#No more sentient beings especially eggs

[life-winners-liveblog]

Yeah we can! *Gives Scar an ender dragon egg*

Scar:... This is just a normal unfertilized dragon egg! I have been scammed!

[eatmangoesnekkid]

What I know from quietly mentoring women over the years is that most women do not need to eat less. We need to eat more, especially more protein, which stimulates our metabolism to become more active. Eating more protein is not necessarily about mindlessly eating and killing more and more animals, these sentient beings who clearly do not want to be eaten by us. It does mean finding more creative ways to get more protein in our meals by centering eating more things that do not have a central nervous system like eggs, plants, fruit, soaked nuts and seeds, and oysters, or reusing bones from homemade bone broth over and over and over again but not just absentmindedly buying more meat from anywhere and everyone. While vegetarian sources of protein are ok like well-soaked, well-cooked kidney beans yet not as dense and bio-available as animal sources especially as we get older (and our digestive systems get older ), we do have to be mindful and thoughtful around our eating habits that can cause us to reap more negative forms of karma. Karmic cycles follow those who don’t close out chapters of their lives properly and live recklessly with no honor, principles, or values. I would love to see more collective care and deep soul ritual around how we relate to and consume animals. In another life, I would be a homesteader and live with intention, prayer, playfulness, and ritual around my farm animals and their rites of passage.

And when there was a sacrifice that needed to be made, I would be the one to do it all as a daughter of Oshun and Artemis, while adorned in the most beautiful elegant cowrie shells and form-fitting, colorful fabric wrapped into a little dress and I would make the ethical kill with love, respect, and precision. Oftentimes this is a missing key code with women—to face and come to terms with death and our need to give death to what is no longer serving, like a long term friendship that no longer feels solid and truthful or a farm animal who constantly attacks and creates fights that injure other animals on the farm. Both scenarios are one in the same frequencies. —India Ame’ye

[childofsardior]

What? Iggy's Headcanon from my AU? Here we gooo!

↓↓↓ Read it all below! ↓↓↓

General Info:

Full name: Ignatius Koopa. Iggy was the very first victim of his mother’s realization that she was giving her children long names that could be easily shortened in popular Human's Dimension musicians. Since she already gave Lemmy and Roy longer names, she continued the trend of searching for something that could be compressed into Iggy to mention Iggy Pop. An old Latin name was the only thing she found. By the way, Iggy doesn't mind. He claims that, in reality, Ignatius sounds perfect for a mad scientist, but he's saving his full name for the time he'll be a famous and acclaimed researcher and inventor.

Gender and pronouns: Pronouns are he/him. He claims that "gender is way too complex to be compressed by a single label and even with a one-year-long accurate explanation about how I'm feeling right now could not bring justice to a person's fluidity during the time". If Lemmy asked him to bring a flag for a hypothetical Mushroom Pride, Iggy would probably take the Agender flag with him, even if it's just an "arid and inaccurate simplification and oversimplified approximation of the Koopas and other sentient creatures' complex nature".

Sexuality: He's aro/ace. Again, Iggy's love for accurate explanations will lead him to claim that, of course, one's sexuality is a lot more complex than a single word and the (potentially fluid) result of a mix of innate and cultural factors, educational background, personal experience(s), and even more. But he actually adopted these labels since he found out they are very convenient to quickly describe his lack of attraction - at least, physical and romantic - towards other people, especially if someone is trying to flirt with him and he's like "Oh no". Despite what his siblings think, tho, he would not refuse the idea of a platonic relationship in the (distant) future... if he'll ever find a genius brain that could match his love for science, of course.

Age: He's currently 16 (in calendar years), sharing his age with Roy and Wendy since their eggs were from the same clutch and hatched just a few hours away from each other. He's the one that hatched in the middle, the day after Roy and the day before Wendy. As Royal Koopas mature faster than Humans and such, Iggy could be compared to a 18/19 y.old Human. Just like Ludwig, tho, Iggy has always been even more precocious, being very intelligent and smart since he was a tiny hatchling - but curiously enough he didn't learn how to speak until 1.5 years old, later than all his siblings.

Species: Tarrasquin (also known as "Royal Koopas" or "Dragon-Turtles") - that happens to be a powerful and rare species related both to Koopas and Dragons. The lack of horns at a young age and the number of spikes on the shell may point to the subspecies known as Plains/Field Tarrasquin, while some other details could suggest a "mix" with the Vulcanic bloodline. In addition, all the Koopalings seem to share an innate inclination toward magic and some other unusual details never found before in Tarrasquins, such as tail feathers or natural armors protecting the limbs, along with peculiar tiny gem-like scales scattered around their bodies in different patterns.

Physical appearance: Iggy is a yellow-scaled Tarrasquin with some green accents scattered around his whole body, especially on his head and limbs. On his shoulders and joints, he got some harder, spikier scales. He has long, straight acid-green hair, and blue eyes with the iris detached from the pupils for an unknown mutation. Iggy's Royal Fangs follows a lateral quartet and curved pattern, a slightly rarer variant of the straight quartet one. Some tiny spikes sprouted recently on the top of his tail. He's the tallest among his siblings, and not only thanks to his usual hairstyle - even his green shell is oval-shaped instead of round. He's also very slim, and he looks quite frail for a dragon-turtle. Iggy is actually the most delicate of the family, talking about his resilience and health, and the fact that his body is incapable of digesting meat in the right way doesn't help it.

