#trait: holy beast

[digi-lov]

Lopmon EX6-032 by Ryodan, Turuiemon EX6-033 by banira, Antylamon EX6-034 by Sanosuke Sakuma, Cherubimon Ace EX6-035 by koki from EX-06 Extra Booster Infernal Ascension

[blasphemousclaw]

Are the omens and hornsent the same?

short answer: no

so to explain why the omen and the hornsent are different, we first have to understand what it means to be hornsent… the hornsent aren’t a species, they’re a civilization of humans defined by the horns that grow on their bodies:

“Hornsent view the Crucible as sacred for the refinement wrought through its evolutionary gifts. Most prominently, their tangled horns.”

“Horns are sublime artifacts to hornsent, and their presence confirms the belief that they are a chosen people. Only the repeated sprouting of fresh horns can create a tangled horn, which is viewed as an irrefutable symbol of primacy.”

“The Crucible has a particularly strong influence on the beasts of the realm of shadow, causing many to grow horns despite the characteristics of their species.”

the hornsent sprout horns because the Crucible has a strong presence in the land of shadow and causes horns to sprout on creatures who don’t normally have horns… the hornsent, who revere the Crucible and its “spiral current,” saw this as a blessing and as proof that they were “a chosen people,” so they cultivated this trait. in hornsent society, the larger and more tangled your horns are, the more awesome and cool and holy you are. this is why Jori, the leader of the theocratic hornsent inquisition, has the largest, most tangled horns of all:

however, hornsent can also be born with no horns at all. this means that they'd be seen as sad and cringe. you can find hornless hornsent bound in chains, which means they might have even been a sort of slave caste... which, given what their society is like, wouldn't surprise me if that were the case:

(source: Zullie the Witch)

the omen, on paper, are the same as the hornsent — humans who were influenced by the Crucible, which caused horns to grow on their bodies. but the reason why they aren’t actually the same is because simply having horns doesn't make you hornsent. again, the hornsent are not a species, and “hornsent” isn’t a generic term for people with horns… the hornsent are a culture, a culture which the omen were very much not born into! unlike the hornsent, the omen were born into a society that sees their horns as impurities:

"A vestige of the crucible of primordial life. Born partially of devolution, it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced."

traits associated with the Crucible, including horns, became less and less accepted under the Golden Order as time went on... basically, the omen were seen as impure and unclean, unfit for the Erdtree's grace and excluded from society.

but there's actually something else that makes the omen fundamentally different from the hornsent... they're referred to as having "accursed blood"?

"Warped blade of shifting hue used by Morgott, the Omen King. The accursed blood that Morgott recanted and sealed away reformed into this blade."

"The mother of truth craves wounds. When Mohg stood before her, deep underground, his accursed blood erupted with fire, and he was besotted with the defilement that he was born into."

"Trident of Mohg, Lord of Blood. A sacred spear that will come to symbolize his dynasty. As well as serving as a weapon, it is an instrument of communion with an outer god who bestows power upon accursed blood." 

it seems that there is something inherently different about omen blood that doesn't seem to be the case with the hornsent? omen can also innately produce a black-brown flame, which we never see any hornsent enemies do (pretty sure the inquisitors' fire is just normal fire from their candles). INTERESTINGLY, there's two items from the base game, the Omen Bairn and the Regal Omen Bairn, that produce these brown-flame wraiths... but a similar item from the DLC, the Horned Bairn, produces "vengeful spirits" that are pale and colorless!!

it's almost like the wraiths produced by the omen are "unclean" compared to the hornsent ones!

so I think this pretty definitively proves there's something more going on with the omen? but why is this the case?? Dung Eater's ending makes me think that the omen might be "cursed" simply because their existence is incompatible with the Order under the Erdtree...

"Curse grown on a corpse killed and defiled by the Dung Eater. A tender pox afflicted with omen horns. The Dung Eater cultivates the seedbed curse on corpses. By doing so he prevents dead souls returning to the Erdtree, leaving them forever cursed."

"Loathsome rune gestated by the Dung Eater. Used to restore the fractured Elden Ring when brandished by the Elden Lord. The reviled curse will last eternally, and the world's children, grandchildren, and every generation hence, will be its pustules. If Order is defiled entirely, defilement is defilement no more, and for every curse, a cursed blessing."

but there's also the theory that the omen curse was actually created by the dying hornsent as revenge upon their attackers... Hornsent Grandam says this when attacked:

"A curse upon thee, rotten miscreant. A curse upon the strumpet's progeny, upon Marika's children each and all. The curse of the omen shall strike thee down... In the form of the sacred beast's ire. May the curse strike thee… To the very last..."

she specifically calls it the "curse of the omen!" the one thing that makes me question this theory though is that she also says "in the form of the sacred beast's ire," and we know the divine beast's ire takes the form of storms... nothing like anything the omen do. an interesting theory nonetheless!

anyway TL;DR, the hornsent and the omen are different because 1. the hornsent are a culture (not a generic name for horned people), and the omen were specifically born under the Erdtree's Order, and 2. the omen are tangibly "cursed," but the hornsent are not

[puppetmaster13u]

Oh my god

it never even occurred to me that the League would have to deal with Broody!Batman holy shit-

I can 100 percent see the league being absolutely baffled by Batman’s behavior- I feel like some would be aware of the A/B/O traits, but not all.

Just imagine when Batman eventually decides they’re his Work Pack:tm: and starts to treat them as such.

He’s suddenly all touchy and tries to flaunt his role as Lead Pack Omega much to their confusion.

And for the ones with super senses? I feel like they wouldn’t get the nitty gritty details of scenting (Though beast boy most definitely does)

Clark would be so stressed out over that. What’s wrong with his best friend?? Why did Bruce suddenly going from smelling like nothing to smelling like sweet earth??? (The answer is Scent Blockers, Bruce just decided to stop wearing them so he could mark them as pack.)

