but they had some nice memories, didn’t they? Namari cares, and it stings despite herself when it feels like people think she doesn’t. Oh it wasn’t a lost cause after all, oh it’d have worked out, oh I could have stayed loyal and it wouldn’t have compromised myself in the end. Wanting to apologize to Falin, or just ahnging out with her and sharing a moment after she wakes up. And tangent but that’s interesting to think about… Narratively, I think the purpose of Namari and Toshiro in the story, beyond strenghtening the theme of "seek to understand what is different from you and promote unity despite them" and fleshing the cast and worldbuilding, is Toshiro’s purpose was being a foil & tool in Laios’ arc (trouble connecting with people) while Namari’s was being and a foil & tool in Marcille’s arc (standing up for ideals without being out of touch with harsh realities and needs). They are the conflict that push our protagonists to grow— and they explore different ways of dealing with a situation or topic, different ways of growing into themselves on that end: Laios needing to listen to others more and Toshiro needing to focus on voicing himself more to be able to connect, Marcille needing to learn ideals sometimes cost too much and Namari needing to internalize that ideals are sometimes worth risks (not only to be able to find a reasonable but fulfilling life balance, but also to get in touch with their compassion: Namari restricts her own too much and Marcille is too harsh on people she deems to be breaking values, like Namari not risking her life and career for a friend with no promise of success, or even like how Namari is harsh on Falin’s way of doing things : too gentle, too soft, too idealistic) (similarly to Chilchuck’s arc with Marcille too, and he also plays a hand in advancing that arc in the Namari chapters). We are getting far from namalin sorry ummm preview for future analyses like Toshiro’s contrasting approach to grief and accepting loss.

More post-canon namalin! Thinking about a timeline where… Namari is fond of Falin finding herself and going off to do her thing. "Finally!" she thinks. If she’s still for hire, maybe Falin would want her to come along, either as guide or bodyguard <3, she knows Namari has a lot of good avice on a lot of things to give, plus they’ve worked together before. She hires Namari and they travel for a bit. Travel would do Namari good too I think, even if her end goal is to settle and I think Falin’s would be too eventually. Seeing sights that light her wonder for the world and going places where people don’t know her story, don’t recognize her face or her name. Them, feeling free. Finding a companionship that feels uplifting instead of stifling or charged. Namari having been too in her head about reputation and social games and money that they hit the roads and spend time in nature and it’s like, woah. I’ve been living in a small world with made up rules.

Ahh yes romance, Namari and Falin kissing after 3 years of not really knowing each other despite seeing each other every day then 2 months of wanting to spend more and more time together until they’re an inseparable duo! Workwives. I want them to stand next to each other during campire time and Namari cracks little jokes and Namari laughs. I want Namari to gift Falin a bug caught in amber and for it to be their wedding/promised to each other thing.

TLDR

Rowdy but levelheaded barbarian x gentle healer that will also cave your face in with a mace I like it…… They’re an interesting duo of mixed stuff. Protection being your purpose and what you’re worth for, literally being a meat shield (Laios, Tansu), finding your individuality recognized and validated through a growing bond with the other. Sticking around as a love language. Also bug immortalized in amber and it being beautiful.

Nevermind this wasn’t short. Um! Anyways.

#Dunmeshi rarepairs #Namalin #Namari x falin #Falin x namari #Spoilers #Dungeon meshi manga spoilers #Bc of a chapter cover + post-canon talk #Namari #falin touden #Dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #Gotta make a namari analysis eventually. Maybe. One day. Tough skinned girl bc she’s been burned and reputation is v important #who cares but caring doesn’t put food on the plate. Who’s an outcast and foreigner and doesn’t have a home to go back to #It’s the hustle life. Idk what it is about the Floke that made her want to stay but that’s why i wanna look at the tansu party eventually #Namarlin ot3 is so good as well… esp if it focuses on namari #Namari is poly i know it in my heart #Also YES I know there’s 1 namarlin/namalin fic out there i haven’t read it. Yes i will. I just haven’t been reading much lately #Oh on that note -types up new post-#Analysis #character analysis #relationship analysis #meta #Holding my head #Complementary ships with conflict and character arcs i love you #Watch fumi’s brain melt live #Fumi rambles #I need to go lay face down on the floor now #This sure is what I was supposed to take away from the canon text!#TAKE IT OFF MY HANDSSS TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME I NEED TO ACTUALLY GO DO CHORES #Namari betting Falin would reject Shuro but going “no comment -looks away-” when asked why…

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burningfudge · 2 days

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Ultimates (2024) #1

OHMYGODDD Ultimates #1 was fantastic! I have so many thoughts that I had to turn it into a post lol.

Poor Steve 😂 I'm very interested to see Steve's journey, though, because he's now the captain of a country that doesn't exist. How is he going to navigate that? I'm also looking forward to Steve and Tony's dynamic in this universe because Tony's a kid, which changes things a lot. He's a kid with the burden of the world on his shoulders, trying to undo everything that the Maker did, and Steve knows that as well. Plus, if they know about all the events on Earth-616, they also know about Civil War. I hope it's brought into the conversation soon.

NOOO IS CAROL DEAD?? MY GIRL This is brutal as a Captain Marvel and Hawkeye fan. Spider-Man is thriving for now (surprising, I know), but Carol is probably dead, and Clint has given up being Hawkeye. But even Spider-Man was near rejection as Peter was thinking about giving up until his daughter convinced him to be Spider-Man. The Maker really fucked up this universe, huh. I'd love for a certain archer to find the uniform and take up the Hawkeye mantle and then Clint to get inspired by Kate in this universe. I think it'd be a fun twist, especially since Tony also mentioned that they can find near-perfect substitutes. He eventually realized his mistake later on the issue, but I really do think Kate could have a big role to play.