Personality: Iggy's known as the mad genius of the Royal Family, acting crazy all the time and all. If you meet him in person for the first time, you'll probably agree with the rumors. He often talks by himself, laughs crazily even during dangerous situations, and will always tell you what he's honestly thinking without even pondering his words. He's also easily excited and tends to act hyperactively while he's among other people, while sometimes becoming extremely annoying and even childish when he's hanging out with his siblings. But Iggy's crazed facade is just one side of the coin of his whole personality. He mostly adopts (unconsciously) his extremely mad behavior when he finds himself in new social situations, or between his whole bunch of siblings as a sort of coping mechanism to fight an overwhelming social anxiety. In his comfort zone - usually shared with Lemmy - he'll show a more tranquil and nerdy side, full of curiosity and random facts about whatever he's researching this month. He's also extremely clever and intelligent, mostly in a scientific and inventive way - always thinking about his next projects and mechanical inventions - but somehow a bit naive and usually not very wise. At the same time, he can't really understand most of the things that do not fall into his interests - he can't understand sports, he can't understand politics, he can't understand why Wendy likes so much spending hours at SPAs receiving massages from strangers?? - and nobody can really insult or joke with him, Iggy just won't acknowledge why you're trying to offend him, and will just laugh in response. On the other hand, he actually likes to joke by himself or about his rivals, and even insult his opponents in his own way, leading his siblings to believe he just pretends to not understand how irony works. Most of the time, you will find Iggy content about his next great idea, or way too busy working on his next super-duper-cool machine to worry about life at all, but from time to time even the most clever of the family gets blue. Sometimes he just feels lonely, especially during these days in which he suddenly finds it hard to communicate with others - and he will probably spend them working alone in his labs, talking to himself or even in a deep, thinking silence. He also strongly dislikes being touched without warning, an exception made only for Lemmy, and some days he will just... need a pause from social overstimulation. All of this usually leads to Iggy being one of the most reclusive brothers in the group. In these cases, he prefers to spend time with the weirdest insects in his terrariums or with his Chain Chomp pet instead of being around people. Last but not least, Iggy can usually manage his stress and anxiety when it's about people - he will just go somewhere more comfortable and quiet, be that his room or a lonely tower - but something that really breaks him down is losing or breaking his eyeglasses. It's probably one of the only times you can see him really panic or even cry in fear with wet eyes if that happens during a fight or at a bad moment in general.

Hobbies and passions: Iggy's passions are just a few, but he's extremely dedicated (and hyperfixed) about them. Mechanical arts, absurd weaponry and machines, and futuristic inventions are the first things he's usually focused on, but he loves doing his own research about uncommon flora and faunas, cataloging new animals and plants in his book and PCs. He even "collects" some of them in terrariums and pots, occasionally experimenting with some of his bugs' poison or some weird plant's leaves and lymph. He's also very into videogames since he could put his hands on one, and he's currently the second-best hardcore player of the whole house, just after Ludwig - but recently, Iggy's slowly overcoming him. It's not rare for the two "house geniuses" to compete or even resolve a conflict with a serious match of "Super Smash Siblings", and Iggy is the first one his siblings will ask for help to complete a hard level - since nobody wants to ask Ludwig for help unless it's the only solution left. Aside from video gaming only, Iggy's quite into programming, modding and even hacking. He usually assembles his own and his siblings' PCs and will crack all the games Larry wants in his free time, and while he's not programming some new AI for his latest robotic experiment, he will also spend some decent time on obscure science-related sub-Red.dot, as well on specific sites such as digibutter.nerr, talking with other nerds all around the world exchanging info and nerdy hacks.

Relationships:

With his siblings: Iggy can prove to be a very annoying company, and this is why not all of his sibs like to hang out with him, especially among the older. His younger brothers, instead, are often looking for him for help, to request him some new inventions or hack for their Swiitch or even to ask him to get some new movies and videogames in not-so-legal-ways. His very best pal is Lemmy and they often spend lots and lots of time together, but Iggy has a good relationship with Junior, Larry and Morton, too.

Now, for each relationship with the siblings:

Ludwig: They are rivals, always contending for the title of the real "family genius". But while Iggy just casually claims to be clever and able to do some cool stuff, Ludwig is extremely convinced of his own words and will get quite jealous when Iggy surpasses him - so it's more a very serious rivalry only from Ludwig's POV, while Iggy would be cool about the statement "there are two big-brained Koopas in this house" (three, if you count Wendy in it, but she doesn't have time for this childish type of squabbles). But even if Ludwig doesn't want to admit it, Iggy was the one who inspired him to discover some interest in projecting blueprints for his own war machines and such, and they do work together from time to time when the necessity asks for both points of view. Iggy is also the only one in the family that calls his blue-shelled brother"Luddy", and Ludwig hates it.

Lemmy:  Saying that Iggy and Lemmy are best friends would be reductive. They are basically twin-coded (even if Lemmy is a year and half older than Iggy) and probably the two form the strongest bond inside the whole bunch of Royal Koopa siblings. Since they were hatchlings they spent most of their time together. As kids they played together all day, they started to prank others together, they went on "adventures" together... they even tried out various dye colors for their hair together, always trying to match, and until puberty, they were both short enough to be easily mistaken for actual twins at a first glance - except made for Iggy's need for eyeglasses. Then, things started to change a bit. Iggy's growth sprout surprised everyone, and put a big difference between him and Lemmy's absurd shortness; at a certain point, Iggy started to look for his own identity, stopped dyeing his hair and looked for a peculiar hairstyle instead. Their passions differentiated a lot during their teen years, leaving both siblings with less to share. But even if Lemmy was (and secretly still is) afraid of this at first, in the end their bond didn't weaken. They are still both a little weird in their own ways, and they both follow their interests without caring about what others could think of them. They constantly support each other to the point they can finish each other's sentences, and they also confide only to each other. Iggy is actually a good listener to Lemmy's concerns, knowing them so well, and vice-versa. They would end up being the type of siblings that will just go to live together reaching adulthood... if it wasn't for Lemmy's visceral intolerance for the jungle's humidity and Iggy's impossibility of tolerating very cold climates.

Roy: Iggy is a bit afraid of Roy. Being the frail, nerdy one, Iggy has been an easy target for the family's pink-headed bully since he was a kid. If something in Iggy's inventions goes wrong during a mission, Roy will just beat him up without questions out of anger. They do not interact much, and the green-shelled Royal Koopa tries to simply avoid his one-day-older brother when he can.