Also them dealing with Batman immediately post taking in Dick??? Oh god they’d be so concerned because why is Bruce suddenly so flighty?? Why did he go from doing everything to the letter to I Need To Get Out Now??

And you know Bruce doesn't think to explain. Like everyone in Gotham knows about dynamics, it's Gotham after all. He even forgot to mention it to Dick when he first came to the manor, and he saw him literally every day.

And it's not like he didn't care about them before, but it was silent, more distant care. Adding an extra kitchen when Flash complains about his high metabolism, adding more stuff to the gym when someone mentions it, but never letting anyone know he was the one to do so.

He still does these things of course, but will also just drop gifts into their arms and laps. Gifts covered in his scent seeing as he's not around them as often as say, his Wayne Enterprises pack. Which he also doesn't see often but is probably helped by the fact of him not being the only one with a dynamic.

Gosh Bruce is definitely fighting with himself because he wants to share his pup with his pack(s) but he also wants to of course keep him safe. Meaning he has to keep him hidden and all that and there's also the issue of Dick not understanding the whole broodiness at first too.

And you know he's going to not vocalize any of this. And the broodiness definitely gets worse for a bit until the miscommunication between him and Dick gets fixed lol.

Love the idea of Clark just, forgetting the fact he's a journalist and can find this information if he researched Gotham lmao. He's smart until he's in the middle of worrying about one of his friends and the freak out takes over.

Definitely not helped by the fact that the rest of the league also freaking out and wondering wtf is wrong lol.

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

The Fódlan duology frustrates me immensely. Like I love it don't get me wrong. It presents a good amount of decently compelling morally grey characters. The House Leaders and Rhea are all great (with complexities that the fandom loves to ignore). Not perfect, but great.

But then it turns around and has the most morally black faction in the series with the Agarthans and they're so poorly written it's comical. They don't even have an evil dragon that they worship to fall back on, they're just assholes for no reason. Like the Nabateans absolutely should not have been ruling over humanity but holy fuck that does not in any way excuse the fact that the Agarthans nearly caused an apocalypse at least once, committed a genocide, regularly turn people into demonic beasts, whatever happened in Remire Village, and view the surface dwelling humans as so beneath them that they're gleefully performing experiments on children where only 2 have come out alive

Hell! They don't even like each other! Every single one of them who gets dialog at some point uses their time to berate their colleagues! Epimenides is like the only one of them with seemingly any sort of redeeming qualities, with him apparently disliking Thales's tactics even if they get results, and apologizing to Solon for sacrficing him to use the spell of Zaharas. And he gets maybe 5 seconds of screen time in which any good trait is immediately undone by him trying to hijack Shez's body and attempting to murder Byleth and the Lords.

.

[curedigiqueen]

I think if there was ever a follow up to Survive it'd probably be an 02 and/or Tamer's inspired sequel, and I do have thoughts about that, but I honestly think Frontier getting the Survive treatment would be coolest. I mean already Frontier is probably the anime most like Adventure outside of Adventure's reboot, so I think it would work really well for similar reasons as Survive. But it's got enough going that it'd be distinct too.

Survive deals with the horror in having another life form, a life form with the potential for incredible amounts of strength tied to you and your sense of identity. The horror of a group of children being spirited away to another world in the name of saving it (as sacrifices).

But with Frontier, the horror in asking what kind of kids, or for what reason kids would choose to follow a message and end up in another world. The horror in becoming something else.

Survive has 10 main characters, there are 10 legendary warriors.

Three Archangels and Lucemon instead of Four Holy Beasts and Fanglongmon

Instead of Haru and Miyuki a Strabimon (or Flamemon) who is later revealed to be a former human kid is found already in the Digital World

Instead of echoes of the human world the kids find chunks of land getting rearranged or just straight up missing

MagnaGarurumon and KaiserGreymon instead of Boltboutamon and Plutomon for route dependent evolutions and dependent on which kids survive to the end.

Susanoomon if all survive to the end/true ending

Karma/affinity levels determining attribute of characters (not how variable attribute usually works by tbh why not)

One route kids stay in digital world as digimon in another they leave the digital world forever in another they stay digimon but go home?

Light and Darkness can still be twins but like maybe codependent prior to being separated in the digital world. Like Strabimon is met by the group immediately and Duskmon is trying to hunt the kids down, but Strabimon weirdly won't let them hurt Duskmon?

Protag would be Flamemon(or equivalent) when they go back home in Takuya parallel and maybe have to fight human units without hurting them in the Ch 8 parallel

Character who dies because they'd rather die than become a Digimon.

Speaking of which what happens when these kids die?

Character who refuses to become human again because they never want to be weak again.

Character who loses themself to their beast form, maybe hurting themselves or someone else

If we want to include the concept of fractal code, the idea of the kids having parts of their code stolen/ changed/added to, affecting memories, physical traits, tastes, and skillsets.

Character conflicts leading to physical fighting in their Digimon forms

Being able to eat the strange foods in the digital world that would normally definitely be inedible

I think there's a lot of room for drama in what decisions lead the kids to end up in this world

Obviously one of the kids can be dragged their by their bullies so we have some bullies on the same team as their victim.

One kid went because they take any excuse not to go home so figured might as well check this out

Or another kid who desperately need money and were under the assumption this was a meet up for one of their jobs

Water can be the victim of toxic beauty standards/show industry/an idol

I think the fact the gender balance isn't as much of a problem as people might think as I think a lot of the Spirits are actually gender neutral looking enough to be female. I could see Darkness, Ice and/or Wood especially. (See Survive and Plutomon or Cyber Sleuth Alphamon for example).

[ranticore]

Can the knights ever retire from piloting the beasts for any reason or do they have to keep going until they die?

Oh for sure they can retire. Sometimes a person is not physically capable of doing the job and as long as there's an apprentice waiting to take on the mantle, stepping down is acceptable.