Hehe, a fun little wink to Tony eventually becoming Kang the Conquerer.

This version of Tony is so interesting to me because he’s a kid, and making him the center of all this works very well because of it, especially his relationships with Reed and Steve. Reed is more pragmatic and cold, while Steve is idealistic, and seeing both of them influence Tony is fantastic. Tony himself is more idealistic than his 616 version because he’s much younger. Steve grounds the two and makes Tony and Reed understand that whatever they're doing isn't an experiment but a revolution.

While I love all the other characters, the standout in this issue for me was Hank Pym, which I didn't expect. He knows what kind of person he turned to be on Earth-616 and he doesn't want to turn out that way. I think that's a very compelling story arc.

Ahh, I love this. What Steve says is right; Hank can choose to be different. It's also interesting if we compare Peter and Hank because, in Ultimate Spider-Man, we're told that Peter always felt that something was missing from his life, and then he learned the truth about what the Maker did and became Spider-Man, which fulfilled his life. On the other hand, Hank was happy running an extermination business with his wife. (How Janet went from rich heiress to this is also something I'm wondering). Hank was happy, but now he's being told he was supposed to become Ant-Man, create Ultron, and hit his wife, whom he loves more than anything. I felt bad for him, honestly.

616 Tony should say this to his father, too lol. But this part is probably my favorite part of the issue because of the insight it gives us into Tony's mind, who is the center of the new Ultimate universe. As I've mentioned many times, Tony is a teenager in a world run by fascists, a world that his father was complicit in making. He's angry at Howard, but he also loves him. I think an argument could be made about Tony representing today's generation that's also dealing with the effects of (poor) decisions made by our parents and grandparents, and feeling the anger from it. "It's quite a mess you made, Dad. And now we have to clean it up. What choice do we have?" "If there's any hope of fixing things...it won't be enough to be as good as the heroes of that simpler world. We'll have to be better. I don't know what that looks like yet. But we're going to figure it out." "You were the smartest man in the world. You should've known better. And that is failure.”

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vikintor · 3 days

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Calling all Gaythyanki! How participate:

[☺ CONTEXT ☺]

What is this about ?

"Githmap" is a small one-map Githyanki fan-project being made using Doom2. I'm working on it as a way to learn Doom mapping while using a theme I'm passionate about.

You play as Jez'rathki, a Githyanki cleric who woke on a stronghold after a near-death experience. You should talk to other Githyanki and explore the place.

who is working on the map ?

I'm Vikintor (made the games Teocida, Estigma and Tamashii), I'm mostly working with surreal and psychedelic horror oriented games, but the Githmap is a small fan project I'm making in my free time as I'm learning GZDoom and because I only got interested in D&D thanks to the Githyanki.

What you're looking for?

I'm looking for Githyanki/Githzerai fans out there and asking if you want to add your Githyanki OC character as a guest appearance. They will be an static Doom NPC the player can only talk to.

They aren't many rules about how participate besides one point: You Githyanki/Githzerai must have Gith noses and ears (Im adding a few exceptions for other races appearances, but I'm not adding Githyanki with human noses, I talked about why on a previous post.)

Where my OC character will be?

Your character will be placed anywhere in the stronghold, This stronghold is a hidden place that serves as a sanctuary for the Githyanki and Githzerai alike. Most of the Giths you will find here are considered traitors, some just need a place to plot political assassinations (including the Queen's assassination), and others are refugees who escaped from Tu'narath.

This is how your OC will look in the game:

[☺ PARTICIPATION☺]

First step [graphics] :

I need 5 frames of your Githyanki character in each direction as the images below:

The sprites will lose details, as I'm converting it to doom. I recommend sending me the 5 sprites as a transparent PNG with 540x540 resolution (like the images above, you can copy them as base).

As a console player I get my character directions by printing this screen and cutting the images on PC.

[ If your Gith OC graphics were not made in BG3 or you do not have Baldur's Gate 3 don't worry, If you have all the sprites as drawings (following the size recommendation), we can try adding them, yep, it may be weird seeing a lot of pre-rendered 3d characters and some made by drawings, but as long there are more gith we're happy, right?]

Don't know how to prepare these sprites? I made a short guide on this link HERE:

Second step [dialogue] :

Now the fun part.

Jez'rathki is an old Githyanki cleric who will be asking some questions to your Githyanki OC / TAV (she likes to meet more of her kin, but sometimes she's way too curious). Your character can answer Jez'rathki the way you want, they can be friendly, evasive, rude or just refusing to answer some of the questions, maybe you decide that Jez'rathki doesn't deserve to be trusted, so be free to give your character their voice.

Below are the questions, you don't need to answer every question if you don't need. If a question has a blank response I will just add the others questions/answers instead. Just remember that these questions must be answered by your Character in first person.

QUESTIONS:

— Greeting message

The first one is not even a question, just write your character's greeting message, or better, how they answer by being called by Jez'rathki to start a conversation.

— Identify yourself.

Make your OC introduce themself, they can answer their name/nickname, their occupation, class/ranking, and a bit of their backstory.

— Tell me about your Creche.

(you can change it to Tell me about your home if needed)

Where your OC was raised and how they feel about their home

— I need to know how you fight.

Your Oc can explain how they fight, their class and tactics, example: here they can explain details of being a warlock, a gish, githwarrior, knight, mlar, Hr'a'cknir, etc. Or maybe they don't fight at all.

— Can I ask a more personal question?

Write what your OC would say if Jez'rathki tried to get personal.

— What is your relationship with the divinity?

What your Gith thinks about the divinity. It can be their relationship with Vlaakith or another one of the deities or religion in general. Commonly, Githyanki don't like that topic, as they can be killed if they follow other deities.