Wendy: As with Roy, Iggy and Wendy do not interact much, unless forced by the circumstances. Roy and Wendy acting as twins since they were newborns and excluding him on purpose doesn't help. Wendy finds Iggy too frivolous and weird for her liking, and Iggy doesn't understand any of Wendy's hobbies, passions and tastes in general. Wendy would spend all her savings on new clothing and accessories...? "Why would you need them? We are dragon-turtles, not Humans! We do not *need* clothing!" Wendy would spend a whole day at her favorite SPA, letting strangers touch her with massages, wearing weird masks made of food and even taking Mud Baths?? "Is she crazy? Why would anyone like to be touched or even "beaten" on purpose? And wasn't she the super-clean one that hated dirt in all its form??" On the brighter side, Wendy, as opposed to Roy, never bullied Iggy for his behaviors when he was younger.

Morton: The two spend some nice time together, especially since Iggy started his "let's teach grammar and spelling to our big, dark-scaled bro!". Iggy's the only one who is actively trying to help Morton with his speech issue, and every week they are learning new conjunctions, verbs and words - Iggy's ultimate goal is to prove to his other siblings that Morton is not "just a dumb head" as they sometimes claim - even if they are not doing too much progresses by now. Iggy also allows Morton to keep him company during field research and asks for his help from time to time when he needs to assemble big and heavy pieces, counting on Morton's innate strength. Morton is also allowed to assist him during his "I need some silence, please" working moments, as long as he stays silent. Iggy is also trying to teach him how to catalog weird rocks, but Morton just seems to enjoy the pure act of collecting them and putting them in nice places around his room.

Larry: Iggy and Larry have a decent relationship overhaul. Larry LOVES Iggy, especially when he needs something. Iggy feels quite proud of it, feeling a bit like Ludwig in "big, responsible bro mode". They usually spend time playing videogames together or thinking about unofficial mods to apply to the boring Mushroom Kingdom's videogames (for example, modding their own stylized models in the game to be able to play as themselves instead of as a boring plumber in some popular platforms). Aside from that, Larry and Iggy's other interests don't match much, but Iggy is one of the few who can tolerate the younger for the most time.

Bowser Junior: The two have a good relationship, mostly because Junior loves Iggy's crazy "Bahahaha!"-style laugh and most of all his inventions - the Koopa Heir is even approaching the absurd world of (fantasy) mechanic thanks to Iggy, and is trying to learn how to do some projects himself. He always asks Iggy for some new upgrades to his Junior Clown Car, new pirated Swiitch games (when King Bowser refuses to buy him more), new cool toys (such as the Mechakoopas, that Iggy originally created as toys for tiny Larry and Junior) and some times even for super giant mecha to use against the annoying Mario Brothers. Iggy is also surprisingly protective of Bowser Junior when they are on missions together, maybe because the youngest of the family unconsciously remembers Iggy when he was small and frail himself, in need of Lemmy's protection.

* * *

With King Bowser: Iggy has a decent relationship with his adoptive father and King of the Koopas. He *does* see him as a parental figure, even if he doesn't often agree with his plans and can't really understand the way the King reasons. Bowser will frequently ask Iggy to create new anti-Mario weapons, for Iggy's pleasure, but aside from that the two don't interact very much - especially since Iggy is extremely honest with his opinions and Bowser doesn't really like when someone is questioning his Royal Authority. Iggy is also (currently) the only one who likes to jokingly call Bowser "daddy" or "royal daddy", something everyone in the family dislikes a lot.

With his Mother (OC): During the years the siblings used to live with their mother, Iggy was the curious boy of the house. He was always finding new things to show his mother, from funny-shaped leaves to colorful feathers to new books full of dinosaurs. He was a bit reclusive and shy too as a child, and their mother had to step in and protect him from Roy's arrogance or after a fight with Ludwig, a role that Lemmy took themselves when they started to be old enough. Being his mother and Iggy both a bit autistic and filled with social anxiety, too, they could easily understand each other about how stressful it was to stay among strangers and how stressful overstimulation could get.

With Charlie (his Chain Chomp): Iggy has a Chain Chomp pet named "Charlie". It is not the first one he gets, but it's actually the first one he is being responsible for. When he was younger, he had other Chain Chomp pets (he really likes them) but was too childish and irresponsible to properly take care of them, usually leading to the poor magical creatures to run away at some point. In recent years, tho, he's getting better at pet-sitting and caring, and Charlie seems grateful for that: he's probably the happier, more satisfied, polished, well-fed Chain Chomp of the whole Kingdom, and it's extremely loyal to Iggy - and Iggy only. Charlie would bite anyone that gets too close, except for Lemmy whom it now trusts enough to let him ride its back from time to time.

With the Mario Bros., Princess Peach and Mushroom Kingdom: Iggy doesn't really care about conquering, but he is very much interested in studying native creatures and plants of each Kingdom. During peacetime, he would gladly attend some nerd conventions in the Mushroom Kingdom, and he would literally love to meet Professor E.Gadd in person... if the Princess didn't blacklist him from entering the borders as she did with almost all the Royal Family and the Koopa Troop. Now Iggy would need to request a special permit weeks in advance with a lot of boring bureaucracy to fill and a valid motive to stay in the Kingdom for two days maximum, so... he doesn't really like the Princess for this reason. While with the Mario Bros., Iggy would usually be excited to see them - they are, after all, perfect punching balls for his newest battle machines, and his Chain Chomp loves running after them - but he actually dislikes them a lot since they broke his glasses once years ago, during one of their first fights.

Peculiarities & co.

Right-Handed: Iggy is naturally right-handed. Looking at Ludwig's confidence in using both hands for a long time, he tried to train himself to use his left hand as well, for a while... but then he just gave up, finding it too hard and tedious.

Senses: Iggy's biggest weakness, physically speaking, is probably related to his poor sight. Without his special glasses, he is almost blind - he hatched with a severe visual impairment and during his first years of life it just went worse. When he was around 3, his mother was lucky enough to meet a Magikoopa glassmaker who worked with special lenses and Iggy was able to see decently for the first time in his life. When he was later adopted at the castle, the royal eye doctor took him under his supervision. When Iggy was around 10, he started working on his own, personalized pair of eyeglasses, mixing actual glassmaking science with some Magikoopa's cultural knowledge and a tiny bit of adaptive magic to create the "Perfect Iggy's Glasses" (after a lot of trials and fails and prototypes); his last version mixes the best glass from the Sand Kingdom with some strengthen magic from the Red Robes' Magikoopa Order to make them unbreakable... after the various incidents during the years.