It is the belief of the bishops that the ability to gentle a holy beast is hereditary, a bloodline trait. Usually an upcoming apprentice is the child of the retiring knight (one of many. The eldest child does not get first dibs, either).

In the event of there being no apprentice, no, retiring is not an option.

Where it IS an option, it's usually not done by choice. The knights of the remaining holy beasts tend to be proud and dedicated, and would consider it an insult if someone suggested it was time for them to retire.

In the middle of battle it's a bit different, as a battle might last over a week and usually takes place far from home (now that there are so few beasts, those that remain must travel further to cover the entire theocracy). If a knight is badly injured mid-battle, they need to continue as much as they can. They do take breaks and even sleep at the war camp during a battle since it's more a war of attrition than anything else in the first stage (before the dragon is brought down). So medical attention (leeches and prayers) can be rushed out at a moment's notice and a knight can be treated and sent back into battle without losing much ground, as long as the other beasts are functioning.

It's relatively common for a knight to "retire" in the middle of battle and be immediately replaced by an apprentice who continues the fight. This is actually how most retirements happen. Sometimes the injury is too severe (sometimes they've been impaled on a cnida spear that can deploy fast enough to punch through armour like a bullet. and they are dead). If a beast suddenly stops dead in battle it's like aw damn he died. They install an apprentice before the blood has been wiped off the seat.

Sir Heaven ofc has no apprentice but he hasn't died yet. Life expectancy of a knight after they get their title is something like 5 years, though, everyone knows this. Sir Heaven won't last forever.

[yeetspace]

Now wait a fucking second...

Why does the beastial incantation look like that....

Anthropology brain tells me this is a transliteration of an existing symbol that has been lost and repurposed.

It looks to be a symbol that has no analog to any other magic symbols we see in the game, but slashed through.

Doesn't even look like crucible incantation which was my first thought because the thing that came to mind for that was the idea that the beast Julian cantatians come from animals, animals come from the crucible.

But they don't. The crucible draws from the things that exists to imbue their essences to those born in its presence.

It is not the progenitor of these traits It is simply an adopter and bestower of.

So there's animal magic.... Right?

Like because what we see that the beastial incantations are, are very specifically magic seemingly drawn from animals, like the roar of Rua, But with the addition of it being used to fight against those who would work against destined death.

This is a propagandized repurposing of a symbol.

Beastial incantation symbol is a symbol that's meant to interpret some sort of antithesis to whatever this original symbology was, whatever this weird almost crest-looking symbol was.

We know it's not dragon called because they have very specific symbology, which I bring up specifically because Gorounq and Malekith are in the Dragon City. Like I know that's because it's the farthest place from everything that's going on so no one can try and get a hold of destiny death again, but it's something to bring up, there's no reference to these symbols anywhere else.

There's an entire lost art of magic...

probably some fucking Leyndell Blair mountain shit, Just fully removed from history like they were already trying to do with the crucible by the time we get there in the game before all hell breaks loose and they just can't propagandize properly anymore.

In a world of such powerful magics it's insane there's not some sort of sentient creatures, there's only these meek, miniscule scattering things that are inherently afraid of you, of people.

Even ones that have seemingly been places that they should be acclimated to them by....

I'm fully convinced that there is a loss art of magic in Elden ring that's implied simply through the implication of the anthropological steps taken from having a symbol only just be a symbol in itself but clawed through like that. And that lost art of magic has something to do with the animals-

we even see the ghost of one I'm thinking of it now holy fuck Oh my God holy shit Godfrey and Serosh...

They don't have symboled magic, But look at what he's doing...

Cracking the Earth...

And what are the beast you incantations? Shards of Earth....

I'm fucking figuring this shit out in real time, Godfrey is one of the only people displaying original animal magic All the while the beast you'll incantations are effectively a religious weaponized version of this magic against Those Who Live In Death.

In the exact same way the primeval spells have no symbols, animal magic doesn't have symbols....

OH HOLY FUCK HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD WAIT

an empty frame.

WHAT WOULD BE THE ONLY WAY TO SYMBOLIZE SOME ANTITHESIS TO ORIGINAL CONCEPT THAT HAS NO DIRECT SYMBOLOGY TO IT? A VAGUE REFERENCE BY REFERENCING IT AS NOTHING IN A FRAME AND SLICING THROUGH THAT FRAME, IN THE SAME WAY THAT WE WOULD PUT A FUCKING BIG OLD WRONG MARK OVER SOMETHING HOLY SHIT

[vepaluiron]

So my friend (B) and I realized that the Warcraft mod for Crusader Kings 3 (Guardians of Azeroth 2, its very cool) updated recently with a few new mechanics. We had a longer running game where I played as Sylvanas and B played as Vereesa, but that game had gotten so slow it refused to run. So, we decided, why not restart? We picked the earliest start point, I picked Sylvanas and B picked Alleria.

Interesting moments from our game so far:

alleria becoming a witch and then instantly turning sylvanas into a witch

me: SOMEBODY IS PLOTTING AGAINST MY SIS--- wait. is it you?

B: yeah its me LOL

sylvanas has ptsd, feels canon

zul'jin and sylvanas ended up becoming rivals. sylvanas lost this duel so hard she had a mental breakdown, which led to her becoming a gym rat

B: Is our grandpa spending our legacy points? me: No... Wait. *I* am the family heir. B: Wait, really? Oh.... me: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

sylvanas being an incredible aunt, as expected

the scream i scrumpt, i was just trying to get her to not hate me after grandpapa's untimely demise

i saw this and was like. bro we have to take this man down, this is the last straw

cant avoid tragedy. at least lireesa's still alive?

and to round out the night, all hail the new regent-lady of quel'thalas!

other fun moments:

me deflecting the windrunner curse like my life depends on it. i dont know where all these men are coming from but BACK YOU VILE BEASTS

lirath's wife tried to kill him. in retrospect, her name was shar so i should've known this would've happened.

our uncle threw shit on me (because i killed grandpapa) so sylvanas now has the nickname "the Stinky". i will figure out how to change this, but unfortunately uncle paus windrunner will never see this >:)

i have a permanent religion debuff because B made a new religion that made polygamy holy, and sylvanas has a permanent "refusing to marry" trait

conversely, alleria has 3 husbands who wont stop accusing her of cheating despite polygamy being legal and encouraged

sylvanas finally ended up hooking up with a random elven woman in the woods during a hunt. good for her.

arthas somehow ended up being alleria's prisoner. he was in prison for 16 years before either of us realized it happened.

most of the original warcraft cast is dead. it has only been like 50 years. neither of us have any idea how this happened.