— What do you usually do in your free time?

Let your OC Tell their hobbies or whatever they like to do in their free time.

— What is your life goal?

Make your OC explain their life goal, it can be their campaign objective, quest etc.

— How is your relationship with your allies?

How your OC treat their allies? the formal way? As a resource? As friends?

— Do you have someone special in your life?

Your character can talk about someone they consider as family, a friend, or a lover, just try to avoid canon BG3 character references if your character lore is BG3 based, as more Githyanki OC on the map can start telling similar stories that may contradict your character. If this is the case, you can avoid using the names of canonical characters and just generically mention their occupations. example: Lae'zel can become just a "Fierce Gith warrior" and Karlach a "Tiefling with an almost incurable illness".

— Say something you would never do, and why?

Maybe they would never betray a friend, or they would never give up something they achieved. Explaining why could go deeper into their motivations.

— What is a perfect day to you?

Let your OC describe how a perfect day would be. the routine, the weather, etc.

— How do you celebrate a victory?

Do your OC celebrate their victories? how? giving a party? Drinking a lot? Getting laid? Sleeping? Or they don't like celebrating? Maybe your OC has a recommendation for Jez'rathki, yeah, they can give her an idea of how to celebrate a victory.

— How do you deal with defeat and losses?

What your OC feels about losses, can be about losing literal and nonliteral fights. Maybe they have some wisdom to share on the subject, or maybe they don't. Perhaps some do not accept losing in any circumstance.

— How do you think you will be remembered after death?

Do they care about this? How do they feel about the idea of being worshiped as an icon after death or they're afraid of being forgotten? Remember, every answer should be in first person, it's the voice of your OC.

Third step [LETS GOOO] :

Feel free to ask me your questions, I will be fixing some typos in this post and changing some aspects as necessary.

I'm open to suggestions, lets have fun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copy everything below to a new Tumblr post with all the information needed. Change the descriptions by your OC Information, feel free to change the questions if needed:

If you want: You can also share this post and change the information needed (don't forget to add the 5 sprites).

Use the Hashtag #githmap #githmapoc to make it easy for me to find (you can add your hashtags as well)

Sorry if I can't add them fast, I'm making the map on my free time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[☺ YOUR GITH OC NAME HERE☺]

(you can add an photo/draw of you OC here to make the post more interesting for the viewers)

1. [CHARACTER INFO]

OC NAME: The name of you Gith OC as you want it to appear in the dialogue.

AUTHOR: Your artist name as it will appear in the game credits as the creator and writer of your OC. It can be your @, it will appear alongside your OC NAME in the game.

2. [DIALOGUE]

Greeting message:

[answer]

Identify yourself:

[answer]

Tell me about your Creche:

[answer]

I need to know how you fight:

[answer]

Can I ask a more personal question?

[answer]

What is your relationship with the divinity?

[answer]

What do you usually do in your free time?

[answer]

What is your life goal?

[answer]

How is your relationship with your allies?

[answer]

Do you have someone special in your life?

[answer]

Say something you would never do, and why?

[answer]

What is a perfect day to you?

[answer]

How do you celebrate a victory?

[answer]

How do you deal with defeat and losses?

[answer]

How do you think you will be remembered after death?

[answer]

3. [GRAPHICS]

Post your 5 (FIVE) full body OC sprites, each one facing a direction as shown in the original post, they will be used as the NPC graphics.

(recommended 540x540 transparent png)

4. [BONUS RESOURCES]

If you're ok with it, here you can post as many additional images of your Githyanki/Githzerai OC as you want, which can be portraits, drawings, or paintings, Maybe I will use some of them in the game, credited as the Author name you wrote above.

If you record voice lines in ogg format you can put a link here so it can play when the player interact with your character.

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gabessquishytum · 1 day

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Hey, Gabe. I’m so happy you're doing better and taking time for yourself.

I've had this thought percolating in the back of my brain for a little while, for Dream and Hob, and their darling wives, Calliope and Eleanor to have a lovely poly/qpr style thing happening, because, as much as I love all the romantic, sexy, and unhinged shenanigans on here, I would like to see something similar to my own situation floating about.

Dream and Hob have been attached at the hip since childhood, when Hob punched another kid for trying to kick them out of the sand pit. They love each other fiercely and have been through all the ups and downs of adolescence: the conflict of who they were as individuals, the struggle to stay together in a world that told them they were too close, exploring sexual identities, mapping out their dreams of the future, and last, but not least, figuring out how to share with a dating partner.

It's surprisingly difficult to find someone that doesn't assume you're cheating on them with your best friend when you're so close. If they trust sex isn't happening, they tend to get angry about the casual intimacy. Feeling blocked by or jealous of the already established bond.

At one point, Dream and Hob's friends told them they were so close they should try dating each other. So they did. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. The sex was fun and engaging. They learned a lot about themselves, explored kinks and the kink community. There wasn't another person's feelings they had to navigate, but beyond the lust there was no spark of romance, no passionate love, no mystery. There was comfort, devotion, and the soft, mellow love of their friendship.

They amicably broke up with a new, physical dimension to their friendship that only made dating harder in the end. Still, they persisted.

Eventually, Hob met a wonderful, dark-haired woman named Eleanor. She was fiery and beautiful, willing to barge into Dream and Hob's life and demand they make room for her. She was a raging river, filling in the ravines and creating estuaries where Dream and Hob had long ago learned they didn't meet. She was new life and new paths, and Hob fell hard and fast.

There’s a certain point, early on, in a relationship where you have to explain the complex dynamic between you and your best friend. It's the breaking point for many people. It's hard, to share, to be unintentionally excluded, to learn secrets from a third party, but the people that stand their ground and thrive are breathtaking.