Autism: Iggy falls under the autism spectrum, with many traits close to IRL Asperger Syndrome to be more precise - (NOTE: I am sure a "SMB world" equivalent exists with a nicer name, I just don't know one yet-). To be honest, Iggy always suspected it way before being actually diagnosed with it by the Castle's doctors. He's mostly fine with it, accepting his autistic traits as part of his own uniqueness - and, if you ask him, as a part of his genius, too - but sometimes he would gladly take a break from it... especially when overwhelmed by too much noise or when stressed by social interactions. Iggy is also very much convinced that almost everyone in his family has some (sometimes prominent) autistic traits, but the others are not so willing to take tests or talk with doctors to find out, so we will probably never know for sure.

Vegetarian: Iggy is MOSTLY vegetarian. Not by choice, but thanks to his body being very bad at processing meat, for some reasons. "Mostly", because he actually *could* eat very small amounts of meat/fish from time to time without getting sick, but it happens so rarely that he usually even forgets about it. Luckily for him, he loves all types of vegetables, eats lots of fruit and likes eggs A LOT (probably his favorite meal after carrots and turnips); not very fond of dairy products, but he eats them during the week, and will probably only eat vegetables and fruit related cakes. Will also try to get as much protein as he can from legumes, but since Tarrasquins are considered mainly carnivores, he often needs nutritional supplements.

Fire: All the Koopalings have a peculiar "fire"; when fire-breathing, they all will breathe fire of the same color as their shells. Iggy's fire is currently the weakest of the whole family, but it tends to create a lot of green, urticant smoke that makes it hard to see. It's not too useful in actual fights, but can work as a great distraction in need of a quick escape from a bad situation.

Random Facts:

He's a germophobe, and will sanitize his tools, hands and workspace every time he starts and finishes working in his labs.

Iggy is not having a *real* shower in almost 3.5 years. Instead, he perfectly polishes himself from any type of dirt using his own invention, the "Sonic Shower Sound Waver Filth Remover". He also uses a special gel made by himself to treat and keep his hair up every morning.

Iggy doesn't have many friends, especially IRL. But he sometimes finds himself in a group chat or nerdy forums with the same people for enough time, and he'll start addressing them as his "online pals" or "online weirdos".

One of his "online weirdos" is a guy named Francis and obsessed with butterflies. They never saw each other in person nor via webcam, but Francis claims he's a Chameleon and has the hugest collections of comics, manga, action figures, and video games of all his other nerdy pals, probably of his whole dimension, too. 

One day Iggy and Larry decided to create a videogame together with an easy game maker on PC. Larry wanted to be the protagonist, but couldn't decide about a genre for the game. It ended up looking like a horror-action-but-also-dating-sim game with a cooler and older version of Larry fighting horrible un-deads while also trying to flirt with the cute ones. It was meant as an inside joke between the two brothers and they got bored after three days. One year later, tho, Iggy secretly started to work on it again out of boredom and actually finished "developing" it, even publishing it on an obscure forum of free-to-play games. It now exists in the world under the name of "Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker".

Francis, Iggy's Chameleon online pal, is the only person who completed said game 100%. Iggy sent him an exclusive physical copy as a joke after learning about this.

Larry won't like finding out his game has been "published" without his consent - and most of all, for free. He will force Iggy to work on a sequel with an even cooler and adult version of Larry as the protagonist in the future, known as "Larry Koopa the Heartbreaker and The Revenge of the Dry Bones Queen". They will get royalties from that one, this time.

Some years ago Iggy started gifting tiny plants for every birthday he attends - usually, his siblings'. They can be flowers, succulent plants, carnivorous plants and even the equivalent of the SMB world of... weed (probably, some tiny variant of Wonder Flowers... we'll call it "Wonder Weed" lel) - but the vulcanic climate and his siblings' negligence will let the poor plants dry in a few days. Roy is the only one who is still happily cultivating his tiny Wonder Weed pots after three years.

Recently Iggy found out about TTRPG games; he tried to involve his sibs in it, convincing Lemmy and Ludwig at first, Roy after a while and Larry just recently. Iggy is currently mastering his first campaign of Thousand Years & Doors, with a party made of Ludwig (High Elf, Wizard), Lemmy (Firbolg, Druid), Roy (Half-Orc, Barbarian) and Larry (Dragonborn, Bard). Junior wants to play with them but knowing his bratty attitude they send him away claiming the game is for "Larry's age and up" only. 

Despite this, they are regretting letting Larry play, too. He's the classic "I only use Vicious Mockery! I'll destroy all my enemies INSULTING their parents and siblings and cousins in a *magical" way! Can I try to open the door exploding it with a bad joke?". Iggy is at least grateful that Larry is still too young, naive and not very into *adult jokes* yet, because as a deeply asexual Game Master he couldn't bear the even more stereotypical.... "18+ annoying bard attitude" (if you know a bit of IRL D&D classes stereotypes, you got what I mean.)

One of Iggy's biggest pet peeves revolves around "adult *spicy* jokes", especially when too explicit. He can't stand them. He hates them with all his heart and spirit. He just cringes so much hearing them that he would prefer sinking into the ground and disappearing instead.

He doesn't like bunnies much - herbivorous animals in general make him nervous, especially small ones. Maybe this is due to Roy always joking about Iggy looking like a carrot and that he could be in serious danger among a rabbit warren…

He's probably the only one in the family who, despite his name and all, can't sing or play any instrument. Ludwig could play a whole orchestra by himself and even more, Lemmy can play the electric guitar & bass, Roy can play the drums and the violin, Wendy can sing and loves to, Morton can kinda play the bass drum and has perfect timing with the triangle, Larry is learning how to play the electric keyboard and the Otamatone and is quite good at mixing and remixing music from his PC... and even Junior is starting to learn something about the transverse flute and the piano.