[girlnextvore]

OC Deep Dive - Rosa Núñez

What common/uncommon fear do they have?

In life Rosa feared commitment very very deeply but was in a cycle of doing NOTHING about it. She dated the girl her parents picked out for her (as a man at that point) and was even ready to propose cause her dad said it was time

In her vampire life Rosa fears killing on accident very deeply, she sees it as the final showing she is no longer her own person. She also has a fear of deep water. And being seen as "replaceable"

Do they have any pet peeves?

SHE HATES BEING TALKED DOWN TO. And she hates getting attitude when trying to help.

She dislikes people who can not see the deeper meaning in things like art. She gets super angry when someone picks a flower with no purpose for it. She also hates those who attack the insecurities of others.

Also dirty nails. As a gardener and botanist she is always making sure her nails are clean.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom?

You would find ALOT of plants but mostly Holy Ghost ORchids as its what she needs for her bane to sleep. She has them usually put around her bed and some physically on her bed. ALso other plants hanging above her bed

You would see ALOT of really cute vintage platforms, its one of the few luxuries she loves. She loves a cute platform knee high boot more then anything

The portrait of her and her wife that is in a frame made of human bone.

What do they notice first in a person?

Face shape, like literally how their flesh hangs on their skull. She loves interesting facial shapes, after that is smell. She is very into the scent of a person so she tries and places it quickly.

If its a more business or serious setting its how someone speaks. She will ignore physical looks and smell to HEAR you, she believes so much of how someone is is the way they speak to someone and use their voice.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

This is complicated.

Physically: I will say her tolerance for Physical pain is FAIRLY HIGH. She is a Koldun and alot of her sorcery requires her to do BIG AMOUNTS of damage to herself and even sometimes with fire. She takes it in stride pretty well. Also her and her wife get into "Freaky shit" So I am going to give her like a 8 out of 10. I will say however even if she can HANDLE IT her body will give out alot sooner then her mind will

Mentally: If its anyone thats NOT her wife like a 8. If its Alezya like a fucking 3 if THAT. Her Resolve is her highest stat but it just doesn't matter when its Alezya she knows how to really get in there deep

Emotionally: Basically the same thing as mentally. Like a 7 but when its Alezya it knocks it down to like a 5.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (Or freeze or fawn?)

Oh its actually flight. Very rarely does the "pressure" get to her but when it does she fucking leaves. ITS HER WORST TRAIT, She is really tough and will stand by you but if it ever gets TRULY HARD on her she might run

What animal represents them best?

So I usually use a weeping Willow to represent her like even in my mind her Beast is a old and scary tree. But if I had to use an animal.

I think the pfeffer Cuttlefish. Its cute and its rare to run into it but it can kill and it kills so easily. Even without wanting to do it. Also the other worldly nature of it works perfectly for her.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

"Extremely beautiful and kind (She has the 4 dot looks merit)" Very much feels and looks as if she is wise beyond her years. Even has a motherly vibe for a woman so "young"

I think once she speaks to them it shifts to "Beautiful but also strange. She almost looks sad under that smile"

Do they have any hobbies?

Oh Rosa's main hobbie is botany and cross pollinating plants. She also enjoys sewing every so often and other artist things. She presses flowers and also designed 90% of her own tattoos.

Besides that she has been trying to catch up on music so she listens to atleast 100 new songs a week. There is also Koldunism but she doesn't consider that a hobby anymore since she is a fairly accomplished Koldun at this point in her unlife

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

Thank you @aztarion for tagging me! I alrady did it once but this was a good excuse to do it again for Rosa!!!!

I already tagged a fair bit of people last time but ill tag @eric-the-bmo @rhiannon42 NO PRESSURE if you dont wanna do it!

[germawife]

hi tumblr. i have a couple of introspective hetalia rambles i've written up and refined and i decided that, actually, i really like sharing my thoughts so you guys get them too! under the cut is a remake of a piece i wrote when my friend asked me about whether there was a follow-up to the events of buon san valentino or not! i would highly recommend reading at least the final chapter (linked) of the manga strips for the valentine's day event, as it ends differently than the manga version.

here is a link to my other piece about the way i interpret prussia's grief and processing of losing the holy roman empire and gaining germany out of the german unification! it goes hand-in-hand with this piece, i'd recommend reading it if you like this one!

     Given Austria’s previous position as Veneziano’s boss, he would very quickly pick up on the most likely description that Germany would offer up- his vision of gifting heaps of flowers to a young girl in a servant’s dress with a peculiar little curl, not unlike Veneziano’s- and make his own connections from there. Now... how he’d process the implications of Germany reliving memories from the perspective of the late Holy Rome is its own beast. I don’t believe that he would’ve ever made the connection between Germany and Holy Rome otherwise- sure, the nations themselves are historically related and there are quite a few similarities to be drawn between the two as their own people, but he was under the impression that Holy Rome had died on the battlefield during the Thirty Years’ War. Prussia had kept the truth of his little brother’s last days tucked close to his chest, likely to preserve the dying empire’s peace.