Eleanor, when she is told, demands space. She does research, talks to people in similar situations, takes the time to suss out her own feelings, tries to feel out the edges of compromise and expectation she requires. In the end, she flows back into their lives with a willingness to try and an adventurous gleam in her eye.

She proposes a new dynamic between the three of them. She wishes to pursue a romantic relationship with Hob, but wants to learn how comfortable she can be with Dream in the bedroom.

Hob's quick to assure her that he and Dream don't have physical relations when dating.

Eleanor, brave woman that she is, tries to explain why she thinks that's part of the problem they have with dating. They're so entwined in each other's life that removing them from one area only causes more stress. “You're practically married already,” she snorts. “You just need to find people who can live with that. I’m willing to try. Are you?”

It takes work and patience, respect and communication. They still hurt each other. Life gets in the way. People judge them and cause problems. They make it, in the end, to a place where they are content and no one is left out. Eleanor and Hob are happily married. Dream has a special place in their hearts and marriage bed whenever he needs or wants.

Years pass, Dream has proof now, that he can have romance and his best friend. That he doesn't have to sacrifice a portion of his heart for love. He has taken lovers, tried to bring them into the dance that is his relationship with Hob and Eleanor. Reluctance, timidity, and selfishness ended those relationships. At some point, Dream starts to give up, maybe Eleanor was special, a miracle.

This is, of course, when someone new enters the scene.

Calliope, stunning and witty, drifts on the edge of their existence, darting forward and back to a tune only she can hear. She flirts, flutters, and flees. She's looking for something and she won't be caught until she wishes it.

Dream watches her from the corner of his eye, intrigued and wary. He watches, in the hopes of learning what he can before approaching. He knows what to look for now, those early signs that will tell him if she wouldn't be a good fit. He isn't nearly as subtle as he wishes.

It doesn't take long for to Calliope notice. She glides closer, flitting back when others pursue.

There are clues to be found in who she lets close, and why. The outline of what she wants takes shape as partner after partner fails to meet certain criteria.

They start to circle each other at parties, a corkscrew winding tighter and tighter. He waits with hard learned patience. She slowly grows bolder.

Eleanor and Hob poke gentle fun at him, waiting on the sidelines, wishing him well. No matter how it ends, he'll always have them.

When Dream and Calliope finally crash together it's quiet, a gentle brush of fingers, a soft touch at the hip or arm. There are walks and dinners and music. They go to theaters and museums and libraries. She slots into Dream's life seamlessly, confidently.

There are the typical growing pains of partnerships and cohabitation, discovering how to be part of a couple separate from Hob and Eleanor, and learning where the four of them line-up and interlock.

People outside the relationship try to cause problems at times. They look at Dream and Eleanor or Calliope and Hob and notice how visually similar they are and accusations of cheating fly around. Sometimes someone close-minded will notice their closeness and try to enforce ridiculous religious views. Those that are covetous and jealous try to tear them apart.

They've worked too hard to let such things tear them apart.

Dream looks up one day to realize he’s curled against Hob's chest, in love and happy. Eleanor and Calliope are plotting something a few feet away, smiling. The future is unfolding before him, full of laughter and affection, understanding and belonging. The long journey and heartache was worth it.

—🏵

This is such a delightful and loving depiction of a beautiful poly/qpr relationship! I particularly love the way that Dream and Hob manage to work out their situation in the way you've described. Because not all friendships are meant to develop into romantic relationships, and platonic love certainly isn't worth less than romantic love. I genuinely enjoy the idea of them trying out romantic dating for a week and mutually deciding that it just isn't meant to be! The way they express love (romantically) is so different - Dream is all wild grand gestures and extremes, and Hob just. Isn't about that life. It just isn't going to work, and that's absolutely okay because the sex is still wonderful, and they're still best friends. They still want to grow old together, doing kinky things occasionally. They've both kind of accepted that they're lucky to have each other, and wanting more is probably a bit greedy.

But it's okay to be greedy.

With Eleanor and Calliope, life is never dull. In the large house where the four of them live, there is always music. Always laughter too, unless somebody is upset - then the other three will descend on them, and do everything they can to make it better. There is always a queue for the bathroom (even though they have more than one bathroom, all four of them tend to gravitate together into one space - you'll find Hob trying to shave while Calliope does her makeup and Dream tries to shower and Eleanor sits on the loo singing along to the radio). Somebody is always available for a cuddle (it's usually Dream who wants a cuddle, or some kind of physical touch, and it's great because he never has to worry about being too much. there are three people to take the load). Sex is just... easy. Even if somebody doesn't want to participate, they're always welcome to watch.

Hob loves silly jokes, loves it when Eleanor says "this is my husband Robert, and this is my husband's boyfriend, Dream". But he also secretly loves arguing with people who are rude about their relationship. He loves it even more when he's able to throw a punch. Dream and Eleanor might try to hold him back, but he can always rely on Calliope to join him for a scrap. She's taught him some wonderful Greek insults.

And life is basically very good. Turns out that more partners DOES equal more happiness, as Hob loves to say. Dream will never admit it but Hob is generally absolutely right.

#🏵 anon #the sandman #dreamling #dream x hob x calliope x eleanor #hob x eleanor #dreamuse

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veliseraptor · 1 day

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May Reading Recap

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. Rereading A Memory Called Empire was a treat - an expected treat, but it was good to find out that it lived up to memory. I liked A Desolation Called Peace a little bit less, but only a little bit - it very much followed up directly on the themes from A Memory Called Empire that I appreciated.

The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. I devoured these books. I'm very surprised by this fact, since I'm not generally a "magic school" person, but there we are; Naomi Novik apparently managed to make me one temporarily. The last book was a particularly strong one and did some very interesting things with its worldbuilding that'd been set up in previous books and delivered in the last one.

