#i might update our intro post in a bit

[rougethecat]

...So Victor split

[piracytheorist]

In Life, And in Death (1/11)

Fandom: Spy x Family Word count: 4.1k for this chapter | 32.4k in total Rating: T Warnings: Temporary character death, graphic violence, horror imagery, body horror, mild gore, whump, language Cover art by @buf309

Summary: Anya is kidnapped, and Twilight is thrown into the horrors of a mysterious, deadly village. Forced and then choosing to survive its trials - physical and mental - he's brought to figure out who he truly is. (A Resident Evil Village fusion)

AO3

~

Author's Note: Probably my most insane fanfic project yet. After I successfully probed SOMEONE, aka @spencer-is-someone, into watching a Resident Evil Village gameplay, they fell in love with Ethan Winters but felt he went through too much in the game, prompting the idea "What if Loid went through all that stuff instead". And well, 32 thousand words later, here I am, inflicting this literal horror upon y'all.

I made a post about it, and the absolutely wonderful @buf309 went and made this amazing cover art, and I literally couldn't be more thankful for that. I was so amazed when I saw the first draft sketch that I went like I'M GONNA WAIT TILL IT'S READY TO POST THE FIC. Seriously, words cannot describe how grateful I am, I sincerely hope the fic feels satisfying enough for the work you've done <3

If you know how the Resident Evil Village story goes, this is pretty much the same... yes, in all of its "parts-in-jars" glory (if you know you know, if you don't you will soon), just with Twilight taking the place of Ethan Winters. There will be a few changes from the original story to fit Twilight's character, some to facilitate the adaptation from game narrative to fanfic narrative, some to fit my own tastes, and an actually hopeful ending because we were all left heartbroken after the ending of RE Village so might as well pour some healing juice to put our hearts back together same way Ethan puts his limbs back together and hope for the best.

Do take note of the warnings, please. There is one part of the story I actually had chills while writing (yes, that part for those of you who know, it will be slightly changed but the essence will be the same) and it is based on the story of a horror/survival game, so make sure you're okay to read something as intense as this.

The story is written in full, though I'm still doing small bits of editing here and there. I don't have a posting schedule, but I'm thinking of updating twice a week, or once if I see the editing is taking longer. Chapter titles are taken from track titles of the game's original soundtrack.

So yeah, long intro over, take not of the warnings, I hope you enjoy if you read on!

~

Chapter 1: Bloodthirsty

~

“Anya, don’t sit so close to the TV,” Loid said, not looking up from the counter.

Unsurprisingly, there was no response. He wouldn’t doubt that she hadn’t even heard him, let alone acknowledged his request.

He picked up a handful of minced meat to mould into a burger steak, deciding to give her another reminder in two minutes from now. Yor had just left to walk Bond, so it was only his direction she had to follow – and she was starting to make clear whose directions she preferred to follow nowadays.

He placed the burger on the pan as his body tensed. A split second later, the door burst open.

He jumped through the opening between the kitchen and the living room, but even that seemed a pointless blessing as thick smoke quickly covered the apartment.

He rushed through it to grab Anya, who trembled against him, but he didn’t have the time to move away from the shots.

Two silenced shots, piercing through his clothes and reaching into the skin of his back.

No blood. But they were pinching his skin, and he immediately felt groggy…

He dropped to his side, unable to move as figures approached him. One of them took Anya.

“PAPA!” she screamed at him.

He feebly raised his hand. “Wait,” was the only thing he could say, before his hand dropped.

More figures approached him, and then his vision went dark.

~

Focus, Twilight.

Don’t open your eyes yet. Don’t alert the enemy yet.

He held his breath for a moment.

He was somewhere cold, outside.

He could feel something soft but freezing underneath him. Snow?

His hair didn’t feel wet, so he mustn’t have been lying there long.

It was quiet. He could only hear distant sounds of wind and crows flying somewhere close.

He couldn’t feel anyone’s presence, so he decided to open one single eye to check.

But then both his eyes shot wide open.

In front of him stood a magnificent gothic mansion. It could be a mansion, or it could be a damn castle. It was surrounded by a thick wall, like a fortress.

He sat up. He was indeed lying on the snow, but it was the least of his concerns right now.

He had apparently been placed on the castle’s garden. Right in the middle of the winter, it was only decorated by a few naked trees as well as three scarecrows.

Those didn’t seem to do their job well enough, he thought, as crows still flew around, some even sitting on them.

He got up, checking himself for injuries. He couldn’t feel any pain or any indication of pierced skin. How had they drugged him?

It was then he realized he was now wearing his jacket.

Had they dressed him for the cold? While taking off his apron and the gloves he wore while preparing food?

What the hell?

Where even was this place?

Why was he brought here?

Where was Anya?

His attention was drawn back to the apparently useless scarecrows, and a chill ran down his spine – unrelated to the cold – when he noticed something eerie about them.

Carefully, he took a few steps towards them.

His breath caught in his throat when he was close enough to notice.

Those weren’t plain scarecrows.

Those were actual, human bodies hanging on wooden crosses.

His breath finally came out shaky, forming a cloud.

What the hell was this place?

Unable to quell his curiosity, he stepped closer, trying to notice for any details on the bodies, in case he recognized them.

All three seemed to be men, of ages between thirty and fifty, and they couldn’t have been dead for longer than a week or so. The cold might have preserved their bodies, but exposure to the outside would do as much more damage.

He couldn’t recognize any of their faces – or what was left of them.

Well, he didn’t even know where he was, how far away from Berlint or even in Ostania for that matter.

He clenched his hands into fists and turned around, looking around the walls surrounding the castle.

There was a huge metal door blocking the path outside. No climbing the wall; it was too smooth and covered in even more slippery ice. Climbing the trees wouldn’t give him enough height to swing himself out.

Which meant, his only way of getting answers was through the castle.

He must have been placed there for a reason, after all, and if they’d wanted to kill him they would have already done so.

He reached the entrance, and the door swung open easily.

The entrance hall was as luxuriously decorated as the outside hinted at. A lush burgundy carpet went up the few steps, leading to a wall where a painting of three young women hung.

The door closed behind him, and he didn’t miss the definitive clang as metal bars started descending right in front of it.

He turned, and for a few seconds he weighed his options.

He could break the door quickly enough before the bars descended too low, and slip outside.

But then again, they obviously wanted him in there, and again, it didn’t seem that killing him was their priority.

He faced forward, ignoring the sound of the bars trapping him in there.

He might as well play their game.

He walked to the painting. Underneath it was an inscription that wrote “Bela, Daniela, and Cassandra.”

Which one was which?

The women on the painting didn’t seem too different from each other. The painting itself didn’t seem all too enlightening, either; it looked like any common Romantic-style oil painting.

Well, it wasn’t going to give him any answers, would it?

He turned around, walking down a corridor and out into another, larger hall. He noticed how warm the whole building was, despite the freezing weather outside and the apparently old construction of the place.

This hall had hanging, lit candles all over the walls, though they couldn’t be the source of the heating. The lighting was low, but lucky for him, he’d been trained enough in low lighting for that not to be an issue.

He jerked back at the sound of a swarm of flies coming his way, then he sensed someone’s presence.

Flies, he could handle.

But then the flies started gathering together, and within seconds they morphed into three women, dressed in black hooded cloaks.

“Wha—?” he whispered.

“Looking for Anya?” a voice said, and he assumed it’d come from one of the women. Who had just formed from flies.

The absurdity of his situation almost made him forget that she had just mentioned Anya.

Which meant they probably knew where she was.

However, he was too shocked by the sight that he couldn’t move when one of the women, all of whom were cackling, approached him and pushed him backwards.

She swung the scythe she held in her hand, and he pulled his legs away just before she could bury it in his calf.

“Oh, he’s feisty!” the woman said with a wide smile.

Her arm then almost zapped through the air, and his left leg was exploding in pain before he could even register the movement.

He yelped in pain as she leaned closer to him and took a long sniff.

Her mouth and jaw were covered in blood, though her blond hair looked pristine clean.

“Mmm, man-blood,” she said.

She then leaned back and started dragging him, by the scythe embedded in his leg, as he still lay helplessly on the ground.

She was too fast. He flailed around, trying to grab at anything they passed by to make her stop, even though that would mean the scythe would rip his entire leg open, but then another woman reached his other side and buried her scythe in his right leg.

He threw his head back, biting down another yell of pain.

Could he just have one moment?!

The women dragged him down another corridor and into what he quickly realized was a bedroom. They removed their scythes, and he quickly reached to assess the damage, when he heard the blond woman say “Mother, I bring you fresh prey,” as she pointed at him with her hand.

“You are so kind to me, daughters,” came a voice of a woman who sounded older than them.

Older, and bigger.

She was sitting on a massive chair, holding an equally massive glass of red wine. She took a sip from it, then stood up and turned to him, saying, “Now, lets take a look at him.”

He raised his head to look at her.

And then raised it higher.

She had the build of a muscular woman, with curves proportionate to her height, which must have been about three meters tall. She wore a black wide-brimmed hat over her chin-length black hair, and a long white dress that reached down to her feet, though she moved comfortably in it.

“Well, well. Loid Forger,” she said. “Came looking for your daughter, I presume?”

He sat there, frozen.

They knew who he was – or at least pretended to be? And they knew Anya was also taken?

She walked closer to him, smiling as she put her hands on her hips. “For you to think you can waltz right in here—let’s see how special you are,” she nearly purred.

She threw her hands up in a sign for something, and two of the younger women said “Yes, mother,” as they grabbed his arms and pulled him up.

His first thought was that he was standing up surprisingly well for just having had two scythes ran through his legs.

His second thought was terror as one woman grabbed his hand, and the other produced a very sharp-looking knife.

Before he could jerk back, she sliced his palm open.

He bit back a grunt; it wasn’t a deep cut, but it would be annoying…

His last thought trailed off as the tall woman reached down, grabbed his hand, brought it to her lips… and started sucking.

Now he really was frozen in terror.

What the hell was this nightmare?

The woman pulled her head back, licking at her lips with a blood-soaked tongue.

She threw his hand away. “Hmm,” she said. “Still fresh, but only barely.”

He wrapped his hand into a fist, keeping it close to his chest.

“Then let’s devour his man-flesh quickly, mother!” one of the women said, handing a handkerchief to her.

“But I’m the one who captured him!” the blond woman protested.

“Now, now, daughters,” the tall woman said, patting at her lips with the handkerchief. “First, I must inform Mother Miranda. But later, well, there will be enough for everyone.” She threw the handkerchief aside, smiling down at him. “Put him up!”

The young women surrounded him, and though he struggled, they were too strong for him as they put heavy manacles on his wrists.

A thick build, but he could break out of them with little effort.

But then, they secured a chain to them, and the chain started going up. He was lifted off his feet, and started grunting as the full force of his weight fell on his wrists.

Don’t say anything. Don’t let them take a hold of any weaknesses.

He clenched his jaw, keeping his voice from making any sounds as they headed out of the room. The tall woman had to bend to get through that door, and one of the young women – the second one who had stabbed his leg – bent down and picked up the discarded handkerchief, smelling the blood on it and laughing, as she followed them.