— ( ★ ) —

After the events of Buon San Valentino, I believe that, realistically, Germany would seek out answers concerning the hazy flashback he’d experienced during the climax of his disastrous date with Veneziano. To clarify, I’m not of the belief that Germany would immediately assume it was a memory that’s relevant to his past- which is why he would seek out external insight. Because of the way he’s shown to have sought out his cousin’s advice and insight throughout the entirety of the Valentine’s Day arc, it’s very likely that Germany would go to Austria about his predicament first and foremost. 

     Austria wouldn’t be equipped to explain everything to Germany- not when he, himself, has no idea what the full picture looks like anymore. So, naturally, he’d send his cousin off to question Prussia. The ex-nation had been the one to rise to the occasion when the nation of Germany was officially born, claiming the title of the young boy’s caretaker... so, he definitely knew more than he’d ever let anyone else in on. 

     Now, this is where it’s important to expand upon some of Prussia’s key traits as an older brother, both to Holy Rome and to Germany. He has shown, multiple times, that he tries to bear the weight of serious and troubling matters on his own to protect his brother(s). As previously stated, he takes Holy Rome in on his own and keeps this a secret- clearly to protect his baby brother. Later on, after Prussia loses his status as his own individual nation, he begins to lose the sped-up regeneration that strong and healthy nations are gifted with. He keeps this a secret from Germany- when he’s bitten by one of their dogs, the bite fails to heal, even after a weeks worth of time. He writes this off as if the bite is brand new, brushing Germany’s concerns off and redirecting his attention to unrelated matters. 

     Prussia, despite the persona he puts on, is an extremely protective sibling. When he reads stories from the original German publication of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to Holy Rome and is questioned about the more grim and overall mature themes presented within the stories, Prussia (rather unceremoniously) brushes Holy Rome’s inquiries off and changes the subject.

     In general, Prussia tends to underestimate the mental fortitude of his kin. I believe that he’s deathly afraid of ruining Germany by sharing everything he’s been bottling up- especially the truth of the connection between Holy Rome’s death and Germany’s birth. This would be a lot for Germany to process and subsequently cope with- so, it seems most likely that Prussia would brush his brother off when approached about his (unknowingly) relived memory.

     Without Prussia’s help, I don’t think Germany will ever be able to uncover the truth. Nobody else has all of the pieces to the puzzle, and that’s very intentional on Prussia’s part. He’d carry that weight himself- Germany had forged his own identity and relationships in this new life of his, he shouldn’t have to worry himself over memories of a lifetime he’d already been forced to leave behind.

[lilythelitten]

@lunar-inkclipse did it again, huge fan of the oxymorons as toxic cookie yaoi—

Okay, but in all seriousness, this post sent my brain into a thought spiral I could only escape via drawing. Basically: Logico and Irratino as part of Cookie Run Kingdom’s Beast/Ancient thing. For CRK fans who stumble upon this post and—understandably, there’s probably very little fandom overlap between fans of cookie gacha games and fans of murder mystery puzzles—have no idea who those characters are: puzzle book gay detectives. That’s really the gist of it :P

Anyway, the post has ideas for both of them to go either way (the trait is Investigation, for those wondering), but given the character arc I used for Logico and my love of “cynicism sucks” as a theme, I went with Irratino as the Ancient and Logico as the Beast. Artist commentary—and a whole bunch more—under the cut!

Irratino (Ancient)

“The world is beautiful! I can’t wait to see more!”

(Maybe I should give them, like, cookie names. Unfortunately, I have no ideas. I guess I could borrow from Nines, and use Lavender Tea for Irratino…? Eh, I’ll just use his regular name to avoid confusion.)

I see why most CRK fan artists draw the cookies as humans, holy CRAP replicating the game’s art style was a task and a half. Partially because I decided to do colored outlines again and that proved as frustrating as expected XD And partially because I had no idea what I was doing with the eyes. If he looks like he’s staring into your soul. Oops :V

But yeah! Kinda wanted to lean into the whole “whimsical and mystical” side, with a sort of “nature fairy” look. Independent of the actual fairy cookies XD The skirt exists to cover somewhat awkward anatomy, but other than that, everything looks like how I envisioned it ^^

I had to have a space design in there. My standard-issue Tino has space shoes; Cookietino has a space cape. The gem clasping it is an amethyst, by the way. The ones on his shoes and on his little crown-thing? Garnets. (grins)

And I had to give him a fun staff like Pure Vanilla and White Lily. His has a moon and stars and, uh…sparkly fabric veil thing XD I gave him a braid because I felt it would be fitting—and also because White Lily gave me a convenient reference to work with—though for his Awakening, I imagine his hair would be let loose as it usually is. (For Murdle fans who have no idea what that means: it’s basically when an Ancient gets a power boost and fancy new drip. Character development and brief fall from grace required :P)

The virtue he represents is either Curiosity or Whimsy, according to the post. I like both of those, though I propose an alternative: Wonder. It’s the most direct contrast to Cynicism while keeping the “Investigation” theme—looking at the world and always finding something you want to learn more about, finding beauty in everything from a perfectly sculpted statue to the way the sun glints off the morning dew. It fits Irratino as a character, and fits as a Virtue ^^ Not really sure what the lore here would be, but I could imagine something similar to canon + my HCs? Irratino’s moms die in a mysterious accident, Irratino hits a depressive spell, pulls himself together and decides to start investigating things, bring people happiness through closure—Soul Jam resonates with that? I dunno, I’m spitballing here.

Don’t ask me for, like, abilities, though. I’m not good at gameplay mechanics, I just draw lines :P

Sample Quotes

“Can you hear the whispers on the wind? Listen closer…”

“This kingdom is beautiful! I keep finding so many new things!”

“Moms…I’m gonna make you proud. I promise.”

Logico (Beast)

“You think people do anything out of the goodness of their hearts? Grow up.”