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart Ehrman. I've read and enjoyed some Bart Ehrman previously, but I feel like the quality of his books has diminished from his earlier work, and this book confirmed that for me. I'm a bit of an eschatology enthusiast (the main reason I picked this up, as well as the fact that (a) it was available at the library one time and I grabbed it on a whim and (b) author recognition), but I learned very little from this book that I didn't already know.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge. One of the things that made me happiest about reading this book was, unfortunately, the fact that I thought I recognized the ways in which it was referring back to Classic of Mountains and Seas, which I felt (again, unfortunately) sort of smug about. Checking the Wikipedia page for the book, apparently "Additionally, each chapter begins with a brief description of the beast which, in the original writing, was written in Classical Chinese, while the rest of the book was written in standard Chinese," which is so cool and I wish had been conveyed in the translation.

In general though, this was a good one, though I feel like the descriptive copy was a little misleading. It's less a mystery than a series of interconnected stories following a central character investigating the titular strange beasts, and learning how they connect to her life and history.

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat. I liked this one significantly more than Dark Rise - which I guess makes sense, since a lot of Dark Rise was setting up the concept that most compels me about the series (the main character being the reincarnation of a notorious villain from the past). It still feels YA in the way that YA usually does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if stylistically less my preference (and something I feel worth mentioning in the context of a possible recommendation). The ending was a gut-punch of a fun kind. I will be looking forward to reading the third one.

"There Would Always Be a Fairy-Tale": Essays on Tolkien's Middle Earth by Verlyn Flieger. I loved Splintered Light and was disappointingly underwhelmed by most of the essays in this collection. There were a couple that were more interesting to me, but on the whole a lukewarm response.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian Tchaikovsky wins again!!! I don't love this one quite as much as I've enjoyed the Children of Time series, but I actually think that I liked it more than The Final Architecture series. Fascinating concept, as usual fascinating worldbuilding for societies wildly different from our own, and dedicated to themes of cooperation and unity-across-difference without it feeling preachy or didactic.

Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It by Burton Visotzky. This was a good one! I already was familiar with some of the information here, but not all of it, and the work around art and architecture was new to me. I felt in some ways like Visotzky overstated his case a little, but on the whole a very interesting read.

Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible. This one is kind of a classic of feminist Bible scholarship - a short book that does a close reading of the text of the stories of four biblical women who suffer in some way (Hagar, Tamar, the unnamed woman from Judges 19, and Jephthah's daughter). It's a powerful work, though it felt a little basic to me on the whole - probably due to the fact that it's relatively early scholarship on the subject working from a literary angle.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Books with footnotes are very hit-or-miss for me - not meaning books with contextual footnotes, but books with footnotes that are part of the conceit of the text itself. Some authors can pull it off; others really shouldn't try. In this case, the author felt a bit too taken with his own cleverness to pull it off; in general I felt like this book was trying a little too hard to be edgy and voice-y and ended up just feeling kind of shallow. It was a fun read, in some ways, but not a good one, and I'm torn on if I'm going to continue reading the series. If I do, it probably won't be in a hurry.

Tolkien and Alterity ed. by Christopher Vaccaro. I was excited about this particular collection of essays (you can probably guess why) and found them mostly uninspiring in the reading. The exception was a bibliographic essay on the treatment of race in Tolkien scholarship, which proposed more use of reader response theory, a suggestion which seems fruitful to me and more interesting than debates about whether or not Tolkien/his works are or aren't racist.

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson. I feel like this is going to sound more critical than I really mean it to, but this was a perfectly adequate horror novel. I wouldn't call it exceptional, and it didn't freak me out, but I read it pretty much straight through and enjoyed the experience on the whole.

Thousand Autumns: vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi. I liked this volume more than I've liked some of the others, and am enjoying the development of the central relationship, though I feel a little like I've been bait-and-switched about the level of fucked up that it's involved. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying this one a little less than I feel like I should: I was expecting more fucked-up between the two main characters based on the initial conceit and don't feel like the novel has really delivered on that. But I am enjoying Yan Wushi getting a little more...outwardly affectionate toward Shen Qiao, and Shen Qiao's concomitant confusion about it.

This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer. More than an adequate horror novel but less than an excellent one, I felt like this book relied more on gross-out horror than I typically prefer. Still, was definitely spooky, and confirmed for me that wilderness horror gets to me in a very specific way.

I'm presently reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, which I have mixed feelings about (not negative! just mixed). I'm not sure what I'm going to read after that, save that I'm now trying to alternate genres and might try to read some nonfiction, which I've been sort of off for a while. Otherwise I'll probably just end up reading Translation State by Ann Leckie, and possibly A Fire in the Deep by Vernor Vinge. But I'm really going to try for some more nonfiction next month.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things

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genericpuff · 2 days

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I'm honestly impressed that you work on your comic, like almost 10 years

Did it ever occur in your mind that you'll be working on it for almost a decade?

oh you mean with Time Gate? I kinda always knew that it was gonna take me a long time, when I first started making it I was like "yes, I wanna do this for the rest of my life", I also read a lot of manga as a kid so I set my bar real high of being someone like Oda, Kishimoto, Toriyama, etc. where I was like "this needs to be a big long thing that I spend many years working on!" LMAO

I don't really feel the same way anymore, as much as I once loved working on Time Gate, coming out the other side of those 10 years through multiple rounds of burnout and a lot of life experience gained has taught me a lot about how flexible life really is and how you don't necessarily have to do the same thing forever (though the adults in childhood definitely don't help with the "what do you wanna be when you grow up" questions, esp as an undiagnosed autistic child it's hard not to take that as "you need to know EXACTLY what you wanna do as soon as you grow up and you need to do that FOREVER!") It was kind of a hard lesson to learn, for a long time I felt really resistant to it because I felt like if I didn't see it through that those years would be "wasted" and I was somehow "betraying" my past self, but like... my past self was also a weeby kid who was a funny lil' dumb dumb with zero life experience who had no idea what the real world was gonna be like or what I was gonna be like ten years in the future LMAO But in reality, I wouldn't be where I am now without it, and I owe it to myself in the present to do what makes me happy.