Once, Iggy tried to work on his own AI that could "create" music for him, of course using others' works as a "base" to train it. His siblings - especially Ludwig - basically threatened Iggy of unaliving him in response. "Go on. Try to put my music inside that bot. Then you'll enjoy eternity as a Dry Iggy, I can assure you". -Lud 

Rumors say that Iggy can instead dance quite well (in his own unique style), and even perform a perfect moonwalk. But nobody knows for sure...

His IQ score beats Ludwig's by a few points. Iggy is extremely satisfied by it, while Ludwig is trying to forget this information every day of his life.

When he was a kid, he created a "Time Machine" way before Professor E.Gadd himself. Iggy really wanted to see dinosaurs, and traveled "back in time" to observe them in their natural habitat. Then one way during his dino-watching, a random dude dressed with modern clothing passed by selling some "Yoshi-to-Fungi" dictionary, and Iggy understood that his "Time Machine" was actually working as a "quite normal, quite boring" teleporter to the Dinosaur Islands instead.

Bowser seized the opportunity using the fast-travel to get his army there, trying to conquest the Islands. But Mario was having a vacantion there and... it... didn't end well.

[cricketnationrise]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks to @cha-melodius, @kiwiana-writes, and @happiness-of-the-pursuit for the tags!

How many works do you have on ao3?

253

What's your total ao3 word count?

481,635

What fandoms do you write for?

RWRB, Check Please!, Tortall, verrrry occassionally The Parasol Protectorate

Top five fics by kudos:

Going Platinum - camboy!Alex AU

Burnin' Through the Sky - speed dating meet-cute

Set in Platinum - camboy!Alex sequel

warm from the inside out - some stuff happens under a desk 😉

Downburst - In The Shadow of Two Gunmen/West Wing AU

Do you respond to comments?

I have responded to every comment so far!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't tend to write angsty endings. That being said, this Check, Please! ficlet I wrote for @shygryf is very angsty: Hotel Room, Mar. 1 (I did fix it with a later ficlet, but on it's own...)

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of them tbh. I'm an unrepentant happy ending lover.

Do you get hate on fics?

Nothing that comes to mind--I've been extremely lucky. I've gotten some baffling ones and some with a strange tone, but I think that's more down to English not being their first language, not hate.

Do you write smut?

Yes.

Craziest crossover:

I tend toward fusions/AUs rather than actual crossovers. Although there are Check Please! easter eggs in the Going Platinum universe.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of, although I would hope that any translator would have let me know so that I can flail in overwhelmed gratitude.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not yet, although there's one that's been sitting for a year-ish that I'm gonna be really excited to finally get to.

All time favorite ship?

I won't choose and you can't make me.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Not right now. All the wips I've got that are more than just like, one line or a title, I'm really excited about writing and sharing.

What are your writing strengths?

Immersive descriptions, humor, and metaphors. This bitch loves a metaphor.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes. I'm getting better, but any time I have a particularly big action scene I beg on my knees for @cha-melodius to get into the doc.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Only If I feel confident about the translation. I'll usually get a native speaker to check it over if it's more than an easy phrase I already know/can google, especially if it's a whole conversation.

First fandom you wrote in?

Check, Please!

Favorite fic you've written?

You're so mean to me making me pick. Le sigh, fine.

Check, Please!: How Delightful if that Were True - Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society AU (100% homegrown epistolary baybee)

RWRB: More Than Brick and Mortar - sentient Brownstone AU, magical realism

Tortall: i'll rise up in spite of the ache - hockey AU of First Test

Parasol Protectorate: No Small Matter - 5+1 pranks on Conall that I wrote for @homobiwan

(narrowing these down was absolute agony, btw. hope you're happy.)

Tags under the cut, but if you wanna do this, who am I to stop you? Aka consider this your open tag.

@celeritas2997 @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @inexplicablymine @leaves-of-laurelin @anincompletelist

@firenati0n @missanniewhimsy @montrealmadison @doggernaut @parvuls

[thefirstknife]

Helloooo sorry this will be a long ask. So i was thinking about the spooky memory rooms the Witness shows us in the campaign (eg. the Ghost room, my personal favorite) and my mind landed on the Starhorse one. Even if you ignore the giant horse statue right in the middle, the room is obviously about Xûr and the Nine. There's a lot of scales buried with the gold and they all have the symbol of The Nine, which is just one of many examples. So i was wondering, do you think the Witness showed us a room entirely dedicated to that just because it's one of our many memories, or because maybe there's something more going on? Why would the Witness specifically make a room about the Nine when it could've picked so many other memories? It's not like we're super involved with The Nine, and Trials of the Nine was part of the 30th anniversary pack which is pretty much just a huge easter egg, so why specifically that? I've always wondered about potential Witness/Nine connections or involvements of the latters with our story (i once saw a video, i think it might've been Byf's? anyways, it said that The Nine were the ones who somewhat orchestrated Uldren's escape from the prison and also Cayde's death, as in it wasn't just a casualty). I think it could also be foreshadowing, because if you take that and the codename "Frontiers" for the next storylines then it gives me the idea that we'll venture out of Sol, and maybe run into the Nine? Or at least be more involved with them. They also had their whole plan revolving around Gambit, which I don't think we ever got a proper explanation for. How did Gambit help them? Since that scene where Orin tells Drifter to keep playing the game is also mentioned in the False Idols lore tab it HAS to be relevant for the near future. For my own sanity. Anyways I'd love to know your thoughts! Sorry again for the super long ask.

We don't currently know much about it, nope!

I personally don't think it has much to do with some new secrets of the Nine or the Nine being connected to the Witness. In my interpretation, the room with treasures, especially when paired with the Witness' dialogue, shows that the Witness doesn't truly understand us or what we do. It saw us enjoying loot and rewards and treasures (the Nine stuff probably serves as the most direct visual link to it; we literally go to a game show to receive outrageous amounts of loot) and it thinks that if it recreates that, we will join it.

It basically tried to tempt us with the same thing that we receive from other factions, thinking that we are in it for that and nothing more. It's desperation. I think the treasure room was supposed to just be symbolic and mimicking the easiest thing the Witness could copy, which was dares stuff (also a little bit of meta thinking, but they made those models for Xur's new space so they also put it there).