(Still don’t have any names. The Beasts have a much stricter naming scheme than other cookies, ya gotta have an ingredient and not just a food…I dunno, honey? Plus something to do with monochrome? Gray Honey? Ashen Honey? …actually, I like that last one, but we’re still calling him Logico for convenience :P)

Monochrome, monochrome, monochrome~ There was no way Beast Logico could exist with any semblance of color. The shades of gray do look very similar. That was an accident. I didn’t actually work out a color palette before I started drawing outside of “black, gray, maybe a touch of white” XD

He does look kinda boring for a Beast. I didn’t intend that either. The diamond marks on his eyes and the long, billowy coat-cape were attempts to rectify that. I do like how the diamonds look, and if I wasn’t lazy and it wasn’t a late addition, I would’ve had more of them ^^; (The inside of his cape is a result of that laziness; I wanted it to have a diamond pattern, but I had no idea how to go about that. Just know that canonically, in my heart, the cape does have those patterns :P)

What else…oh, yeah, the fedora stayed. As do the thick eyebrows. Both were too iconic to discard XD

Luckily, lore-wise, I have a fair bit more to say: as one probably guessed from earlier, the corrupted virtue Logico holds is Cynicism. Thing is, he doesn’t…see it that way? And might not have even realized he fell at all. In his eyes, he’s become a living embodiment of logic as a concept, someone who sees past all doubts and deceptions and delusions and sees the world for how it really is. (Side-note, I get the feeling he and Shadow Milk do not get along :P) If you asked him? Irratino is the one with a corrupted soul, one that refuses to acknowledge reality, and maybe part of the reason he wants Irratino to fall is so that the other half of “his” Soul Jam isn’t a broken, defective mess when he reclaims it.

His domain is basically a world of silence. The longer you stay, the more you lose your color and your passion until you’re…well, see below. It’s sort of like Eternal Sugar’s paradise of sloth, but where she at least tries to make cookies happy, Logico doesn’t even offer that much. His domain leaves you an empty, miserable husk of a cookie, unable to feel anything but bitterness at the world and its cruelty. In Logico’s eyes, this is a good ending. This is his endgoal for all of Earthbread—a world of pure logic, where emotions and irrationality can never cause unwanted pain or strife. A listless, gray world of loneliness, full of miserable people.

He…resents other cookies. He resents the other Beasts, and the Ancients, and even everyday cookies, because they’re ignorant. But they can also feel things (well, most of them), like joy and love and wonder—and when they have low points, they’re too ignorant to let those feelings consume them. How dare they? How dare everyone be happy, when Logico’s estranged? He’ll never admit it, but even as he hates their idiocy, he envies their happiness. He remembers when he used to be like that, before he learned what the world was really like. Maybe that’s his real motivation, beneath the surface—resentment and envy of others’ joy, and a spiteful desire to drag them all down to his level. Maybe he resents himself too, because however good he is at logic now, he failed to live up to his own standards back in the day, and it eats at him.

(You know, from second-hand info, I think you could make a case for, like, all the Beasts having that similar motivation: setting out into the world with impossibly high hopes, and then being disappointed when it inevitably failed to measure up to their standards. But I haven’t played Beast-Yeast yet, so I wouldn’t know ^^;)

Sample Quotes

“Hope is like toys. Fine when you’re a child. Less so when you’re older.”

“This kingdom is so…colorful. Not what I’m used to.”

“I could spend my whole life studying him and yet never understand…”

BONUS: Gray Walker Cookies

(One of the many Gray Walker Cookies who wander Logico’s domain)

I wasn’t sure what to name these at first, then I remembered Volume 2 and went for it. In Murdle, Gray Walkers are not-zombies; living people who’ve had so much blood drained out they have gray skin and act zombie-like. (Uh. Spoilers :P) Here, Gray Walkers are cookies who have been in Logico’s domain too long, and have become little more than perfectly logical husks who exist only to serve their master.

Logico has basically no friends in canon, so there aren’t really any characters who could serve as helpers for him (unlike Irratino, who has eight named friends). So this is my substitute for that—a collective of nameless servants, who have no personality, few powers, but a lot of numbers. (Lunar actually did suggest Obsidian, but that was after I finished these drawings, so, uh, I didn’t do one for her. I like the concept, though! ^^)

And if you think “oh, that’s not nearly as scary as the actual cookies with names and faces who follow the canon Beasts!” …you will think that up until dozens, or even hundreds, of Gray Walkers are smashing down the doors and pouring after you like a tidal wave. (When I imagine how this hypothetical “Cynicism” chapter would go, I imagine a scene where exactly that happens—Logico sending all the Gray Walkers to Zerg Rush our heroes. In the actual gameplay of that part, you’d have to outlast the horde—survive a few minutes, that kind of deal—and then our heroes escape. Or, if you’re Lunar, have your level 90 evil clown blow them all up :P)

I don’t think the Gray Walkers would be playable on their own, being that they’re a faceless horde of servants, but I do imagine you could pull for, like, Gray Walker costumes of cookies. They’d be horribly depressing costumes, since your favorite characters would’ve lost all their colors and happiness and become listless shells of their former selves, but they’d be there :P

ANYWAY UH that’s the end of that, good god I put entirely too much thought into this. All for a couple of drawings based on one post. I do not control the muse, folks XD

[digi-lov]

Salamon EX6-016, Gatomon EX6-020, Angewomon EX6-022, Ophanimon Ace EX6-027 by poroze from EX-06 Theme Booster Infernal Ascension

[wouas]

Fish is a 11th century pirate from the Black Sea. (Vinland Saga OC)

His bio is down here and is way too long

Spoilers? I only cite a story arc by name and a location, nothing else about the series - and only it the "STORY ROLE" paragraph.