Breathing hard, he looked up at the manacles.

The pain was intense but manageable, though he already felt the tingling of numbness in his fingers. By his calculations, he had about fifteen or so minutes before cut blood circulation would start causing permanent damage.

Escape, first. Then you can freak out.

He grabbed the chain and dragged his body up. Though his legs were still bleeding, he brought them up so he could hold the chain between his feet.

He was gasping by the time he managed that, but at least he had less pain on his hands and a better view of the manacles.

They were old and rusty, but seemed to have a fairly standard locking mechanism. Bringing his body closer, he fished the lockpick out from a hidden pocket of his jacket.

Biting his lip, he worked through the lock of the right manacle. Just as it opened, his feet slipped from the chain and dropped down, causing all of his weight to drop onto his injured left hand.

The pain knocked the air out of his lungs.

Think! Think! Pull yourself together!

Taking in a laboured breath, he looked back up.

The lockpick had slipped from his hand and was now too far down for him to get it. His right hand was free, but he didn’t have any other options left.

Reaching up, he wrapped his free hand around his left thumb, and with a sharp pull, he dislocated it.

As his other hand was coated in blood from the cut, his wrist slipped through the manacle as soon as his thumb wasn’t in the way.

He dropped to the ground clumsily, not managing to balance his landing.

Wheezing, he looked at his left hand.

Bleeding, and a dislocated thumb.

He gave himself ten seconds.

Ten seconds to wonder where the hell he had gotten himself into, what that tall woman even was, standing at three meters tall and drinking blood, and what her “daughters” were, emerging from flies and also participating in… blood drinking? Cannibalism?

Ten seconds, and he was back to himself.

Focus, Twilight.

He looked at his legs – they were still bleeding, but he felt confident he could stand on them. Though those scythes looked sharp, they must have split a tendon or two apart.

At the corner of the room stood a vanity table, and on top of it, along with various cosmetics, lay a small green bottle with a cross on the label.

He stood up carefully, glad that his legs weren’t trembling. He picked up the bottle, carefully reading the label.

Medical alcohol.

Not one to trust this place that much, he opened the lid, and sure enough, it smelled like ethyl alcohol.

He sat down with a grunt, pulling his right trouser up. He didn’t have any clean gauze, so his only option was to pour liquid right over the wound.

He braced himself for the sting of pain, but instead, the liquid brought a cool, numbing sensation.

And then, right in front of his eyes, his wound closed then disappeared completely.

He stared at it.

Ten more seconds.

What the hell.

He looked at the bottle again. Medical alcohol, it said. It smelled like it too.

He looked back at his leg, raising his other trouser where the other wound still stood.

What the hell?!

Uncertain, he poured a little less liquid over that wound.

The wound immediately stopped bleeding as new skin seemed to form, though it didn’t heal completely.

He let out a breath. If he were honest with himself, this wasn’t really the weirdest thing to happen in the last few minutes, was it?

He turned to his mangled hand. Just how much could that liquid heal?

He poured an equal dosage to it, and was still surprised to see his thumb painlessly slide into its place, as well as the cut close completely.

Well, at least it could be useful.

He didn’t have time to worry over the supernatural. He had to get out of there, and find out where Anya was.

He took the path of unlocked doors, as he didn’t want to waste time and noise trying to break the lock of every locked door he found. Breaking the windows wouldn’t lead him anywhere – each one was sealed shut, and though he wasn’t averse to turning into a hooligan for the sake of escaping, the entire castle seemed to be surrounded by that wall.

He needed to get to a higher floor, but the safest and most silent path led him to the basement, where he found himself walking along piles and piles of dead bodies.

He had to hold his breath as he passed them by; apparently the occupants of the castle had the habit of feasting on the blood of humans, and did it so often that the amount of bodies was too big to act as decoration for their garden.

It was all men, however. As young as twenty-three, from what he could gather with a quick look.

The fly-women seemed to be confident enough in their hunting that they didn’t take away the handgun from one of the more fresh bodies. Twilight couldn’t tell if that was a police officer, a soldier, or a man aware of what he’d been dealing with, but it didn’t matter to him. He undid the holster, as gently as he could out of respect of the deceased man, and he put it on under his jacket.

He checked the magazine. Ten bullets out of sixteen.

He looked at the man. Had he shot those first six bullets right before he was killed?

The man had a shoulder bag on him, and inside was a box of bullets, a total of forty. He slid that too over his own shoulder.

He kept the safety on the gun on, but held it in his hand. He picked up a hunting knife from one of the other bodies and walked on.

As the bodies thinned out, he found a lone skeletal figure draped in a plain canvas cloak. The limbs stood out, bare, emaciated, and rotting. While other bodies were in a similar state of decomposition, they were fully clothed, at most with a few rips in their clothes. This one was the only one so bare.

And it was holding a scythe in its hand, old and rusty in comparison to the women’s scythes, but still sharp enough to do harm.

He approached it carefully, keeping both hands on the gun.

He thanked his training for that, as the figure moved when he passed right by it.

He yelped in shock, moving away from it and raising his gun at it.

“Stop!” he said. “Don’t move!”

The creature, whatever that was, didn’t seem like it listened let alone register his words. It stood up, hunched over, then lunged at him with the scythe.

Not finding any alternatives, he shot right at its head.

The creature jerked back as a screech left its mouth.

Twilight held his breath.

His blood froze when he saw it still stand on its legs and try to swing at him again.

He shot again. He was perfectly certain the bullet got through its head.

Yet the creature moved again.

And he shot again.

Only now did the creature finally drop to its knees, but it was still screeching and growling.

Desperate, Twilight took the knife and drove it through the creature’s skull, three times, until he felt it stop moving.

It collapsed on the floor.

Hell knew if it would rise again. It was supposed to be dead already, wasn’t it?

He turned around and ran.

There were more creatures on the way. Some he slashed at with the knife, some he shot at, some he simply ran away from. A few managed to nick him with their scythes, and if he were honest, he was more worried about infections than the injuries themselves.

As he found a quiet corner, he pulled out the alcohol – or whatever that was. It seemed to work on the nicks too, making them close quickly and painlessly.

He supported himself on the wall, forcing his breath to calm down.

He had to get out. Now.

Holding the gun tight to his hand, he moved to leave, but then a buzzing and a voice sounded from behind him.

“Hmm. Warm, bright, red blood.”

He didn’t turn to look at her. He knew it was the blond woman.

He made a run for it as flies swarmed around him, until he found a staircase going up, reaching into what looked like a kitchen area.

“Where are you going, little one?”

The woman appeared right in front of him, cutting off his path. She was smiling at him, surrounded by flies, her face still stained with blood.

“I just want to find Anya,” he managed.

“Aw,” she said. She then pushed him back and he fell on the ground. She lay over him, reaching at his neck and biting.

Yelling, he took the gun and fired twice at her stomach.

She reached up, laughing as fresh blood ran from her lips.

He shot at her head.

“Your bullets cannot harm m—”

Her voice cut off when another of his shots passed through her and hit the window behind her.

The glass cracked, and it quickly shattered as a cold gust of wind blew into the room.

The gust threw the woman’s hood off her head. Twilight tightened his hold on the gun when he spotted a massive, fleshy scar on her temple, a bald spot from her long hair.

The woman shrieked, then growled. Her skin, already pale as it was, seemed to start cracking and turn grey. She looked at her hands, still gasping in pain, and then turned to him, yelling, “You stupid man-thing!”

His mind finally picked up the pace. The cold made her weak?

He stood up, raising his gun at her.

“How dare you bare your teeth at us!” she shouted, then lunged at him with her scythe.

He managed to block her attack, pushing her back, and he shot at her face.

She groaned, still standing, but she said, “What? My body—it’s breaking…”

He kept his gun up. “Just let me go,” he said.

A wild rumble came from her mouth as she turned to attack him again. She reached him, and he could only block her at the last moment, his arms taking the full blow of her scythe. “Give up!” she said, reaching back for another swing of her weapon.

He shot twice at her head, and she yelled again.

The flies seemed to drop in numbers, and her skin cracked more and more. He barely managed to avoid two more of her attacks, and then she fell on him, ready to bite his head off, he supposed in the split second it took him to kick her off of him.

He shot two more times.

“This can’t be,” she said, weakly now, her body swaying.

“Let me go!” he repeated, taking two steps back.

She screamed and reached back with her scythe, and he shot again.

And then a sizzling sound came from her body, as she started swinging wildly, not reaching anything. She groaned and groaned, and her body transformed.

It seemed to calcify into gravel, as she slowly stopped moving, her hand still up in a pose of attack.

And then it broke down.

Whatever it was, it cracked into small pieces, and what started as the form of a woman was now a pile of something on the ground.

Breathing hard, he leaned his back on the wall behind him and slid down to the floor.

His hands were trembling, his feet felt like water.

What the hell was all that?

Were was he?

Why was he brought here?

And where was Anya?

What were those creatures…?

He closed his eyes. Ten seconds. Just ten seconds to freak out.

He just had to get out. Find Anya and…

He opened his eyes, his throat tensing.

Did he really have to find her?

As far as he was concerned, right now she was a liability to him. He had to prioritize his safety first.

It wasn’t like there were piles of bodies of dead girls around, was it?

Letting out a deep sigh, he stood back up. The woman had managed to hurt him a little, but the healing liquid was in short supply and he could handle those injuries up to a point.

The woman. Who was now a pile of ash.

Calm down, Twilight. Get yourself in order and find a way out.

The castle proved massive, and he couldn’t find any viable exit paths even as he seemed to reach what looked like hallways reaching into bedrooms.

Then, a mournful scream sounded from a floor below.

“What have you done to my daughter?!”

His blood chilled. If the “daughter” had been that vicious, he didn’t want to face whatever her mother had in store for him.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

Hi I really like this blog and since you're also a European you might actually have an answer

What's your favourite Citroën? I'm really partial to the 2010 era Picassos mainly because it was my first car.

INTRO - Citroën Makes a(nother) Cubist MPV

I'm also quite familiar with the C4 Picasso, as I've mentioned before, and its predecessor the Xsara Picasso, as I've also mentioned - the latter actually being the first car I was there for the purchase of! I remember it rather fondly, but looking back at it it was a rather cheap vehicle, with levers that snapped off, rear trays that popped out, and the overall feeling of being inside an electric toothbrush upon exceeding highway speed limits. And of course, the repeated engine failures that pushed us to update.

The C4 Picasso had its flimsy and questionable bits as well, but much less so - though, unlike its progenitor, it did once leave us stranded, the clutch living up to the C4 name. But hey, it was one time. And it had some cool features, even beyond the piéce de resistance brought up in that post. The little side pods containing the climate controls...

...the integrated perfume offered by a little capsule we definitely bothered to get refills for, as perfectly illustrated by this lovely YouTube thumbnail...

...a trunk light that detached to become a flashlight, a handbrake I once again dare readers to spot, gloveboxes atop the dashboard, and yet more still... including, perhaps most importantly, a windshield so humongous that it required a two-stage sun visor.