I say that as if I'm never gonna return to Time Gate, but I'd like to some day. I feel like now that I've gone through all those growing pains, the series is playing catch up, and that's come with a whole new wave of feelings and deconstructing those feelings, especially when it was a series that I tied myself so strongly to for all those years. But right now, I'm having more than enough fun working on Rekindled that it's all I'm really gonna be focused on until its finished. And unlike with Time Gate, I actually have a set timeline that's reasonable and not my whole life LOL It'll still take a while, but if all goes well, it still shouldn't take even half the time that Reaper did. And that alone is a huge relief ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore rekindled ama

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amethystfairy1 · 2 days

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Amethyst… You can’t be doing this to me😭

No, but seriously, how am I supposed to get through finals while I have TT and TTSBC on the brain? That is to say, I absolutely adore your work! Reading it made me want to write again after… 6 years, I think. I’m debating participating in Beyond and I might just bite the bullet at this point.

Now let’s get down to business. You said you liked rambles, so I would like to offer my own thoughts.

First, for TT, does the hurricane have anything with a maybe missing siren/merman we haven’t heard of in a while?👀 I also remember you mentioning at some point that there might be a Xornoth appearance, so now my brain is full.

As for TTSBC, (I was debating for a while if I should even share this, but here goes nothing) I came up with a sub-species and was wondering what you would think.

I’m imagining there is a community of something called shadow mutants. They are like the second removed cousins of the voidwalkers. They are, first and foremost, living shadows. You know how when it’s dark and you can’t be sure if what you see (or more precisely, can’t see) is the darkness or just shadows? I’m basing them on that whole felling. A kind of mutant that is the boogieman of the under-city.

They are reclusive, much like blazeborns, they just do their own thing. They live in caves, mostly in the deep dark, making their homes out of the shadows and darkness. Their whole thing is that they can disappear in the shadows and live there their whole lives. When they are little, they have to learn to use glamor to maintain a “human” body, and even then, they have the shadows moving on their skin and pitch black eyes (I mean that the iris and the sclera are black).

They can take over shadows, be it that of an object or a person, but they have to be careful. When they take over a shadow, their “body” stretches or contracts to fill out the space and it can feel like breaking bones and tearing muscle. It takes a lot of glamor control to make it so that the mutant isn’t hurting in a situation like this.

They both worship and are afraid of lights, as light is the thing that creates shadows, but take the object away and the shadow effectively “dies”, so they have to think about when and what shadow to take over. The most powerful ones can even control the object or person in whose shadow they are.

If they chose to live between the folk in the under-city (a lot of them chose to never leave their shadows, never using their human body), they work odd jobs, but mainly as cave explorers and/or armed forces for some of the mobsters down there.

It’s a universal truth about them that in fight or flight situations, they hide. If they are felling threatened while in a shadow, they will either stay there and wait, or move over to another one, jumping from object to object to get away. If they are in their physical body, they will try to get to the closest corner and make themself as tiny as posibile if they don’t have shadows they can hide in. As a last resort, the shadows will peel of their skin and act as a distraction, moving on the walls or behind them, creating the illusion of something bigger.

So…

What do you think? I hope you enjoyed my rumbling and you take care of yourself.

Now I have to go back to finishing my project for todays presentation (I’m a procrastinator at heart, it’s my own fault, but I’m gonna get through it just so that I can post some of the works I have drafted).

I LOVE THE RAMBLING!!!

They sound so cool!? Shadow mutants? That's so spooky and awesome sounding! I love the concept of them moving between shadows and using glamor to materialize, that's such a fun dynamic!

Oooo does it have to do with a certain missing mer? Maybe, maybe, that's certainly a good catch there, not many people pointed it out because they were too busy worrying about Gem going after Scar's head 😆 Hope your presentation went well! Thank you thank you for sharing your subspecies idea, I loved it!!! 💖

#fanfic #ao3 fanfic #through the sky blue cracks #ttsbc #ttsbc au #traveling thieves au

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quibbs126 · 3 days

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Abyss Monarch/Octopus x electric eel

Got another one done today, this is Firefly Squid Cookie

I was gonna say that this one was the first to have a “new” character at the time, aka one that only existed after I started, but no, apparently that honor goes to the request for Scorpion/Prune Juice

Though interestingly enough you can tell that this was from the beginning of the Wandercrab update because the anon isn’t sure whether the name is Abyss Monarch or Octopus, since we weren’t really sure the name situation until the second half. I also vaguely recall saying this anon had foresight since this was before abysseel blew up

Anyways sorry, let’s get into Firefly Squid herself now

So Firefly here works as the lighthouse keeper in Wandercrab, as well as generally just checking to make sure the lights work. She has a particular affinity for light, possibly due to her own bioluminescence

She’s generally a very chill lady, someone you can just talk to about your struggles while she patiently listens and gives you advice. Plenty of residents go up to her while on the job (since that’s what she’s usually doing) to do just that. She’s not one of particular high energy though, choosing to spend her off time either relaxing over a drink or taking naps

However, you should never try to approach her when there’s a particular absence of light. You may see something you’d rather wish you hadn’t…