CONTEXT: I don't have experience writing fanfiction, so idk how this character bio will turn out idk. You don't need to know anything about Vinland Saga to understand this. I simply made up an story arc in my head for fun and I'll never write it down prob. This is just a bio description there's already too much text

FISH'S STORY ROLE: Intimidating but also goofy secundary antagonist that becames an ally during the "Miklagard arc"

PERSONALITY and TRAITS: 22-25ish years old 1,85cm height Pirate - Mostly works with theft, kiddnaping rich people and scams - he does whatever job his boss tells him to He's really good at navigation and a BEAST in ship combat. Extreme introvert and very quiet - He's terrible at catching social clues, small talk and humor. He has a hard time articulating his complicated feelings and ideas, usually resorting to confusing poorly-contructed methaphors that nobody gets His facial expressions tend to be subtle and not exagerated (except when in SICKO MODE) Tends to have more "closed" body posture and gestures He's an ocean enthusiast - loves boats, mermaids, sea creatures and all sort of sea-related tales ("holy shit is that the legendary LEIF THE LUCKY???" he screams) Low self-esteem - hardly sees himself as a human sometimes (Vol always calls him an ugly bastard and he takes that serious) Easily confused or manipulated but he's not unninteligent or evil - he just lacks experience due to his traumatic and precarious life Was born under slavery but managed to escape in his teens, living in the streets alone until he met Vol When asked about his origins he claims he's the son Poseidon or some other ocean god (he is ashamed of his painful past) His birth name is unknown to others - Ironically, despite being an exceptional good swimmer, he was given his nickname because of his habit of sleeping with open eyes Wants so bad to own a ship, a really pretty ship Eats mostly fish and bread - smells like a sea creature Casually curses and uses terrible language - rarely knows the meaning and weight of words tho Raspy voice Speaks with an Australian accent in the english dub Knows both Norse and the local languages of the region Has cartoony triangular teeth Can use ear rings (such as a fish hook) for style I might give him tatoos in the future Bisexual but unaware Characters from popular media that share some vibes with fish: Kronk(Emperor's New Wave), Laios(Dungeon Meshi), John Marston(Red Dead Redemption), Bötarö(Golden Kamui) Possible fursonas: actual fish, shark, orca, doberman, retriever, coyote, hyena, wolf, jumping spider, odontomachus ant

HABILITIES: SICKO MODE ON - he charges at the enemy ferociously. He puts up a menacing smile all the time (as Vol told him to, to be scary) EXTREME SWIMMER - Can dive into the ocean and swim really fast even during storms. He can hold his breath for a really long time Really good at sea navigation His favorite move consists in simply throwing his opponent off the boat (which often is an issue in the case of a kidnapping attempt or a bounty) He's a strong, fast and capable fighter but very clumsy and goofy (also, badly equipped - uses makeshift weapons most of the time) During fights, he has no regards for the safety of bystanders or even himself, he just charges like a mad man Crazy sense of smell

WEAPONS: Harpoon, knife and nets THROWS A BUCKET OF CRABS AT YOU SLAPS YOU WITH A FISH WACKS YOU WITH A PADDLE LAUNCHES AN ANCHOR AT YOU His fights are usually half brutal and half goofy

AFFILIATION: Vol - Vol's an older pirate who prides himself as a noble warrior destinated to great things 55 year old 1,65cm Swedish After being kicked out of a tavern, the old man saw on the street a teenager fist fighting three drunk sailors. The boy was able to hold himself in combat mostly but eventually started to take serious hits. The older man was impressed but not willing to help - that until one of the adults hit him by accident. Enraged and drunk, Vol knocked the teeth out of the three dudes easily. Since that, Fish enthusiastically follows him around everywhere. He taught Fish how to sail and speak norse. Claims he used to be a general or some sort of high ranking military - nobody believes him except fish Is deceivingly strong - despite his low stature and round shape this man is as strong as a bear He's always plotting new plans to conquer wealth and fame but his schemes often fall short due to his own hubris and arrogance. Classic Vol behavior: Trying to scam rich nobles but getting scammed in the process instead Despite his pretentions, this man holds no warrior honor and doesn't care about keeping his word or anything Loves to go on monologues and digressions. His plans often consist of Fish doing all the hard physical dangerous action while he does the "logistics and talking" - he just stands around shouting and screaming most of the time Always gives bad advice to Fish, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. He enjoys lying just for the fun of it too "Just one more job and I'll retire, I'm serious about this" says the pirate for the 4th time in the month Even after a successful job, he often either ends up gambling their money away or something similar He sucks - He's just like Askeladd if Askeladd was absolutelly unskilled and an goofy af Possible fursonas: penguin, gorilla, onion, bear, badger, wolverine, whale, walrus, crab

The other 4 unnamed guys on the boat - old pirates only there for the money. They're terrified of Fish despite his attempts to befriend them - he accidentaly says things that make him come off as a psychopath everytime he speaks. The moment anything goes wrong these guys flee

BOAT: Musa is a tiny greek ship, owned by Vol, that can carry around 6-8 people. It's old and battered but can still sail really fast. please boat nerds, forgive me for my lack of research but i just wanted to imagine a cool boat fight between a viking boat and one of those greek boats with eyes. I have no idea about what's the difference between a galley and a normal boat or even if these ships existed during the 10-11th century. I work on vibes alone

FUN FACT: Fish existed way before my first contact with Vinland Saga. I created him around 2017-2018 and he used to be a Planet of the Apes (1969 lol), he had many eras, but finally got transmutated recently by the influence of my new favorite manga. He might get mutated further in the future too idk. My brain has the shape of a pretzel.

[creature-wizard]

https://youtu.be/1CaLMJgYVuk?feature=shared

Was watching this video on esoterica and I thought it was interesting because he mentions this text from the 906 common era "canon episcopi" that urges bishops to erradicate magic practices from pre christian pagans, and one of the practices mentioned is that women believed they could ride beasts with the goddess Diana who they worshiped. And that this might be some of the earliest mention of something related to witches flying and they were doing this for a pagan goddess and not the devil.