I am a big believer in the power of glass when it comes to improving a car's experience (see how hard I raved about a sunroof) and this really did do much more than give the car alopecia.

But it could only bring so much excitement to a cheap, anemic MPV in the famed grey I've gone over my distaste for and an interior color best described as "dirty interior".

The design of the C3 Picasso, which I seem to be completely alone in appreciating...

...was apparently inspired, along with Smeg fridges, by iPods (and judging by these pictures, the car's size seems to be somewhere between the two).

And, well, my hazy recollection of our C4 has it feeling a bit closer to an iPod bootleg - a funky, ambitious design writing a check that its build quality couldn't quite cash.

And indeed, that chapter ended when we weren't willing to fork over for the nth repair. But since the dealership offered us such a pittance to trade it in, family friends were able and willing to muster a better offer and so it lives on under their ownership. I'm happy about that - and, since we let it go before I began driving, I would be curious to give it a try. But it's no love of mine.

And not because it's too everyday a vehicle to be that - I don't need a supercar to get excited.

But, as we'll see tomorrow, it does help.

[rainworld-name-verifier]

Intro post 2.0 go!

This started as a clone of a different clone of the same gimmick, but I’m pretty sure both of those accounts sadly deactivated. Feel free to make your own clone/spin off gimmick account. I love interacting with those.

Don’t take anything I say too seriously, I’m just trying to have fun here.

You can send me names and I will verify whether or not they fit the naming schemes used by slugcats, iterators, and the echoes/ancients/benefactors/whatever you want to call them.

Note that any names sent to me might take up to weeks to be verified, I get hundreds of submissions and have to use a queue to make sure I can get them all verified while still having consistent post schedules.

If you submit a name that I think is really really good and creative, or succeeds in making me laugh out loud, you get the special stamp:

What makes a name valid?

Technically, the iterator names seen in rain world are inspired by concepts used in Buddhist philosophy, but the average rain world fan is not going to know enough about it, so for all intents and purposes here, a iterator name is just made up of a phrase. If you have an inspiration or backstory for said phrase though, feel free to share! Lore you’ve written about any OC’s you’ve given these names is also a very fun thing to see.

Echo names seem to generally follow the same pattern as iterators, but with a bit more strict of naming schemes. Echos are always made up of two phrases instead of one (although spinning top implies that you might earn your second phrase as you get older) both phrases always contain a amount of a subject, (for example, in Six Grains Of Gravel, Mountains Abound, the first subject is gravel, which there are six of, and the second subject is mountains, which is plural so we know there’s at least more than one. Sometimes the amount can even just be a implied 1, like spinning top)

Slugcat names are always simply the word “the” followed by a descriptor of what they do. In a pinch, if you can’t think of anything good, the descriptor, followed by the suffix -cat, also works, although the name change of nightcat becoming the watcher suggests that these names might no longer be valid.

Other creatures in the game don’t have name schemes, so you’re free to call them whatever you want.

What makes a name invalid?

Theres not much that can make a name invalid, sense just a phrase is a pretty broad category, however some names may be more valid than others, for example, pop culture references are usually fine by my standards, in fact I encourage them, however if those references wouldn’t make sense in the context of rain world, they might be considered less valid. (For example, the iterator name: “War Amongst Stars” would be valid because war and stars are both things that are not exclusive to Star Wars, but the echo name: “A Lightsaber, No Small Moon” might be considered less valid, as you would have to assume that lightsabers exist in the rain world universe.

Regular human names like “Bob” or “Frank” or “Tragidieh” are obviously not valid, that goes against the entire point of having a nonhuman naming system.

Other remarks

My main blog is @stinkodude sometimes I post art and stuff there, and occasionally I might repost something from it if I it it’s important.

If I forget to clarify whether or not a name is valid, or simply leave a funny remark or joke about the name, then you can automatically assume it’s valid. This is done to make my job a little bit easier, as well as make the blog more fun to read through.

Rain worlds naming conventions, like the games many other mysteries, aren’t a completely solved puzzle. And things like the introduction of spinning top in the watcher DLC can change our perception on what these people used to refer to each other. This means some posts might get outdated as time goes on. And I’ll try to keep things updated.

Just to recap:

Iterator: (phrase)

Echoes: (amount)(amount)

Slugcat: (the)(descriptor)

Lastly, be civil in the comments please, I may make mistakes, and some people might have different ideas on how close a name has to stick to the source material. In the end, I’m just trying to create a fun place to share OC’s, make jokes, and talk about rain world. None of this really matters anyways, as all is naught but to serve the void…

[quill-creates]

Writerblr Introduction (2024)

Intro to Me!

🪷 Hello all, I'm Quill and I've been writing since I could remember honestly. 

🌺 I'm currently 22 and I go by she/her pronouns. I'm in my undergraduate degree, about two semesters away from graduating with a BA in Biology. 

🪷 I met my husband playing D&D so I am constantly working on D&D stuff for our group to play - either for my husband to DM or for me to DM.

🌺 My main area of writing has been modern fantasy in recent years, with some sprinkles of sci-fi, romance, or high fantasy thrown into the mix. 

🪷 I have a couple of projects that causally work on, though that list fluctuates quite a bit sometimes lol. Most would be categorized as either YA or New Adult. 

🪷 I look forward to interacting with others and talking about our WIPs! 

🌺 My asks are open - always feel free to drop an ask or a comment or to start a chat!

🪷 I love sci-fi, fantasy (of all types!), worldbuilding, the found families trope (I might have this in several of my stories lol), supernatural fiction (like vampires, werewolves, witches, etc)

🌺 I have two other blogs - a witchcraft blog (+ a few random things), @mystics-scribes, and a bujo/planning blog, @quills-planning

My WIPs

project.ties

My main WIP and the first in a series of modern fantasy novels following a vampire woman from the viking age. Her family is being hunted and threatened, so she’s called to protect a family that forced her out just about two decades earlier. 

project.worldsD&D

My D&D campaign series, I'm currently working on Adventure 2 of 3 since we wrapped up Adventure 1 about two months ago. The PCs are going from the Steampunk fantasy world of Adventure 1 to the Science Fantasy world of Adventure 2 while following and investigating the Divines they encountered throughout Adventure 1.

project.survival

A science/high fantasy/political drama story, as either a pixel video game or a visual novel, following a group of young adults (that are aliens) attempting to survive a game their gods have divised in order to test if their species is still worthy of living - if they fail the game their entire race will be wiped from the face of their planet and all other planets they inhabit. 

project.videogameD&D

My Husband’s custom TTRPG system that’s based around some of the basics of D&D. It’s mostly all his, but I’ve been assisting him quite a bit - especially with typing things up so he has organized notes and things for himself and the nine players (!!!!). 

project.witchcastle

My on and off visual novel project that’s mostly for fun to learn different vn mechanics, especially since project.survival is going to at least have some vn mechanics (even if it is a pixel game)

What I’ll Blog About - Posts & Reblogs

🪷 project.ties updates on writing and worldbuilding

🌺 project.worldsD&D updates on outlining and prop creation

🪷 project.survival updates on writing and worldbuilding, with some artwork thrown in there

🌺 project.witchcastle updates on writing and worldbuilding, also with some artwork

🪷 Writing advice, my own and reblogged

🌺 Intro posts from others

🪷 Visual novel design guides and information

🌺 Game design guides and information

🪷 Book announcements from myself and others

🌺 Please let me know if you'd like to be on my tag list!!

[torao-chan]

here's leo's lil ramble on the touchstarved demo update (from what we've been able to put time into so far) for anyone who wants ittttttt

I've spent a fair bit of time ruminating on the updated demo for touchstarved. haven't played it extensively yet (aka focused on leander [no one is surprised] and played the new background while doing so) because of real life restrictions, but i have played leander's section through and fiddled with his dialogue options at the latter half.

and my conclusion on the changes is that it's going to be hard for me to give solid feedback on it.

it feels, to me, as if they're attempting to shift what one's first impression of leander is.

they've changed his speech patterns- his lexicon, his boldness in giving opinions and taking a stance, his demeaner- in his introduction scene. There is, I think, only one line I can recall (off the top of my head) that I know hasn't changed in this demo...

(and it stand out to me because of that; the magical flower quote, about how they fade so quickly under closer inspection is the general gist. a line that feels quintessential to how leander's route will play out, based on my interpretation of everything redspring has put out so far.)

The mood has shifted in this whole introduction scene; Leander comes off as more obviously well educated, his 'business student bullshit' talk levels are higher, and in the scenes involving the other adderstones, he commands more more obvious level of respect (and, as a result, a less 'buddy-buddy we're all equals here' vibe). even his connection with the senobium is outright stated, though the degrees to which are not. i remember when that was just theory.

the change from bloodhounds to adderstones i'll address in a sec, but also i think the person who addressed the removal of dog/wolf references from both the player and leander's sections, but the way it remained in ais's was onto smth too

past the introduction scene (which, as I've said before; first impressions are essential, and character introduction scenes even more so as a result), the impression we get of leander... is both the same, and very different.

I feel like, if I were less 'me', I would pick up the vibes I got from the first version of the demo- which is good, because when play testing with my friend who is less uh. media literate??? media analysis brained??? than I am, she dismissed him as 'boring guy with nothing dangerous or interesting about him'. which is to say, in this demo, it feels more 'obvious' that he's a lil' sly, a fair bit yandere, and absolutely attempting to promise intimacy and 'love', but that it's empty-ish and self-motivated to an unknown degree.

however, because I am me, Leander in this demo- feels less dangerous to me. less competent, actually, might be a better word. this may be intentional, it may not, but its through the exact 'slip ups' that happen to clue in 'not-me' into Leander's 'wait... something funky is going on here' that make 'me' me go 'oh. he's not that good at this, huh? it's... really obvious what he's trying to do here.

to elaborate on these slightly....

during the intro scene, he doesn't turn to greet us until we go 'kuras sent us'. it feels intentional to me me, and heavy handed- but to not-me, it feels frustrating and forces us to be aware of 'other things' going on. (other things being the group dynamics internally and to outsiders, the weight of kuras' name, the power and sway leander holds, ect)

post group meet up, he pulls us out of the crowded pub for our lil one on one bonding session. this is nice, sure, because leander was previously the only person never really alone with the player in the post section. but it's in this section that he slips up- becomes more comfortable in the room too fast, self-corrects, and then forces intimacy too intentionally after.

his dialogue on the other characters is more flirty for all except kuras in my interpretation- and if I hadn't been looking directly at this prior to the demo update coming out, I may not have caught it- but there we have it.

lastly, not a slip up, but- the change to adderstone feels heavy handed, as someone who looks up symbolism and already has A Thousand And One Theories on leanders backstory, his other symbols, and the like. h o w e v e r to not-me who hasn't looked into these, and doesn't do so, however, the name is merely a "huh. that's a word" situation.

all this, as i've said, has lead me to the conclusion i've already stated-

the changes made to leander feel like changes i am ill-suited to give proper feedback on- because i already have a very solid opinion on leander, and have already experienced my 'first impression' of him.

that means I feel they're going to struggle to find proper feedback on the changes because it feels like it's trying to target that-- though i've tried my best to do so through this with my me/not-me versions.

me, as i am, would find him less intruiging at a glance- because, as an intro, it makes what he's doing feels so obvious to me that it's not worth a deeper look.

not-me, however, still likes these character tropes and would know what i was getting into, and would want to pursue it further.

overall, my conclusion is, I think the changes made are not made lightheartedly, and are a good change for previewing what Leander's route will involve to a wider audience. However, I solidly feel that they are changes that the longstanding fans are possibly ill-suited to review, and it would require newcomers to properly make that evaluation, simply because the change impacts first impression so much.

with that said.

there is one change however, that i noted, that gives me hope that when i have some more goddamned time and energy more of a chance to examine the demo update as i want to do so, i'll find that the 'less competent about what he's doing' is simply another deception.