The Nine shouldn't really be connected to the Witness, generally speaking. I'm not sure about Uldren's escape, but it IS confirmed that one of the Nine participated in helping Ghaul take the Tower in the Red War, and it was punished for doing so. The Nine appear to have two factions; one that helps us (they send Xur and the Emissary) and wants to understand the Light, and another that is kinda... not really against us, but they don't really care about us.

I'm not sure about frontiers because from the little we understand about the Nine, they are tied to our solar system. Literally. They are a sort of sentient consciousnesses formed from dark matter and gravity of our planets; in a way, they ARE our planets. They depend on life in the system to also live; this is why one of the factions wants to be free of their dependence on living matter. This is also why one of the Nine who helped Ghaul was punished because if the system was destroyed, so too would they have been. This also implies that they would not want to be aligned with the Witness, especially with the Witness taking planets.

With Gambit, from what we can understand, they were involved in seeing us prepare to fight to defend the system in the future. Same with Prophecy dungeon. In both places they helped us understand Light and Dark, and to learn using them both to get stronger. Gambit was one of the first places that had us utilising Darkness abilities (experimenting with Taken stuff) to show us that there is no difference between Light and Dark fundamentally or morally, it's just about how we use it. The same was repeated in Prophecy. From what we can tell, the Nine are invested in seeing us win to keep protecting the system, which means protecting them. Though again, some among them would rather seek a way to free themselves from being dependent on us and organic matter.

But honestly, the story could take the Nine in any direction and find a way to explain it either way. They're a really bizarre concept. I do wonder if they're planning something in the future because they did drop the stuff about the Emissary a few times last year (if I remember correctly, there were at least 2 mentions in Season of the Deep) and now again with False Idols. In False Idols, it feels like it's mostly about just Drifter reminiscing about Orin, but all other mentions also focused on Orin before. Maybe some hints about us saving her in the future? It's possible!

[aughtpunk]

don't know if it was already answered, but what did Lemmy's bloodthirsty, violent war against crop-eating gophers entail? How was it started? Why the little pikes with the heads?

Well, the thing about farms is that they're just big old pile of food, you know? Especially like when it's a very productive farm being led by Lemmy and Leshy. So just a big old pile of food for any normal non-sentient gophers to chow down on

Oh, and recently the cult's population just exploded from a lust festival that resulted in like a LOT of eggs. So many eggs. So many. And all of those eggs hatched and the babies are now finally old enough to eat solid foods. And they're hungry. So very hungry.

So Lemmy found himself with this problem: he needed to get the gophers to stop eating all the crops or else BABIES WOULD STARVE. Extremely cute babies no less. So there was only one thing he could do: declare an all out war

Oh it started innocently enough. A few traps here and there. A fence. But that wasn't enough. The gophers broke through every line of defense. The crops were under attack. Lemmy, unsure of Leshy's plan of "what if we set them on fire" instead went to the one bishop he knew would have the answer

Shamura, the Bishop of War

And by God, Lemmy reigned a war against those gophers the likes that hadn't been seen since the early days of the Old Faith. Shamura taught Lemmy how to fight, how to set better and deadiler traps, and how to make the gophers fear the sight of the yellow cat.

Some say Lemmy went too far. Others (possibly Leshy) said "that's the hottest thing I've ever seen". Even more say wait we had a gopher problem I had no idea. But one thing is for sure: the crops were never threatened by gophers ever again.

[progenycursed]

Heya, love your comic! I had a question though, does your PK realise that the impure vessels were fully sentient or does he think they just weren't fully hollow but also not completely alive, for the lack of a better word? I might be wrong, but from what we've seen of him so far it feels like he wouldn't be the type to kill children if he knew they were full on children and not just undead things with a defect?

(Sorry if it came off as rude or anything, I pulled an all nighter so my wording skills died in the ditch, I ADORE your comic though! Can't wait to see more of it 👀 it's so fun)

YES! A chance to lore dump! And proof that I’ve been characterizing decently!

In this AU, I don't image him standing at the top of the abyss, judging every vessel that makes it up with a toss or a take. I’m of the mind that the climb Ghost does in the game is them getting their memories back, so many of them are blurring together and/or symbolic. It wasn’t actually raining dead siblings all the time.

I just have the Pale King waiting for ANY vessel to make it up. The abyss is harsh. I tried to show it in one of Hollow's flashbacks as well as the vessel bios, that many/most of the vessels don't even make it out of the egg. Those that do, have to deal with void pools trying to kill them and even their fallen siblings attacking them. When he isn’t at the top, waiting and compelling them to climb, most of the vessels never bother trying the perilous and pointless climb. They are just trying to survive. So very, very few of them ever make it up to him. When they do, he would just take who shows up.

He granted the ability of higher thought for all within his domain. And with his power of soul and his heightened senses, he can sense all life, movement, and sense any mind. Even fragmented ones or wild animals. So he can sense the smallest forms of life and the most primitive of minds.

With the vessels, he never sensed any of that from any of them. Not even traces or fragmets. Every single one of his senses are telling him the vessels are nothing more than walking corpses. But even corpses have essence. They don't even have that, the traces that it was once alive. The void is his opposite. It is death and darkness. His senses, all non-void beings senses, are not designed to comprehend it. Even though the vessels have minds, no one but other void beings can sense it.

Any time a vessel went wrong, he would rationalize they went rouge for any number of reasons. None of them being that they had a mind. At least not in a way he could feel confident in saying they had one. I’m not sure if I’m showing it well in the comic, but he has his doubts about the vessels being pure. Which is why he made the tests we see in chapter 3. Testing for curiosity, pateience, and pain. Why we see a guest appearance from the White Lady in chapter 5. But he has no solid proof to back up the one instinct he’s desperately trying to push down for this plan to work. Take a guess which instinct it is >:D

So yes! You are correct. By the time the hollow knight plan was started, the Pale King would never throw a living being into the abyss. In fact, he tries his damdest to ensure no one ends up there even by accident. He views the citizen of Hallownest as his children. And while a lot of the community has it where the White Lady is the caring parent and the Pale King is the uncaring/distant one, I view it more the other way around. But that’s a block of text for a different post.