This really surprised me because I always thought the use of a goddess and even Diana found in Wicca tradition was mostly influenced from a need to separate from the so called patriarchal religions that had only a God and also bc of the feminist movement, but I wonder if they were perhaps influenced by these texts?

I don't know of any specific cases of direct influence, but I'm pretty sure it came to influence the modern witchcraft movement indirectly. In 1899, this dude Charles Leland published what he claimed to be a holy text used by a secret group of witches in Tuscany, which depicted Diana and Lucifer as deities venerated by witches. It's altogether pretty congruent with the myths and conspiracy theories of the witch hunts, and the story of how Leland claimed he got it is full of the usual red flags for textual/spiritual forgeries. (He claims he got it from an Italian woman named Maddelena, who mysteriously disappeared shortly after giving it to him. Anytime someone says they got it from some mysterious individual who can't or won't come forward to verify it, that's basically code for "I pulled it out of my own ass.") The text came to influence the modern witchcraft movement.

Now as for Wicca, the initial presence of the goddess wasn't done for what I would consider particularly feminist reasons, but rather because its founder was a straight guy who liked sex. Wicca as it was initially conceived shows characteristics of patriarchal thinking - the God is imagined as a warrior and hunter (he's defined by actual jobs), while the Goddess is imagined as maiden, mother, and crone (she's defined by age and one of her most important traits is bearing and raising children.)

Now don't get me wrong, feminism has definitely been a huge thing in the modern witchcraft movement, and many people who consider themselves feminists choose to venerate goddesses in defiance of patriarchy, but the initial presence of Diana and the Goddess wasn't all that strongly motivated by feminism.

[tyrantisterror]

Why are Bulma and Piccolo your favorite Dragon Ball characters?

It might sound weird, but I love Bulma because of her very glaring flaws. She is loud, short-tempered, vain, self-centered, arrogant, too-clever by half, and extremely bossy, all of which are traits that are generally given to villainous women so that we hate them. But Bulma's not a villain - she's a hero, and for all her faults, she's also incredibly smart, resourceful, and resilient. Bulma never says die, never gives up, always tries to come up with a solution to whatever shit gets thrown her way, and goddamn, she manages to pull something together more often than not! In fact, most of her virtues are connected to her flaws - that arrogance pushes her to defy the odds and succeed, her tendency to overshoot when showing off her smarts will lead to situations where she can apply those smarts under pressure to more spectacular results, and you know what, she is really fucking pretty, so why shouldn't she be proud of it? Like, I've said before on a few occasions that I love it when a hero has villain coding, and Bulma has all the same villain coding as Jessie from Team Rocket - but she's a hero, she's unambiguously a hero, and a hero we need more often than not, and that's so damn cool. I love that she gets to be this loud, bossy, arrogant, vain person who's nonetheless a good friend and incredibly reliable and resourceful ally, that for all her abundant faults she's still a lovable and iconic hero. Girl characters don't get to be those things often enough! We need more Bulmas in the world.

My love for Piccolo is a bit simpler/more obvious. One, he's got a kickass character design - he and Aku from Samurai Jack cemented my love of costumes with big fucking shoulder pads/pauldrons. Two, as a person who had never seen Dragon Ball and found out about the series when they aired Dragon Ball Z on Toonami back in the 90's, Piccolo was the weirdest thing that first episode threw at me, and it threw a LOT of weird shit at me in that episode. Talking turtles, cats, and pigs, a lady with blue hair, a guy whose kid has a monkey tail, aliens, all sorts of shit. But then there's this big green guy who everyone is terrified of for reasons the episode doesn't really explain (because there's a whole series you're supposed to have watched before it) who asks the father of the monkey tail boy to team up with him against the monkey tail alien, and the green guy has these weird pink ridges on his arms and the coolest fucking outfit I had seen at that point in my life, and when he takes off his weird purple ball hat thing it turns out he has antenna under it, and his teeth are sharp like a vampire, and he blows a hole through the dad guy's chest, like holy shit what an icon, I loved him immediately.

And then Piccolo proceeds to train the monkey-tail kid, claiming he's going to use him to take over the world, but as the show goes on it's clear that Piccolo is not as evil as he claims to be, and clearly cares for this kid despite claiming to only be using him as a tool, all leading up to the big battle with Nappa where Piccolo, that ruthless green slug vampire motherfucker, takes the killing blow to save the kid he stole. Blew my goddamn mind. There were almost no other characters in the media I had consumed as a child up till that point who matched Piccolo's moral complexity- about the only ones I can think of that compare are Dinobot from Beast Wars and Hexadecimal from Reboot, and, well, I'm also obsessed with those two, so here we are.

Piccolo had a great character arc and defined so much of what made Dragon Ball Z instantly special and unique in my eyes as a kid. There was no one like him, no one who did what he did, no one who looked as cool as he did. What a fucking legend.

[hot-take-tournament]

hey i don't know if you've ever considered professional writing or journalism but holy shit. every analytical essay i see from you is so well sourced and articulated. and dropping quotes like THESE

"I could feel the sand of my lifespan pooling in the bottom of the hourglass"

so casually just drives me nuts. like. i know this is just an offhand comment from you but oh my god. half the reason i follow you is honestly just for the way you speak. wait i hope that isn't weird. please disregard if that's weird.

Thanks, I appreciate it <3

I did think about trying something like that, which is why I picked such an essay-heavy degree - but my main problem is I just don't finish things I invest so much time into

One of my toxic traits is that sometimes I get an ask which becomes a hyperfixation, and then I spend the whole day obsessively researching and writing an extended response to answer it, and then 9 times out of 10 don't post it

So, the handful of long things I did write and post (like the Beast Games stuff, and the video game industry one) are like the 1% that was actually finished

But there's like a hundred more unanswered asks with sources and multiple paragraphs wasting away in my drafts because I never finished what I was trying to say, and because some of them are from 2023 I can't remember what the context was any more

There's some weird shit in there ngl-