Leander's dialogue tree, at the end of the demo, feels infamous to me. Well known for it's 'positive/negative' flip-flopping, but perhaps I'm biased. But it was the section I was studying right before the demo came out--and Leander's lines that caught my eye right before have changed.

Leander presses sexual passes into comments on all the other LIs one way or another- besides Kuras. We know Kuras has been a constant in Leander's life "since he was young", and that their relationship is "admires him professionally" from Leander and feels very parental from Kuras.

Which is why, in the prior demo, Leander slipping up and forgetting to comment negatively on Kuras when the player was positive about him up until the player reminds him that Kuras is a threat to Leander's grip over them was both in character and hilarious a chance to see the mask slip slightly.

he doesn't do that in the update.

I can't remember the exact new line- Imma gonna have to go through and compare all of them when I can (and I did take screenshots but have since had to get a whole ass new computer for Reasons™️) but he doesn't do that now.

and I find that a fascinating development.

But my fascination aside, that gives me hope that despite the 'dumbing down' of Leander's intro (so to speak; i can't find a better term atm pls forgive my tired brain) and the hints it gives to his path, the team haven't actually dumbed down Leander.

They've just more heavily sprinkled the chances for the player to learn more about what his route may contain.

And that, I can appreciate, is a smart move.

That's about as concise as my thoughts have gotten, with what I've gotten to play so far, and what I've been seeing floating around my dash.

I don't have much more to say about the update yet- simply due to a lack of chance to thoroughly explore it all- but I will comment that!! I do like the new background option!!

I didn't appreciate how all the prior backgrounds had to have the 'you have been betrayed and bitter by it' running in the background, and I also felt that they were??? Mildly unbalanced???

Not in the 'there's no option that Fits Me Better' way (though the new one, the Exile, has rung closest for me yet [it was the Unnamed prior]). But in the 'pick a skillset' way.

It was 'sixth sense' OR 'street smarts' OR 'bookworm smart'. You couldn't pick a 'moderate' options, there was no 'in between', and all of them felt very strongly like you were assigning a weak point/strong point that may cause a dissonence clash between you and the player character if you were, per say, a more balanced and moderate individual.

which is, in and of itself, a weak point, but like- there was no 'jack of all trades, master of none' option.

The Exile taking the hound slot, and being described not as 'STREET SMARTS', but as 'experienced with multiple cultures and experiences, so good sense and wide general knowledge, but not Trained In Anything' feels like a very good sub in for me.

I like that it was added, and where it was put.

But again, perhaps I'm biased, because I saw it and immediately went 'oh!! that!!! thats me!!! thats me right there!!!!!!!'. and, as anyone who knows me irl will tell you, 'well traveled hermit' is almost exactly how most would describe me OTL

I didn't want to leave that unsaid, cause I've seen a lot of differing opinions on the new background add in, but also. it's less 'analytical' compared to my leander commentary so.

mildly different section but!!!

had to be said.

overall, from what I've seen!

love the update, love the changes made, and can appreciate what the changes were going for. super geared up and excited to see the game when it's finished, and I'm loving all the lil breadcrumbs we're getting in the meantime!!

and last but not least!!

love this stupid lil mf and his lil stupid mf puppy eyes.

15/10 i am consuming him whole.

thank you for coming to my ted talk uwu

EDIT: OH AND ALSO! I like the blinks that were added in. and I like that they were tied to Specific Points In Dialogue.

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2024-09-14

(Previous post - current page 666)

Section 4 (now 5 since they added an hourglass to replay the intro, gee that's not symbolic of the time being spent here) of page 666 is now upd8'd, let's dive in! I had a busy weekend and visited a relative's place for a party I didn't know had cats for hours (super double allergic) that will probably knock me the fuck out for a day or two starting tomorrow so I'd better finish this post tonight before that happens!

Another aside before we begin, I haven't looked at much of the commentary stuff but on twitter I saw this particular bit from the past art commentary on the main account:

"...but I think it made a lot of sense to us that a character tucked away in the Candy timeline (even guided by mysterious visions and borrowed intuitions [borrowed from whom, I wonder...?]) wouldn't necessarily be able to wrap their head around the pure, potent purpose of The Plot Point[...]"

I thought this may have meant something even more significant when I was skimming and glanced at it, but it seems pretty clear to me now that I'm actually paying attention and not at all surprising, in line with our existing guesses but still important. To quote the page in question they're referencing, its dialoguelog:

CALLIOPE: yoU remember how we got so wrapped Up in the initial excitement of finding the singUlarity and the rUined jUjU arch, and sUbseqUently stabilizing it with oUr sUper cool cherUbic-lalondian tech... ROXY: its true our tech really is so fkn cool... CALLIOPE: and then, well... it felt like we were on sUch a roll when we came to the conclUsion that we needed to leverage vriska's hyperrelevance to scUrry oUt of here... ROXY: we did have a whole bunch of high fives about that... CALLIOPE: it was an exhilarating breakthroUgh! CALLIOPE: and an eqUally exhilarating high-five session! CALLIOPE: bUt then the conflict began to ramp Up, and yoUr son got into all those shenanigans, and i wanted yoU to feel like i had everything Under control down here so yoU could attend to it! CALLIOPE: and all that notwithstanding, we really DID need to hUrry Up and do SOMETHING. CALLIOPE: i worried that perhaps yoU'd be a bit relUctant to pUll the trigger on this if it felt like all the details weren't lined Up. CALLIOPE: and so i... CALLIOPE: well, i sUppose i might have implied a more complete knowledge of the a to zed of all this then i actUally... possessed. CALLIOPE: and continUe to possess.

In other words, Calliope and Roxy came to some startling breakthroughs and were guided to this course of action -- as if by a muse! -- through ideas that came together as if it hadn't quite been THEIR OWN plan all along. They were... inspired. And Callie and Roxy over in the CANON timeline were working on a plan for victory apart from alt!Callie which was cut off and unsaid, and we already had reason to believe that the entire SHAPE of the events of Candy had been essentially "written" as fanfiction by canon Calliope all over her as-of-yet unseen walls. Meaning that even though alt!Calliope doesn't act very happy about this plan of theirs, it was never HER plan-- it was a plan that spanned two different instances of Calliope and Roxy, across space and time and the canon barrier, possibly even across their shared Hearts, their not-yet-accessed Ultimate Selves which connect all instances of Roxy with Roxy and all instances of Calliope with Calliope. Their use of the plot point falls in line with Calliope and Roxy's plan across both stories... quite likely the most important plan at all, especially when alt!Callie keeps wanting to discount it. A plan where Roxy looks at the tumor-like growth of the House representing the shape of Homestuck and doesn't consider it too messy to be worth keeping around or in need of a total pruning/reset. A plan where everything they experienced in both places has value.

Alright, on to the update! Ooh, the others are numbered and this is labelled with chapter numbers 1 thru 4 but this one is "Chapter X", wonder if that's meaningful or a typo since we're getting some kind of Davepetasprite interlude. Honestly, I think a large part of what Vriska has been experiencing, this therapy, has been guided not just by Light or by Davepeta and the other squareds and the ghosts trapped here, but also by Vriska's Ultimate Soul/Self, ie the broader Heart of Vriska which has spanned all Vriskas and perhaps has the ability and knowledge to learn all her best lessons, instead of falling into Ultimate Dirk's trap of self as would normally seem most likely for Vriska. Let me just stop listening to the Murder Drones OST and get on with liveblogging, don't listen to the OST yourself it's too easy to spoil yourself seriously just watch the series from ep 1 (try even ONE MINUTE OR TWO of it) and know it gets increasingly better per episode. (Ahem... Shilling my interests aside...) *Clicking.*

Oh, no wonder it's "Chapter X", huh. so 5 is going to be the last? Or 6(66)?

Holy shit, that's some trepidation in their cool enby ass's expression. Is Davepeta embarrassed to be talking to Erisolsprite? I mean I don't know any other sprite squareds who could be here except... oh no, she couldn't be here, could she?? Not Jasprose?!

Some Dave-like riffing about the ringtone (which might be a meta joke about the new banging little ditty in the background music they used so the music wouldn't be the same), let's see...

Yeah it's Erisolsprite^2.

ERISOLSPRITE: dude.

hahahaha gosh talk about someone both sides of you have every reason to be sort of annoyed with but there's few others to talk to. Also technically, if Sprite^2s get a folding-in of all their other selves like an Ultimate Self as was implied repeatedly, this Erisolsprite includes all the Eridans who DIDN'T go on a genocidal rampage nad did better, and Solluxes who DIDN'T keep the same counterproductive outlook despite some crucial awesome actions, so perhaps he's not so ba- (EDIT FROM A FEW PARAGRAPHS DOWN: never mind I forgot it was one sprite prototyped by two corpses, there's no squared next to his name, he's not a squared sprite at all so not ultimate and very instanced, my misconceptions continue for a few sentences--) oh pff they're pinging him on his phone despite them being right next to them, I get it. XD

Oh, Erisol was calling THEM and THEY were hesitant to PICK UP the phone. Which he was calling despite being right next to them.

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < hahaha yeah i will, sorry man

Aww, gosh you're cool.

SDFJKLHLSDJKF

OH MY GOD I WAS WRONG I WAS RIGHT EARLIER OMFG THERE AREN'T EVEN TWO OF THEM THIS IS THE SAME ONE WHO IS OVER HELPING MEAT/CANON JANE PROBABLY LOSE THE ELECTION TO A TROLL RESIDENT OF HER WORLD AND REALIZE SHE HAS A RESPONSIBILITY TO CEDE CONTROL OF THEIR CREATION TO ITS INHABITANTS AAAAAAAAAA did that bonus material continue when HS2 resumed i havent even CHECKED since ages ago!?!?? don't answer that i don't even remember if iw as fully caught up on it ill browse thru the material and figure it out without spioling myself lather dsfjlk can't type JASPROSE IS HERE (ON THE PHONE (FROM A DIFFERENT PLANE)) AAAAAA

Dammit, you ascended ultimate Seer of Light plus cat, yes Davepeta WAS doing that thing where they started roleplaying outloud to themselves instead of picking up. Rose has always had uncanny guesses as to how someone was answering or avoiding answering her all throughout Homestuck from Act 1 onwards, and it was always a Seer of Light thing. Jasprose is obviously even better at it and also YEAH THESE TWO HAVE SOME BAGGAGE MAYBE between them even as ultimate selves!! No wonder Davepeta gets nervous about starting a conversation with her. Wait. Waitwaitwait.