Anyways, now let’s discuss design

So Firefly Squid’s name comes from the firefly squid itself, which I got as a suggestion. It’s a cephalopod like Abyss Monarch, and it glows like Electric Eel (or at least the Cookie himself). I also learned today that it’s apparently edible, so I guess it fits in even more with being living food

The original name I was going to use was Blue Ring, named after the blue ringed octopus, because octopus, as well as yellow and being incredibly venomous. But I got the suggestion Firefly Squid and I ended up really liking it, so I switched over

Firefly squid:

I’m especially noticing now, she looks a LOT like Abyss Monarch and not much like Electric Eel. My bad I guess. If I ever make a second one (though I don’t know how likely that is since Electric Eel fankids tend to have a VERY limited available list), I’ll make that one look a lot like Eel

She originally had hair that was more zigzaggy, but it didn’t look right to me and I eventually changed it, and now it’s almost entirely Abyss Monarch. I did at least try to make the gradient lighter at the bottom more like EE and have the yellow of the tentacles be from his yellow, but it’s not that noticeable

Her hair was also red for most of the coloring process, since that was the color I could find firefly squids

I did eventually decide to change the colors, since Abyss Monarch and Electric Eel don’t necessarily adhere to the colors of their respective animals, but I still ended up going mostly blue. I did try to hue shift it to a more purplish blue though

I was kind of just messing around with her design. I’m not really even sure what that pattern on her pants is. Yeah it looks like just a pants design, but I only decided that at the end and the shape is on the same layer as the rest of the lineart, so that was a lot of fun trying to color so it doesn’t look like that

I also feel like relatively, she looks pretty normal compared to her parents. Other than her glowing rings on her hair she doesn’t really have much going on in her design, or at least nothing out of the ordinary. She just looks normal. That’s kind of why I added the eye thing on the sketch, to maybe imply that there’s more going on with her, but that’s probably more like an in post fix

I know I spent most of this design section complaining, and while on some level, her design has issues, when I look at it without thinking about them, I really do like how she turned out

And that’s it for Firefly Squid, I hope you like her!

#we’ll see if tomorrow brings as much productivity in the fankid scene #maybe it will but who knows?#anyways #cookie run #cookie run ovenbreak #electric eel cookie #abyss monarch cookie #abysseel #cookie run oc #firefly squid cookie #fankid #fanchild #my OCs #my art #requests #answers

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mantisgodsart · 3 days

Text

First batch of @bug-oc bugs. This would've gotten finished sooner, but we've been sick as a dog for most of the tournament's runtime, so we're calling it a victory that we managed to get anything done - there are a lot fewer contestants this year, which means both less art to do and more ability to commit to trying to make some particularly unique creature designs - there are some in this batch that we REALLY want to do justice, and that is... unfortunately hard to do when we're barely functioning for two hours a day. This is our unofficial call to STAY HOME when you're sick! Even if you're feeling sturdy enough to go out and about, your actions can impact those around you very easily.

Design notes and owners below the cut with individual pictures - the middle one here is a beta design that we're still in the process of ironing out, so that one just has

[This is the first time I've met someone who "worked in Snakemouth" since that one... weird encounter, with those roaches giving me a job offer. I didn't know that they had a security guard position. I... didn't know that they knew what a security guard even is, honestly. To have two bugs involved with the lab turn up is an incredible coincidence. I wonder if the time portal is actually open again, or if different universes just work on different timeframes?

Regardless, it's a good opportunity to advance my knowledge of partial transmutation and multi-organism transmutation. Whatever happened to that moth in the last tournament... my understanding of how to handle both symbiotes and parasitism is clearly incomplete, if running into multiple organisms can cause problems like that. I'll have to put some extra work into monitoring...]

Omelette from @tangleslime2 was one that felt... obvious, we suppose?Your work will one day consume you, and such - one way or another! More literal in this case. A lot of the work here, honestly, is toying with shapes and body language. Omelette has a LOVELY sillhouette with some extremely identifiable clothes, and translating it to a zombee design was Very fun. Maybe a bit plain on the design side, but the linework was incredibly fun to do - we got to do a whole lot of fur, which is always a fun time. This design was very quick and easy, as designs go, and we had a lot of fun doing the hat. Wildly askew, and held on by but a single antennae!

Sundew and Nerine from @mizzle-moths are untransmuted, as requested - Sundew's pose was very fun to do - nice and fluid, though the wing markings were admittedly a bit funky to parse. We hope we got all the details correct here! Both of your bugs have gorgeous color palettes. Our usual marker set's dark gray marker's dried out by now, so we had to use an alternative, which... unfortunately bled clean through our sketchbook page. Lesson learned, we suppose. The scribble over the eyes used the same pen that we did our linework with - the "scribbling over the eyes of a dead character" trope is very well-worn, but cliche only becomes cliche because it inspires enough people to follow in the footsteps of a story, and we're very fond of the way it adds to the... hmm, visual language? We just think it's neat. Hope you enjoy!

[...working with spirits and more immaterial forms isn't my area of expertise, but it's something i dearly need experience in. My hope is that by advancing my knowledge in this field, I might be able to apply the knowledge to other fields that evade me - anything inanimate has proven to be my bane, and I'm fairly certain that a few of my attempts into this area have produced "hauntings", when they're not producing incredibly specialized organisms. Maybe if I know how to cause a haunting, I can figure out how to not cause one...?]

Moving on to our beta design - that is a VERY rough draft of Beera from @longeth-dayv. Given by the obvious Luigi's Mansion inspiration, we wanted to run with it by pulling our inspiration more directly from a Luigi's Mansion enemy - mostly, this meant tinkering with sillhouettes while trying to figure out what sort of design would match best to the character, and how to translate a design to something recognizable.