He wasn’t always a good god-king. Especially in the early cycles. Where his complete lack of understanding of mortals lead to many a miserable life and early deaths. He got much better over the cycles when brave mortals were finally willing to tell the all powerful higher being he was wrong about something. He wants them to tell him, he wants to understand them, so he never gets mad when they do, but most are to scared to because he’s a god-king. So he tries to have a least one person around him who is willing to tell him he’s doing something wrong. Earning them the title of the King’s Keepers.

Even now he’s still not the best in many ways. The nuances of mortal social structure are strange and nonsensical to him. Why does it matter what color you wear to an anniversary party? So he can’t always tell what is ‘normal’ for mortals, and what is actual exploitation of others. Everyone within range is given a mind. What specious of bug they are has no effect on intelligence, and if he heard that argument he’d shut that shit down in a second. But he would have to know about it first. A dedicated enough upper class individual could easily stop those voices from ever getting to him. So there are still problems in Hallownest, but only because he doesn’t know about them.

TLDR

He can sense the mind and life force of everything. And has never sensed any mind or signs of life from any vessel, even when they went rouge. He hasn’t always been a good ruler, even now his ruling style has flaws, but he tries to keep his people happy. He would never throw a living being into the abyss, or subject anyone with a mind to containing an angry god for eternity.

And its great to hear people are enjoying my little AU. I also fear I am coming across rude with these replies. I’m always grateful and happy beyond words to get positive feedback, but I have no idea how to respond to it. Because a thank never feels good enough. But I mean it when I say, thank you!

[midnightmuffingay]

Rating the pets of EAH based on what is on the EAH wiki and my limited knowledge:

Adelita - Rosabella's butterfly. I have never heard of this. Also apparently Adelita translates to 'noble'?? 3/10 I don't think it suits her and also how do you keep a butterfly as a pet.

Barber - Poppy's squirrel monkey. I guess squirrel monkeys are cute and I can see it as a pet for her but I have yet again no memory of this. 5/10

Clipper - Holly's lion cub. Apparently it is 'charmed' to stay a cub forever?? Don't know how that work or why she has a lion or why she would name it Clipper?? there are better names girl. 3/10

Carmine - Cerise's dire wolf. Okay so technically they're part of the same pack or something but it's the daughter of Littler Red Riding Hood and the big Bad Wolf. You can't go wrong with giving her a wolf friend whose name is another shade of red. 6/10

Carrolloo - Kitty's caterpillar. A sneaky little guy. From what we saw of him he compliments Kitty's personality and you know, a caterpillar with a wonderlandian? It's not like I can be mad. 6/10

Clockwork - Cedar's wooded cuckoo. Okay I do actually like this a lot. Even if we never really saw him it's a great concept for her pet to be wooden like her. Especially when you consider it would probably have to been made specifically for her. I love it 8/10

Clydesdale - Farrah's pet mouse. Don't recall and there are better mice. 2/10

Divacorn - Briar's unicorn. Absolutely slayed so hard I don't care about the name which is an astonishing feat. I mean of course Briar would have a pink unicorn it just makes sense. 8/10

Drake - Hopper's dragonfly. Drake. 2/10 Only getting extra points because it is a literal DRAGONfly. He breathes fire.

Earl Grey - Maddie's dormouse. Perfection. Best dressed of all of the pets. Is a silly little guy with a silly little hat that lives in her hat. Impeccable. 10/10

Gala - Apple's snow fox. Gala is a great name just because of the fact this it is not only a type of apple but also a fancy party. Very royal, on brand, like to curl around her neck. Iconic. 8/10

Grizz - Blondie's baby bear. Blondie. Girlie. You are a reporter. Please get original. A bear for goldilocks' daughter is fine but it's just like. I'm bored girl. You can do better. 3/10

Jelly - Ginger's gummy fish. I. Love this. A sentient gummy fish she accidentally made? So iconic I'll ignore the basic name. It's like naming your goldfish 'Goldie'. Anyway, I love the concept, love the execution. 8/10

King Benedict - Humphrey's chicken. No. 2/10 for egg related name.

Mr. Cottonhorn - Dexter's jackalope. Guys. Guys. look at him.

He's just a little guy. 10/10.

Moustro - Melody's rat. I like the idea and the pun name but I feel like I'd need to see a picture to be impressed. 5/10

Nevermore - Raven's dragon. There is no need for discussion. 10/10

P-Hawk - Daring's peacock. I think I remember him being kind of terrible so uh 1/10 because Daring I don't think that's how you say peacock honey.

Pesky - Hunter's squirrel. I love how even though they're like enemies they have the same haircut and Pesky has a little acorn bag that Hunter definitely made for him. Lives up to his name. 7/10

Philia - Cupid's Pegasus. Apparently 'Philia' is one of the ancient greek words for love that is often translated to friendship. soooo, even though I didn't know about her she gets a 6/10 because I think that's sweet.

Pirouette - Duchess's swan. Queen. Icon. Slay. Need I say more? 10/10

Sandella - Ashlynn's phoenix. The fact that Ashlynn has a phoenix because it rises from the ashes is so hardcore and I love it. Even if her name is Sandella. 7/10

Shuffle - Lizzie's hedgehog. The bestest and cutest little croquet ball. I don't have much to say but love you dearly. 7/10

Sir Gallopad - Darling's horse. He can change colour and camouflage which is THE coolest thing. Horsegirl Darling. 8/10 Also Daring officially has the worst pet out of the Charming siblings.

Spindle - Faybelle's pomeranian. Of course an evil fairy you have such an unassuming evil little dog. And of course she named it after her evil destiny. Iconic. 8/10.

[gingersp1ce547]

Thiago was not expecting to be dad. Not now, nor anytime in the future. He knew how he was, and the life he led. Neither of which were suited for parenthood even though since his own father passed the idea of what kind of one he would be refused to leave his head.

Would he be able to give them half as good as a childhood as the one his father gave him? Would he leave them grieving and wondering how much of their father they knew like he did?

Should someone that shot a 15 year old in the foot be trusted with a child at all?