Rose was a WANNABE PSYCHOTHERAPIST.

An Ultimate Rose instance like Jasprose might be a REAL PSYCHOTHERAPIST DOING EFFECTIVE THERAPY from parts of Rose within her who followed the non-amateur path due to her interests, and helping guide this entire Plot Point hyperbolic therapy chamber that seems so conveniently super on point for what Vriska psychologically needs!!!!!

...Davepeta did you just do a "nipah" is that a weeaboo thing

my google searching comes up with nothing but a zoonotic virus for the word, someone context me plz (EDIT: Good context has been provided here! That's a damned good point with the ultimate selves playing chess outside of canon with the inside of canon, that's very Umineko from what I've seen of it.)

Oh my god I still love her so fucking much. (Also I was right that this is "canon" Jasprose, in the bonus material, and her using the dubious canonicity of the setting she's ginned up for Jane and crew is awesome for an excuse to let her reach here, that's superb.)

Reading more into that line, The Plot Point's "hyperconcentrated essentiality field"... that sure sounds like Light, like a concentration of Light that simply cannot escape from its black hole container? *click...*

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < i hate that i understand what youre saying when you speak like this

LOL

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Isn't it delightful?

SHE'S HAVING A BLAST I LOVE HER LOOK AT HER LAUGH SPRITE I'M NOT SCREENSHOTTING

okay Davepeta has shortened it to The Point (again)

JASPROSESPRITE^2: How delightfully quirky! Let's get to ours, shall we?

JASPROSE LOOKS SO COY BUT I'M TOO EXHAUSTED TO SCREENSHOT HOW MUCH I LOVE HER

She's been having an incredible time? Theraputically scenario-driving Jane and crew, or helping here from the background?

EMBRACE the ship of the Dad Crocker and whichever midnight crew carapace he was working with i forget exactly if it was Slick or DD was it Slick? ship. EMBRACE THE SHIP and the silliness of them tracking after you-- wait wasn't there some hubbub they'd caused the main Jane crew after we last left off that bonus before the HS2 gigapause / team change? Fuck I forget. I'll refresh myself on all this some other time, I promise, I'm regaining my health and energy and there's tons of other stuff (including rereading my own liveblog of the bonus material before catching up on it) I have to get to if I don't want to lose track of whatever the fuck I might have thought was going on before seeing if there's more I missed.

They've been on your tails, I see what you did there.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Eugh!

I've personally never met a lesbian that was too lesbian to appreciate a proper m/m relationship for solidarity's sake, but Jasprose IS sort of a self-loving lesbian singularity.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: But hey! Downing cold drinks and dodging hot lead, Midnight City certainly doesn't disappoint!

You're god damned right.

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < jasprose... youve been drinking?

Oh nooooo. DD: Davepeta's worry hurts my soul, she had better respond she is functionally immune to alcoholism in this form or some shit

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Please. JASPROSESPRITE^2: You know it's only milk bars for me.

HAHAHAA DAMMIT

It took way too long to realize she wasn't talking about Mom Lalonde's martinis and was instead amusing herself by talking about COW MILK in the most disturbing way possible and also the way Jaspers would

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Speaking of, I've made fantastic progress with the enchanting, yet problematic Ms. Crocker.

(Oh you incorrigible flirt.) I wonder if we're about to get a summary-form hint of the most important bonus content's drive to conclusion if the team isn't planning on continuing it separately themselves, so we get to hear the major twist and results (that those of us who caught onto the direction) may have already deduced will happen from there (that one side troll running against Jane or convincing her to drop out and winning the election for Earth C president instead of Jane)?

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < "enchanting yet prowlblematic" DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < thats gotta be your favorite combination JASPROSESPRITE^2: Guilty as charged!

i love them, them Davepeta and them plural both sprites

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Sigh, it's almost a shame I'll have to pass her off soon!

Yes, it DOES seem we're getting hints to how that'll turn out, regardless if we ever see it live or not. But that's to be expected from a Seer of Light. I wonder if Jane and Jake ever had hope of a healthy relationship, or if there's some new pairing to be had that I've forgotten we were potentially driving towards?

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Her politics are still a little eye-brow raising, but they won't raise any torches and pitchforks yet.

Wait, I'd assumed that previous line of hers was talking about her relationship status, not the scenario itself. Either way, I've already covered in past bonus material liveblogging that Jasprose's efforts will ultimately correct Jane, regardless of her current (less Candy) political position (for the near future anyway), to be stood the fuck aside as Earth C wins dominion over itself and the Gods understand they don't run the place, just as Yiffy recently covered should have been the fucking case. I believe in Jasprose AND in Jane Crocker, they have this covered together. Jake specifically alluded very recently in Candy to himself that there exists a world where Jane wouldn't have turned out the way she did in Candy at all, and that that'll have to be enough for him, something only a Hope player very VERY committed to possibility and his aspect could use to justify his move forward away from and against her.

Ooh, now Jasprose is talking about developments regarding her timeline's Jake English and his "broken-hearted malaise" he's locked into, she's definitely trying to save him, too.

Yep, she's pointing the bat to the fences like Babe Ruth and saying we'll SEE Jake on the path to a fulfilling life before curtains are called on the story on the Canon side, and I certainly hope that's the case.

Pff, meta commentary on "how many w33ks of developments has this b33n" because those bonus materials were staaaalled. If Jasprose has half their temporal meta-awareness, their response will be...

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Oh Davepeta, we've only been out on the town for a single, sensual, enlightening night!

Impossible to tell whether she's aware of the metatemporal aspect she's utterly dunking on with this in-canon temporal truth, whether she's ignorant of it or dunking intentionally on the difference. XD

Ooh, the other Ultimate Seer of Light of the Meat timeline is disconnected enough from her other robotic self's Dirk-brainwashing and obsession with canon to tell how key what is being done in the Hyperbolic Therapy Chamber is for both timelines combined, however the fuck that's going to play out. *clicks*

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < well i mean DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < its going

GAHAHAH is she actually genuinely shocked that Vriska is making psychological progress?!?!? Because from a psychologist-like perspective YEAH THAT'S SUPER SHOCKING, but from a Seer of Light perspective i can't help but think she's playing it up for the lol(cat)s

"That bad?" Oh dear, yeah okay maybe she's expecting it wouldn't have taken... quite as long... but she might believe in her fellow Light player a little more than deserved, given her taste for the "enchanting yet problematic". Vriska NEEDED this much time to iron herself out, there wasn't any real option than this much ironing in the fire to work out anything close to the lifetime's worth of trauma she'd gone through. (Also punways and conceptually, VRISKA being the iron in the fire (of hell) is hilarious.)

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < JR were fucked

(translation: JaspRose, we're fucked)

I wonder if Vriska really is going to finish her therapy while in here or if she has to 8r8k break out before she's come to a satisfied conclusion after that last bit of trauma beyond overcoming enough to START moving on. Actually, you know, that might just be for the best. Allow her to get her final resolutions through the end of the plot even moreso than already planned, rather than finishing all of her necessary therapy from WITHIN the plot point.

Or maybe they, or we, just need to clap their hands and believe in Pupa Pan's fairy just that little tiny bit harder.

Pff, you tell 'em. (But, is your time REALLY so unlimited? And if it isn't, wouldn't you know? Also, nice hyperbolic time chamber reference yet again, since the first ones all the way back in Homestuck original, and considering we're literally in one.)

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but god daaaaaaaamn its 8 steps forward 7 leaps back every session

ahahahahah therapy. ahh therapy. therapy. :T look everyone should go to therapy i know it's frustrating but THERAPY HELPS when the therapist is good and you should shop around for a therapist you really feel gets and believes in y-- okay i'm too tired to get into THAT spiel moving on. I need to pick up the pace and keep reading so i can get this fucking DONE tonight and not do every quote in full detail

"this therapist shit is not easy" yeah you got that right

pffdsh NO DON'T GO FREUD WITH SMASHING 8-BALLS

wait she's smashing 8-balls now? again? more? I think she's finally perhaps meant to get the lesson those smashings are meant to represent, from the original comic run, if that last icon in the scenario is any indication... Kanaya's simple lesson that if she cleaned up her room, she wouldn't step on so many d8's and consider her luck so "bad" as the cause...

pff Davepeta can't map freudian parentage onto trolls lol

"youd probably be way better at this than me" well that confirms they're TRYING and perhaps being somewhat coy about not playing the therapist-- no they were never coy about that, Davepeta just said he had no idea how to do it which was true, so... who's guiding the scenario, like I asked before? From whence the self-confrontations, but the self?

"I would, yes." Are you still an untrained amateur though, even though you're a Seer of Light and suited to guide people onto the best path for themselves if you do your best anyway?

"im in hell and you dont even care" lolol its funny cause you should understand cats Davepeta

"it turns out hell is trying to get vriska serket to change her mind" LOLOLOL

NICE pun there because she is also literally trying to change her mind

Ooh Jasprose doesn't even know how long it's been. Davepeta says it's been an hour outside... and in "Centralized Point Time (CPT)" NO DAVE FUCKING STOP THAT'S A BAD RACIST JOKE YOU ASSHOLE YES I'M BLAMING THE DAVE SIDE OF YOU FOR THAT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND COASTING ON GOOD KARMA TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE YOU WERE BEING IRONICALLY PSEUDORACIST THAT DOESN'T WORK PEOPLE HAVE TRIED IT

(I wonder if that was a genuine white-person accident and they'll re-edit and change that joke but i doubt it somehow, the accident part not the changing it part, though to be fair I don't even think they fixed the Jaspers funeral time discrepancy in early early HS2 i pointed out, i'd have to go back and look)

--(ahem, nvm that) oh god one hour to four years yeah that's a fucking time translation. I was wondering just how long things would have been progressing on the outside, I knew it would hopefully be quick from the others' perspective but... Yeah seeing the ratio is always stark.

Whoa, Jasprose is shocked/surprised?! (I guess the Point IS ensconced in void...) And yeah most would be shocked to hear.

"What have you even been doing there for 4 years?"

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < chilling

ahh, never change, the rest of Davepeta.

"That's all you've been doing? Chilling?" "p much" Yeah never change.

"Fucking incredible." AHAAHA JASPROSE GETS IT, I'd fistbunp her!

"I suppose it'd be in line with her particular brand to extend her stay another 4 years." Oh dear don't even 8-joke about that jasprose

"god can you imagine" okay PHEW looks like davepeta is laughing and understands it wont work out THAT badly

... the background went empty........ is this a unique dramatic pause for Davepeta to come back and say "oh fuck it probably will", or the end of the section?

Oh, clicking again made it go white and go back to the select screen.