The pack, despite its significance character-wise, doesn't have quite as much weight in the balance of the design, which meant more tweaking for the transformation - though we briefly tried toying with the pack itself for this design, that particular page we felt would skew a bit too close to body horror for your personal comfort, so we scrapped the idea. Better safe than sorry, as they say. As such, we're aiming more towards using wire and body language to drive recognition.

The image here is a loose draft based on the bats enemy, used to test the fade and layering of the highlighter we were using - as it turns out, it doesn't layer very well! We started out looking for electric enemies, but we only really turned up the Electric Oozer, and that... was a bit too close to "normal boo" for our personal tastes, so we swapped to just primarily yellow enemies. Though we were previously considering taking the bat design to final draft, actually putting it out on paper convinced us to the contrary, so we went back to the... sketchboard. We'd bet there's a good chance you can already figure out where we're going with this one. A fun design challenge, for sure!

Finally (at least for this particular evening), we offer you this: a look behind the scenes, (or at least, the scenes that don't involve "us being sick and struggling to communicate whether or not something is sorted with the other mod"). What we've been using to keep track of matches, as well as to draw lots. Not precisely a high-tech solution, but damn if it doesn't work - the ends here are split into two for the sake of a loser's bracket, which we... thought we had figured out, but then it turned out we've been having miscommunications on what the bracket setups even are, and, well...

...we're working on it, we'll say. It might still be integrated, but that'll have to wait 'til trying to do things doesn't require fighting for our life. We will probably rerandomize the brackets for it, we might use it for illustration practice if the contestants are cool with it, so on and so forth. As always, thank you for your patience - we hope that Round 2 encounters slightly less hitchups compared to Round 1.

#our art #bug fables #finished #ocs #other peoples ocs #omelette #beera #sundew #nerine

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silencedvoices · 3 days

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June of Doom Day 3

"Well, well, well..." | Hiding | Ambushed | Stalking |

Content: implied stalking, implied torture, drugging, recapture

Whumpee had a sinking feeling that someone had been watching them. Everyone, even themself, tried to brush it off as just the result of being held captive by Whumper for so long. It was just them being paranoid. Or so they thought.

One night after Whumpee had come home from a somewhat normal day at work, they swore they heard footsteps from upstairs. They listened closely and stopped in their tracks as they heard someone making their way down the stairs. Nope, definitely not their imagination. They grabbed a kitchen knife and scrambled into the back of the nearest closet.

Whoever was there was taking their dang time. This made the situation all the more real, and Whumpee hardly noticed they were holding their breath.

As the intruder got closer, Whumpee could make out the all too familiar click of shoes across the tile floor. When the closet door was pulled open, the knife was rendered useless as Whumpee completely froze in terror, dropping the knife as menacing eyes looked down on them.

"Well, well, well," Whumper grinned, "What do we have here?"

Whumpee merely looked up at Whumper dumbfounded. After all the effort in running and rebuilding their life, Whumper had still found them.

"I'm honestly disappointed you thought you could hide from me Whumpee."

"How'd you-?"

"It was quite easy honestly. After you escaped I just asked around. It wasn't hard to notice a traumatized little person like you wandering around begging for help. Gosh, almost everyone I asked had heard about you. I just followed the trails and here I am."

I mean Whumpee couldn't really be surprised at that. They had learned in their time with Whumper that Whumper had ties everywhere. They were overall a kind person to those who knew them under different circumstances and therefore a lot of people trusted them. Whumpee internally cursed themself for thinking they ever had a chance. Whumper would always have the upper ground.

"How long ago did you find me?"

"Oh, months ago. It's been fun watching you try to undo all the work I've done. No matter what you do, I'm still there. Heck, the evidence of me is all over your body."

Whumpee shivered as the scars littered under their sweater became all the more noticable. It was like someone had stuck a match to them and everywhere Whumper had ever hurt them was on fire, burning so hot they couldn't scrub away the pain.

"I'm surprised you could even hold this knife without being reminded of me," Whumper easily picked up the knife, Whumpee too scared to try anything. "We both know that deep down, you'd never be able to hurt me anyways, not after all I've done to you."

Whumpee didn't know what to do anymore. They were corned and Whumper was right, they'd never be able to hurt Whumper no matter how much they wanted to. They could at least waste some time by talking, maybe get some of the answers they'd been hoping for.

"So it was you all along. Everyone thought I was crazy. Even I thought I was."

"Yeah. That's the other thing that was fun. Watching you always on edge trying not to lash out at everyone that tried to help you, but you still ended up pushing them all away. That's why no one is here to save you Whumpee. I'm the only one you have whether you like it or not."

Whumpee shivered at that thought. It was the truth no matter how much they tried to wipe it from their mind. Whumper knew them all too well.

Whumper couldn't help but love how careful Whumpee was being. Trying to stall time, barely saying a word, not even fighting back. That was a big improvement from when they'd first taken Whumpee.

"Ready to go?" Whumper asked, even though they both knew Whumper would drag Whumpee kicking and screaming out the door.

Whumpee's heart dropped, "Wait... what?"

Whumper laughed, "Come on Whumpee, you really thought I just came here to scare you? No, I'm taking you with me."

"You- you can't! This is my home now. I- did so much to get here and... and you can't just take it all away again!"

"Oh, just watch me," Whumper's grin was something Whumpee was all too used to, but this time it was filled with a coldness Whumpee had never seen before and it scared them so, so much.

Before Whumpee could even blink, Whumper injected something into their neck.

"Nonono. You did not," Whumpee's world began to spin and nausea crept up their throat.

"Oh yes I did."

The last thing Whumpee remembered before their world went dark was Whumper scooping them up and their cold voice in their ear.

"Time to go home Whumpee."

#whump #whump community #whumpblr #june of doom 2024 #june of doom #tw drugging #tw implied torture

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