...and the last icon is a whole 8-ball, which means the joke could be that FOUR MORE YEARS LATER could be the opening caption for the next section, oh god oh god oh GOD

...alright, phew, there wasn't too much content to blog about there. I'm free to relax for a bit. Probably will have other stuff going on because my weeks are getting busier, though even that tiny glimpse of relevant hint-dropping in earlier commentary at the start means I SHOULD PROBABLY GET ON THAT COMMENTARY but won't have energy or time............. ah well whatever, I won't beat myself up about it, you get the Boots that you get. or bladekindeyewear or right i have two screennames. Toodeloo! How the fuck do you spell that... Oh, I got it right the first time, it just red-underlined it because i'm American. Toodeloo, 'til next update or the next time I'm free and bored and have enough energy to think of doing blogwork!

Also it's possibly notable that even though we've only had 4-plus-X chapters, chapter 5 (the eight ball not done yet) is followed by the BOTTOM LINK for NEXT that could serve as a chapter 6 (for 666) or plunge us into just two more in a separate S-or-non-S thing until Chapter 8.

Maybe to fit with the Hell theme we'll have just TWO more years instead of four... making this a total of 6 years she's skipped. What timeframe catches her up with Candy John to start flirting, if she were to land at about the same age? Someone else do the math for me, I'm too exhausted tonight. Byeeeeeeee!

[steviestits]

WIP Weekend

So this week went pretty well. Managed to update every day, Hopefully I can keep that up. -knocks on wood- Going to add alien breeder and snow queen back on the list, btw. And wasn't having fun with the boot camp fic, so replaced it with one where Stevie tried to sacrifice Eddie but it backfired and turned her a bit of a slut for Eddie. It makes sense in story.

Alien breeder, I have an ending, except I set the goal post further for myself since my mind didn't think part of what I planned was possible unless I moved the scene elsewhere, which complicated things... I think if I can get to the part right before the BIG ending then I can push myself the rest of the way.

Then snow queen, it's "done," I guess. But I don't like what I wrote for Steve's intro to the frost palace. I don't think it matches up with the later scenes, so I'm going to be redoing it, yet need a push to force myself to redo it, otherwise I'm going to continue to flounder on it. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I just don't want to post something that I'm unhappy with, you know?

Anyway, you know the rules, but as a refresher, send in an emoji and I'll write three sentences then share those sentences here. You can send me as many as you want! There's no limit.

🛁 dystopia spa au

🐙 mad scientist mer au

😈 succubus pet au

🦇 urban legend

⚜️ Eddie’s new concubine

🍼 Babysitter Bimbo

🪄 Fae Mafia au

🗡️ Demon Cursed Stevie

💋 Fix-it fic aka s4 shouldn't have killed off bimbo Steve

⁉️ Steddie Big Bang

🛸Alien Breeder

❄️ Snow Queen

Alien Breeder Snippet (So you can see the mess I created for myself)

“Which apartment is ours?” Stevie asked.

“All of it. The whole building.”

“What!? Oh, shit, are you like one of those really rich space pirates? Are you more famous than I realized, Eds?”

“Sort of,” Eddie said with a laugh. “While my career has been very prolific, we have this because that’s how little of us are left. It might have looked like a lot out there, but the rest of the planet, the cities are empty with only some starting to be filled again. To pool our resources, everyone moved here in an attempt to bolster our numbers that way.”

Frowning, Stevie hadn’t realized the situation was that bad. No wonder why they needed so many humans.

“There are so many humans in storage. It feels like a waste just leaving them there, waiting for someone to claim them one day to make them mothers.”

“I mean, kind of, but not much we can do until more studs are born and come of age to claim a breeder. That’s, of course, if they want to pick a converted human as they’ve been mating more among the other offspring.”

“Then- Well...” Stevie bit her lip. “In Earth movies, sometimes when there’s a dystopia like this, they have um... I don’t know what they’d be called exactly. I guess, dedicated breeders?”

“Dedicated breeders?”

“Yeah, you strap them down and their only job is to pop out babies. You said that I’d have slower pregnancies from now on, but what if they didn’t? They could just pop out babies as fast as they can be grown in their wombs. And the babies can go to loving mothers, like me, who’ll raise them to help everything get back to the way it was. As long as the babies go to a mother who loves them, that’s all that matters, right?”

[chilibeanir]

intro for blog

Hiiiii ;] Here’s an intro to my blog:

We post a lot about nonhumanity and nonterrestialism as well as our gender, sexuality, oc stuff, nuerodivergacy, plurality and just other stuff that comes to mind. Might vent a bit but we’ll be sure to add trigger warnings. 

We also my post art sometimes but we are a frequent base user and a beginner artist pls be kind(I will try to credit base makers assuming the base I use is not a repost) 

Name: Chili

Autism, adhd, did, npd, szpd, ppd?, aspd traits

Physically disabled

Unlabeled/Aromantic/Asexual/Intersex?/Agender collectively

Pronouns: it/its collectively

DNI if: harmful paraphiles, anyone under 13, discrimatory person (queerphobe, racist, ableist, etc), proshippers, if you are on this list I will block you if you attempt to interact with me.

Collective Kintypes: border collie, clado kitten, axolotl, Vaporeon, time, and Eddie Munson (Stranger Things)

We also believe that we are also nonterrestrial being whose is not from any planet but instead from space. We call ourselves a Child of the Stars but that’s a less technical term. Our soul is supposed to be in space but was placed in a human body at birth.

We are kinfluid!

longer DID post

Feel free to interact with me through replies, asks, reblogs!

[penaconys-radical-bellboy]

Oof. When was the last time we made an actual post that wasn't bingo cards or just reblogging smt??

Heya chat , if you recognize the dividers it's me , Andre currently typing. I feel like y'all need an update because I said so and yeahh.

So recently we've been streaming on twitch for the last 2 nights , so we haven't been able to post much since we basically sleep all day until after 8pm or something.

The lack of posts is cause we've recently split a new headmate (don't worry we're all good now, this was a few days ago.) and we've been taking time to show the new comer around in the innerworld , and this world.

We got ourselves re-hyperfixated on DnD again so we might post a bit more about DND , including transID terms and writing again! So look out for that.

We haven't had much motivation to make by userboxes , profile packs or stuff like that so people in the inbox , I hope your patient and I apologized for leaving your asks unanswered.

We do however want to start making aac discord emojis related to transIDs and being radqueer !! So feel free to request for emojis.

We've successfully made the transID and radqueer resources profile! We will not share the URL or what the account is just yet , as we want to make an intro and a few posts about the page first before revealing it. The account is solely ran on our headmate , Clem , and they claim not to want help with the account so we are leaving everything onto them as requested.

If you have questions about Clem themselves , or want an intro on them , their intro will be made soon !! In short term however , they are an introject from the character Clementine from Yaelokre. They use They/it/xe/fuzz/soft pronouns regularly and do not want to be addressed as a human , nor in any gendered way.

I think that was everything !! Inbox is still open to questions or unrelated things , DMs are still closed , if you want our discord just ask , ect ect.

[ghostlycircaea]

Time to update my pinned post while I have the motivation!

Hey ya'll! As always this is mostly for organization and unabashed self-promo--I didn't do an intro or anything last time, so you can call me Ghostie or Callie ❤️ I'm a freelance artist and painting instructor whose been on here for a lot longer than this account would imply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All of my art is (or should be) under: #Calliedrawsghosts

So the biggest update (and I'll probably make a separate post about this later): commissions are currently open! See all of the listings here:

https://artistree.io/ghostlycircaea

(If you’re looking for something I don’t have listed or you’d rather use paypal, DM me and I’ll let you know if your project is something I can take on!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My portfolio is here!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stories

This is by no means a comprehensive list of stuff I have/am working on, but these are my main projects that I've put the most effort into.

Lethal Dose

Under : #A Lethal Dose

Annabelle is a private detective with some particularly questionable clientele--namely the Solanum family. When the family head is murdered, it was a natural conclusion for his son and successor to ask her to help solve the case. Annabelle might have thought the case was a good bit of fun, if only the primary suspects weren't leading somewhere a little too personal.

There isn't too much here at the moment, since I haven't spent much time on the one recently, but I have a cover and a few full pages posted!

Missing

Under: #Missing Ghosts

In the ruins of an earthquake ravaged mall, a group of teens find an unconscious young girl. At the hospital she claims to be Katie Easton--a girl who went missing alongside her twin sister ten years ago. But if she really was Katie Easton, then how had she seemingly not aged a day? And what had happened to her sister?

AC Odyssey:

And finally, the one I think most of my followers have at least stumbled across!

Under #ChildrenoftheMountain au

When Alexios had staggered to his feet after being thrown from Mount Taygetos, he believed himself to be the only one to survive. But stepping over the priest's corpse towards the bundle of blankets beyond him proved him wrong.  Nearly a decade and a half later, the relative safety they had found in Kephallonia was quickly vanishing. With Kausos burned to the ground and the cult having found them once again, the list of reasons to stay was quickly dwindling. When the opportunity to board the Adrestia and never look back presents itself, Alexios, with Kassandra and Phoibe in tow, takes the chance. 

(I swear I'm working on the next chapter, alas it's been fighting me.)

Some other stuff:

Want to see the references I use? Here's my nightmare reference board that took hours to organize! https://pin.it/7qkmgugUB

I'm also Enchanters_Ghost over on AO3

For any other links:

https://linktr.ee/ghostlycircaea

[nyanzzu]

INTRO

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚★⋆｡˚ ⋆┊ ┊ ┊ ⋆┊ ┊ ★⋆┊ ◦★⋆ ┊ . ˚ ˚★

hai!!! ^^

new system blog!

this is a usdd blog; my personal jiraiblog is @fishbonemarrowxx

heres a little info ₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

-this will be open to all my alters!! as of now, i don't know all of them. hopefully we can all get to know each other a little better with this.

-we have usdd, though i personally don't bother with details. there are other alters with more detailed understanding of our condition, but we are professionally diagnosed.

-we are traumagenic, and i(bone) am neutral on endos. i can't speak on the behalf of the others; ill update if it changes.

we talked it over; we're antiendo. endos dni.

-feel free to send any asks abt anything. this is a very new thing, tho, nd i think it might take a bit for all of us to accustom to it.

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚★⋆｡˚ ⋆┊ ┊ ┊ ⋆┊ ┊ ★⋆┊ ◦★⋆ ┊ . ˚ ˚★

ALTERS:

host: rad ; SHE/HER ;she doesn't have a sign off. she's the core, and kinda cool idk

co-host: franny ; SHE/HER ;uses 💕 and ❤️. she's a little and audhd. she's kinda annoying sry franny

co-host2: bee ; SHE/IT/XE; uses 🩰 or 🧦. she's also a little and honestly i don't think she'll rly post- but I don't know her well

main: five ; ANY PRONOUNS ; uses 🧩. he's nice

bone/minnow ; HE/SHE/THEY/IT ; i use 🎣 or sometimes 🦴. I'm the fucking best lolz, probably online most idk we've been switchg asf tho

atlas/valen ; HE/SHE/THEY ; uses 🦷 and👙i think. he's really quiet idk😭

vgag ; HE/THEY ; he doesn't like us i don't think, he doesn't sign off and kind of fuckign sucks man

tsubasa/nanika ; THEY/THEM ; idk

onodera ; HE/IT ; lmfao a punpun fictive idk him either

Aren ; He/Him; i use 💫! Nice to meet you!

those are all the guys I know 🤷‍♂️I tried to sound professional gigggle ....

lmao if any of you see this then feel free to edit it js don't change the actual stuff ifykwim... fuck you

IF YOURE NOT ON HERE, ADD YOURSELF PLEASE!!!! I HAVENT TALKED TO ANYONE SINCE RAD MADE THE SIMPLY PLURAL THING

everyone else... WELCOME LMFAO!!! idk what this will lead to but I'm kind of excited to see if anyone finds this- it'll also keep franny off my fucking account😭😭 send in asks and stuff idk!!!! thankies!!!

-🎣🦴

[makotokagutsuwuchi]

Hii everyone! This is a sideblog I've made for more personal posts :3 I will probably be the one using it the most, but other alters might appear too occasionally. This is our main account where we post and rb art, and also where we will be following and liking from! Be sure to check it out :3

Personal intro~

I'm a fictive of Makoto Kagutsuchi from Raincode and the current host of the cyanide system!

My pronouns are he/him and I'm transmasc. I'm okay with fem terms tho and I use them for myself a lot lol just no she/her please!!

I'm a puppy therian and owned by my beautiful amazing bf <333 I'm absolutely whipped and you Will hear about it sorry not sorry. I'm also an omega (miscecanis) and have some strong instincts related to it.

Sourcemates feel free to interact I love y'all!!! Same goes for anyone else who wants to be mutuals or friends!

For a more detailed bio, check out my spacehey blog entry where I talk about myself and my identity and stuff :3

Boundaries

DNI if you are:

• A double (no hard feelings!! It just makes me feel Weird)

• A Makoto selfshipper/yume (bf gets jealous sorry!! Feel free to interact with our art blog/main tho!)

• Looking for discourse or to argue or etc.

When interacting with this account;

• Please use tone tags, especially if you're going to be mean as a joke. I don't mind it, but I usually need the clarification!

• Feel free to talk abt source, but please keep in mind that it is all very real to me!

• Feel free to treat me as ur blorbo lol but don't be romantic towards me or the bf will come for ur ass <3

Tags (list may expand over time)

#makoto yaps - self explanatory, this is a tag I will use for my text posts.

#sillyposting - tag for (possibly nonsensical) posts where I'm in a silly mood !!

#puppyposting - for posts related to being a fuckinf ouppy :3

#hornyposting - for nsfw posts.

#rb - for reblogs (duh)

#identities/flags

#miscecanis

Feel free to block any of these if you don't want to see the content!

Other relevant info

• We are autistic, brazillian and an adult.

• I'm a bit anxious about interacting first so please do so I'm begging you /lh

• Cyan can be used as a common name for all of us!

• my therian identity overlaps a Lot with my gender identity, sexuality, and how I express both of these things.

• I am also a hypersexual alter and might talk/rb sexual or suggestive stuff a lot. This includes some "weird" and/or violent kinks. If this bothers you, block the #hornyposting tag. -> update: I'm now too shy to post this stuff here most of the time. I made a new side blog for it.

I guess this is it for today!! This post will probably be updated over time, and this blog is still under construction so uh don't judge the appearance too much for now lol. Bye!! I look forward to interacting more with everyone!

[blackjackkent]

Ramble time!

I've had a couple of new followers recently specifically because of my recent prompt fills regarding Jaheira and Khalid's relationship, so I figured it might be time for a bit of a welcome/summary post!

I have at this point started to develop a fairly extensive and specific mental canon for Jaheira (bc she is my favorite character in the series, and because @astreamofstars and @springagainafter indulge and facilitate my brainrot tremendously XD ), and the fills and fics that I write about her range pretty widely all over her timeline. For ease of reference, I've put together an anthology collection on AO3 which I'm going to continue updating indefinitely, consolidating all the loose writing that I do about her and her relationships with various other characters in the series! This includes her canon relationship with Khalid, my rarepair ship of her with Rasaad post-BG2, and various platonic friendships and familyships.

In the intro chapter of this collection, I also explain my specific Jaheira timeline/headcanons, and I'll recopy this here for anyone interested as well, but particularly for my recent followers who came for the Jaheira content. c:

-----

Hello and thank you so much for reading!

This work is an ongoing anthology collection of prompt fills, ficlets, and drabbles that I have written over on Tumblr about Jaheira (one of my favorite characters in Baldur's Gate) and her relationships with various other characters. You'll find a wide variety of subjects here - humor, drama, romance, platonic love and friendship, action, angst, and everything in between - but the central focus is always Jaheira and her complex relationship to others and to her own vulnerability, and how that evolved over time.

Worldstate Introduction

These ficlets are all set in the worldstate of my BG1/2 CHARNAME, Caden of Candlekeep, and my BG3 Tav, Hector Carlisle. In this worldstate, I've developed a combination of canon and headcanon for Jaheira's life, which centers around the rarepair premise that in addition to her marriage to Khalid, she also entered a relationship with Rasaad sometime after BG2 (as detailed in my fic "Open Your Eyes and It Will Blind You").

Being human, Rasaad is doomed to live a much shorter life than Jaheira, though as a monk, his Timeless Body feature keeps him physically fit and strong right up until his death. I also headcanon Jaheira's initial experiments with the Rite of Timeless Body were intended to bring his lifespan in line with hers, although she was only partially successful. All of this allows Rion to be her child with Rasaad, conceived accidentally very late in Rasaad's life.

Jaheira decides to go through with the pregnancy despite misgivings about her own fitness as a parent and the knowledge that she will ultimately be raising their child alone. And indeed, Rasaad dies when Rion is roughly five years old. After his death, Jaheira remained settled in Baldur's Gate to raise her daughter and began taking in other children in need as well, leading to the situation we see her in during Baldur's Gate 3.

Timeline

A general timeline overview of this worldstate:

1358 DR - Jaheira and Khalid meet when Khalid travels from Calimshan to Baldur's Gate to join the Harpers. 

1360 DR - Jaheira and Khalid married. 

1368 DR - (canon) Jaheira and Khalid meet Caden, Rasaad, and other members of the cast of BG1.

1369 DR - (canon) The events of BG2 take place. Khalid is killed by Jon Irenicus.

1374 DR - Open Your Eyes takes place. Jaheira and Rasaad enter a relationship. They begin a life of adventuring in Amn and the surrounding regions.

~1395 DR- Jaheira and Rasaad married.

~1400 DR - Jaheira and Rasaad return to the vicinity of Baldur's Gate. Jaheira reinducted into the Harpers.

~1420 DR - Jaheira and Rasaad purchase Elerrathin's Home to function as occasional lodging when they are needed in the city.

1444 DR - Jaheira becomes pregnant with Rion. She and Rasaad take up permanent residence in Elerrathin's Home.

1445 DR - Rion born.

1449 DR - Rasaad dies.

1456 DR - Jaheira begins taking in other young children in need of shelter.

1465 DR - The events of Fault Lines begin. Jaheira meets Astele ("Nine-Fingers") Keene, a child who comes to Elerrathin's Home for a meal. 

1486 DR - The events of Fault Lines conclude with a catastrophic falling-out between Jaheira and Astele.

1492 DR - (canon) The events of BG3 take place.

While all these fics follow this general timeline, the chapters in this collection are NOT chronologically ordered but instead bounce all over. I will try to note the general time period in the author notes of each chapter for clarity.

Chapter Ratings

This fic is overall marked as Not Rated because the vast majority of these ficlets are G-rated; however, a few are E-rated as part of my exploration of her relationships with Khalid and Rasaad. I will mark the rating of each chapter in the author notes so you can skip any which are not to your taste.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy my take on Jaheira and the important people in her life. If you'd like to say hi or have a fic request or suggestion, please drop me a message over on Tumblr at @blackjackkent; I'd love to hear from you! <3

[ask-the-knightly-mail]

🪼Forward all your questions and messages to the Royal Council!🪼

🩵Your message will be received by whoever is questioned, or whoever feels like answering!🩵 📝Our response schedule is likely to be a bit messy. Can't promise we'll have a consistent upload schedule! Please consider reading everything below for more details.📝

This blog is managed/run by @sword-stryke. Some information on their Toyhouse and ArtFight profiles may be outdated, however I will try to consistently update this post with changes.

STATUS: Open, however it may take time for me to get into things!

---

🪼•=+-; INTRODUCTION ;-+=•🪼

✨This ask-blog surrounds four characters and their adventures in the medieval-fantasy-esque world of Asperity: Atlas, Sage, Zion, and Asher. These four live in the kingdom of Snowscape and reside in the kingdom's Royal Palace, but may occasionally go visit the other kingdoms as well.

📄The storyline for this blog will probably be a bit separate from their canon story, however canon story elements/backstory will still be present. Since this is my first time doing this, it might be a little messy lol.

❕This blog is completely SFW. It is primarily intended to be lighthearted, however may dive into deeper topics if asks come to it. Asks/answers may contain swears, but never slurs. You can 100% refer to previous questions/answers. Anything with triggering content (most likely to be blood, gore, or slightly sensitive theming) WILL be covered and include a content warning.

‼️I will hold onto the right to not answer an ask if I find it makes me uncomfortable or for some other reason. However, do not be afraid to ask the same thing twice if it's been a while since the original ask! It's unlikely that I didn't see it, however it is fairly likely I could have just forgotten. I would much prefer you stop after two attempts though!

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🪼•=+-; NOTES ;-+=•🪼

❄️If it is just a general/non-directed ask, Atlas will most likely be the one to answer.

🖼️I will attempt to accompany all answers with a drawing or short comic, however I cannot promise this for all answers!

🍰Silly, serious, and/or specific questions allowed! Just ask whatever while maintaining a safe and comfortable environment.

🐹Acting in-character as your own character is totally fine!

💞You can definitely ask about relationships between characters, though it's preferred you don't ask about other

🎨If you wish to draw them, as long as it stays SFW, go ahead! You don't need to ask. Generally, my art rules are just: Never NSFW, never sexual implications/scenes, never shirtless, never kinks/fetishes. But if you've got more specific things in mind, let me know!

If you're still interested, there are character introductions below! I just cut it off so it doesn't take up everyone's whole screen.

---

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🪼•=+-; MAIN FOUR INTRO ;-+=•🪼 All characters will be accompanied by a reference sheet and their Toyhouse/ArtFight links.

🩵King Atlas Tempest

TH: https://toyhou.se/21427781.atlas-tempest

AF: https://artfight.net/character/3188053.atlas-tempest

The leader of Snowscape. He is a 39 year old male, however is not bothered by the pronouns used on him and will not correct you.

He's generally seen as a friendly, selfless, and enjoyable presence. It's hard to feel intimidated by him upon meeting him because of his upbeat, though not quite optimistic, demeanor. He's got a bit of a short fuse, with a fairly low patience level, and an unfortunate issue with procrastination. He is also very disorganized and fidgety, can't sit still longer than a minute. He has been actively working on himself, though, trying to be better.

Openly married to Sage.

He likes any flavor of ice cream and the presence of close friends.

-

💚Doctor Sage Tempest

TH: https://toyhou.se/21427954.sage-tempest

AF: https://artfight.net/character/3188540.0sage-tempest0

He is a skilled surgeon/physician (he technically takes on both roles) working in the Palace, and happily married to Atlas. They are a 35 year old and identify as non-binary, generally using he and they interchangeably for himself.

Often described to be gentle and friendly, with an open mind. Although very anxious, and easy to frustrate depending his current stress level and environment, he is working on his patience. He's a bit of a control freak, but generally only in high-stress situations where his own skills are helpful-- otherwise he'd rather Atlas be in the lead.

Openly married to Atlas.

He likes chocolate-chip cookies, and anyone that's not too loud.

-

❤️Commander Zion Carter

TH: https://toyhou.se/21547272.zion-carter

AF: https://artfight.net/character/3333789.zion-carter

A top-class knight, and certified optimist. He's a 35 year old male, and openly bisexual. Overall prefers he/him, any corrections will be extremely polite.

He's very well-known as "too sweet for his own good". He's very polite, kind, and thoughtful, and always there to console when needed. A great shoulder to cry on, and even better pillow. He also absolutely hates hurting innocents, but he will fight in a battle. His biggest weaknesses are that he's super oblivious, things go over his head all the time, and horrendously gullible. He can be a bit invasive of space without meaning to, but he has been trying his best to be more aware of such things.

He likes literally anything with sugar in it, and most people he meets.

-

🖤Captain Asher Maplewood

TH: https://toyhou.se/22781471.asher

AF: https://artfight.net/character/3962928.0asher-maplewood0

A more middle-class knight, and certified pessimist. He's a 30 year old male and doesn't like to be seen as anything else.

He is extremely reserved, preferring to be quiet. He is pretty hostile, with an extremely short fuse, so it doesn't take much to irritate him and get him yelling every swear and insult he knows. He struggles to get along with people because of this. However, he does seem to be fond of helping those who may struggle on their own, such as people with physical disabilities or the elderly, and is sometimes seen donating to animal shelters, orphanages, and homeless care facilities.

He likes really any sour candy, and solitude.

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🪼•=+-; FUN FACTS ;-+=•🪼

❄️Atlas can summon/control ice and snow, and he can control water. Ice is water, but water is not ice. 🐺Atlas is a shapeshifter. However, due to the fact Shifters are hunted to near extinction because they're super dangerous, he keeps this a secret. Even Sage and Zion don't know. 🖋️Atlas is super illiterate, though it's not his fault really. He has been learning, slowly but surely, with help. For now, he normally has Sage read and write things for him; Sage will read it to him, and Atlas will then tell Sage what to write for a response.

🧠Since Sage is smart (not in an obnoxious way), and I simply do not have the braincells to write a smart person, everyone else is stupid. /j 🍎Sage, contrast to popular belief, quite enjoys apples. But he'll play along with your outlandish humor anyway. He's also got pretty good handwriting. 👔Sage prefers formalwear in public and casual clothes in private.

🌈Zion is colorblind, with tritanopia specifically. 🪲Zion is terrified of insects and spiders. Absolutely mortified at the sight of one. Even butterflies. Yet, somehow, he loves caterpillars. … But he wouldn't want to kill them, either. He would get super upset if he stepped on one. 🧵Zion is part golden retriever, however he doesn't have to be drawn with the ears and tail.

🧣Asher doesn't like to take off his scarf, rarely ever has it off. Supposedly Zion made it for him as a gift. 🧥Asher also prefers to wear very covering clothes. He doesn't like to show skin at all. Maybe because Snowscape is cold, maybe another reason. 🪵Asher likes to carve things from wood. Usually if he gifts you a carving, it's either because he likes you or hates the carving and doesn't want anything to do with it anymore. He will not specify which.

[encrucijada]

PÍA RAMBLES #8

you might have seen this post or this wip intro. i'm here to talk about this book because i think it's really cool @teddywriting and i wrote almost 40k words by simply playing dolls with our ocs.

(yes i will be using screencaps of before sunrise, 1995 for any and all subsequent updates regarding this project thank you very much)

what's weird about this book in particular is that, despite maripaz and theo taking up way too much space in my brain, it's also incredibly hard to talk about them?? i know every single detail about them down to what they might order to eat at a mcdonald's, and yet i feel no one outside from teddy and i really knows these characters. their lore is weird and a bit convoluted and explaining it feels like i'm trying to explain the plot of a television show with like 18 seasons of character development you just had to be there to witness to understand even a fraction of it.

but first some basics about the actual book

title: babylon boy (book 1 of the home habitat duology)

genre: literary fiction

category: i say adult because there will be no censoring of topics but in this first installment our protagonists are around eighteen years old. you might consider that ya but i wouldn't

a small summary: having independently run away from home for their own reasons, theo and maripaz meet while homeless on the streets and form an alliance of convenience to survive. while theo vehemently denies the drug addiction he’s nursing, maripaz tries to deal with the way both want and revulsion seem to exist in her at the same time. falling in love is probably the easiest thing they do.

teddy and i are co-authoring, as in we both write the words. they will be primarily working on theo's chapters and i will be primarily working on maripaz's chapters but we'll both be involved in fully crafting this story.

talking about your book is hard when all that happens in it is character work so even whether someone gets sick at one point feels like a spoiler you want people to be surprised by.

we created mari and theo in 2020 on a whim. i can't even remember what prompted it exactly. we wanted a new pair of characters to play with and we decided to make two assholes to bicker and be mean to each other. this iteration saw three reincarnations before we put the characters on the shelf and almost resigned ourselves to them being a miss... if not for one important detail... i really, really believed they should have kissed. this first version of them would eventually be known as the homeless au.

looking back it's Wild thinking about how different mari and theo used to be. we moved onto new aus to play around with, landing on a superhero-type beat that became their new canon for a while. we had fantasy and sci-fi and musicians and hadestown and the raven cycle (that last one did so much for us it's insane). every new thing we tried shaped them more and more until they were unrecognisable from their original versions. one day i really want to go through their threads from start to finish and look at that change in real time.

there was a new thesis to their characters and it was no longer "what if two awful guys with issues were forced together and tried to bite each other's heads off". instead we were looking at two characters that through every new incarnation became more sincere and gentle. they had meta-narrative character development.

(every new au also gave us more characters to populate the world including but not limited to theo's twin sister, maripaz's seven siblings, alex, philip, a whole lot of parental figures, a quirky cast of friends... but i'll talk about them some other time)

then i did it again. in the 2.0 version of the homeless au there was one scene i loved beyond words where an argument between our two protagonists resulted in maripaz punching theo right on the mouth. when she tried to swing a second time he stopped her hand and warned her that if she wanted to hit him he would hit back. they fought and the scene ended. i said to teddy: they should have kissed. we laughed and imagined how homeless au would go now that their characters had changed so much. we started thinking about it more and more until we were moving the pieces of their cinematic universe around to fit this new idea... and suddenly we had plot for a book that would revamp that original homeless au... and a sequel too! (but more on that second one another time)

teddy started a rp thread of what came right after the opening scene of babylon boy, where theo and maripaz would shoplift and he would steal the angel necklace she wore (<- this is important)... and we just kept going... and going. we'd already had a few keys scenes to work towards, one those being that punching scene that started it all, as well as the ending. teddy added two new scenes we began calling the halo scene and the church scene, and we moved something we called the pool scene into this book from another au. we just had to fill in the blanks... fill in the blanks we did.

these right here are the names i gave each individual thread of the roleplay-ification of babylon boy. their purpose is not so much to be chapter titles but to make specific scenes easy to find for future reference. though obviously i had to be a bit artistic about it.

i don't know if babylon boy will have chapter titles, and if they will have some sort of theme going on (usually i like just putting two words together to create some imagery). "angel face" is probably what i would title chapter 1, but i also hesitate on that decision because i think i would like to save angel for later.

these threads are less of a draft and more the skeleton of a draft, that's why i called it a draft 0. its purpose is to give teddy and i direction and reading through them i already know how i want to shift the timeline and how i'd rewrite some of the scenes to make them a lot better, but it did give us a great cause and effect look of things. the way teddy and i approach our roleplay threads is more loose than what i do with @on-the-river-lethe (with whom i'm currently roleplaying draft 1 of our book lupine trail and also a giant hunger games au). fluffy and i write responses between 1k-4k words, they are basically chapters. teddy and i instead do a quick call and response, mostly focused on dialogue, we build on top of each other and neither of us really knows where a thread will go when we start.

there are no actual non-roleplay words written for babylon boy thus far. teddy is in charge of chapter 1 as we open with theo's pov but we are both busy or focused on other things. right now we're enjoying the playing around stage of the process (which i don't see going away even once we start seriously writing, i know for a fact we'll probably do various roleplay-type passes to babylon boy).

you've probably noticed the christian imagery is rampant here. it happened kind of by accident and the already mentioned halo scene is entirely to blame for it. like i said, teddy and i have this very "yes, and," approach to storytelling together where we kinda build on top of what the other puts down. teddy gave me the description of one (1) scene where theo sees a halo of light around maripaz's head and i decided "well, this is now i thing that is here to stay". church scene really brought it all together and there is a scene in book 2 adeptly nicknamed the angel scene that is kind of the culmination of this.

the imagery is almost exclusive to theo's pov as mari is more the subject of the imagery than the one pushing it forward. teddy and i will be doing our most to fill this book with visuals: characters lined with stained glass windows, lights shaped like hearts, signs and graffiti that say meaningful stuff.

babylon boy, as the title suggests, is more theo's book. both he and maripaz have meaningful arcs but theo's is really at the core of it, mari takes centre stage in book 2 (titled gossamer girl). i think i talked about this somewhere before but the titles just kind of... happened. gossamer was relevant for that superhero au and it's just a word i really adore so i wanted to use it on the title. you can't go wrong with alliteration so gossamer girl it is. and because i love when books in a series match i had to do something with boy. like gossamer i adore babylon for some reason, and so we got babylon boy. i wasn't sure about that one because while gossamer girl made sense with the theme, what did "babylon boy" even mean, exactly? teddy came in clutch and analysed the title for me. they connected it to theo's drug addiction and now i can't think of any two titles that are more perfect for this series.

like i said, there are no actual words written for this book so sadly i cannot share any excerpts. but i will share

Festival was very much the result of teddy and i having just watched before sunrise, 1995

we watched before sunrise, 1995 because the mannerisms of the two leads reek of maripaz and theo

"until a miracle happens" became a recurring thing said in the draft and it wrecked me

Our Fears is probably my favourite thread both thematically and visually. followed closely by Church Angels, though that one is mostly visually

The Pool is the longest thread with about 90 responses and all of it is beautiful. i would probably consider it the companion to Our Fears

"mutual pining they're both just idiots"

the closing image is probably my favourite one of the book

the core themes are very much trust, love, and communal help. we've got such an array of npcs who simply... help. i love the human race.

i'll probably do another update before we start properly writing talking about maripaz and theo as characters specifically. a bit of a crash course on who they are, really.

anyway. i'm giving you a golden star if you read all of that ⭐ do ask me or teddy about this story!! we'd be happy to talk about it. or even just about the characters.

cheers, pía