In the end these questions didn’t matter. Because he had a kid now and she was a sentient egg.

Fortunately, his work on the island was much less dangerous than it was back in brazil. So he could bring hope with him on his daily rounds. She seemed to like it a lot, which was a good thing because he wasn’t sure what he would do with her if she didnt other than leave her in the house with cesar but she spent more than enough time with the hacker already.

Before they had learned what liz had been up to and saved hope, thiago had been spending a lot of time with one badboyhalo. After he had saved dapper bad insisted on giving him a gift, which ended up being a whole thing of enchanted gear. He took some of it but he kept a couple pieces of his old set that liz and cesar had enchanted on, and the rest in an unsorted chest somewhere in his room like everything else he couldn’t get rid of.

He kept hanging around bad after that. Mostly because he was a real good source of information on pretty much everything happening on the island, but also because something he said to Thiago once wouldn’t seem to leave his mind.

Bad was asking about what thiago did before the island, around a month into their stay here they decided it would be ok to tell people the truth as long as they didn’t go into too much detail, so he did. Only for bad to reply “why would somebody marked by death want to fight her creatures?”

“What?”

Bad tiled his head like some kind of owl. His pure white eyes staring through thiago from under his hood. “Or at least i think it’s death. Maybe not our goddess but something similar.”

He looked thiago up and down once more. “Do you not feel it?”

The urge to throw off his hoodie and run to the nearest mirror to double check that the symbol of that fucking place was still gone was tempting. But thiago knew he didnt need it. He knew what it was like for his hand to not be his hand and this wasn’t it.

He shook his head, forcing his tongue to move from where it had glued itself to the top of his mouth, “No.”

Bad made a noise of curiosity in response but moved on. Thiago wasn’t sure if it was out of noticing his discomfort or something else entirely but he thanked the change of pace.

Unfortunately, the fact that he even got that bit of information in the first place meant he needed to go back and continue to prod for more

So far hed gotten out of bad that only the rest of team was “marked” like this. Some clearly were by an entity like thiago, cesar and arthur (bad upset about blood), but with joui and liz it was unclear. Same went for the mark itself, which bad described as almost being fuzzy. Like fog was obscuring his vision of it.

He was pretty sure that this was all bad knew, but bad was bad and liked to be a tricky little shit. One of his coworkers once wrote an article just for fun about creatures from folklore across the world. He was bored on his break and read it which was a good thing because he was not unconvinced that bad wasnt some sort of Irish fae creature. It definitely wouldn’t be the strangest thing a person was on the island (that was etoiles).

Even if bad didnt know anything else about their team, he definitely knew a lot about what happened on island, Especially when it came to politics, or as liz liked to call it, a telenovela pretending to be politics. Which was a blessing in disguise as it made writing about it much less boring on thiago’s part.

Hope was with him today since her quests had already been completed for the week. They bounced across the map as he handed out the latest information about the islands happenings as well as gathered it.

Cellbit and roier were off being sickeningly romantic somewhere and hope asked very politely if she could go say hi to him. Not that thiago would ever say to no to something asked as sweetly as that, he told her yes since Cellbit was technically also her dad even if it was only like 5% since he helped in the investigation to find her.

They then headed to pierre’s to restock on some potions, only to find him and maximus… maybe arguing? Thiago wasnt really sure but it could have also been flirting, or manipulation. It could go many many different ways with those two and honestly even though it was his job to know, thiago didnt wanna know. Neither did he want hope to have to witness it. So he quickly sweeped her up into his arms and turned back around to the teleporter.

She gave him a look of silent curiosity but didn’t ask. He was thankful for it today as opposed to usual worriedness. She had been alone in one spot for so long, and had so much curiosity about the world. Thaigo (and the rest for the team) wanted her to be cautious of the what she was getting into yes, but he also wanted her to feel safe enough to be able to run up to a flower she liked without asking if it was ok first.

Deciding to foster her curiosity at the cost of having to try and find a child friendly way to explain whatever the fuck pierre and max had going on, he told her that they were having a private conversation that he didnt want to interrupt. Hope, who knew all about private conversations because of her secretive ass parents, nodded seriously at this and thaigo took a mental note to explain to her at some point that not all private conversations were matters of life and death.

Next they headed to bad’s, who thaigo knew had a good stock of potions he wouldn’t mind missing if it meant keeping an egg safe. He wasnt there and a look at the map told him he was off on some adventure with dapper most likely in search of creature that the kid wanted to tame.

There was a couple other people awake but he really didnt feel like crossing thousands of blocks to go and find them, so instead the two wandered about spawn. Hope taking the lead and investigating the different buildings up close. She already knew at this point that her pais and mae where not the people to ask about how crafting materials worked and seemed happy just to silently investigate.

In the past he would have expected it to be a good break from taking care of a kid, a time to collect his thoughts. Instead he just watched her and his heart felt warm. No thoughts of the what he was gonna write about next, or how everyone back in brazil was doing drifted through his head. All he could focus on was the way hope would walk up to block, completely transfixed by it, bend down to get a look at it better, maybe tilt her head or touch it lightly before moving on to the next one.

Or at least it was all he could focus on till a sound caught his attention. Mentally, he praised the fact that his still functioning ear worked perfectly if not better than that before turning to look in the direction of the sound. In it’s place he saw “charlie” slimecicle teleporting off somewhere.

This was odd for a couple of reasons. The first being that slime did not wake up often. The second was that when he did he usually hanged around big groups of people and the third was that thiago wasnt sure where he got enough exp to teleport in the first place.

Ok, maybe that last one was a stretch but still. Call it investogators intuition or whatever you want but there was something odd happening here and thaigo wanted to know what.

A light tug on his pants brought him out of his head. He read hope’s sign pai, who was that?

“He’s another islander my dear” he replied

She broke the sign before placing down another, Where is he going?

“Most likely home”

Hope stared at him. It was a stare she most definitely learned from cesar and liz because it screamed bullshit

“He really could be going home,” hope’s stare persisted in intensity “buuuuuuuuut your instinct is right. Theres something fishy about this. I feel it too”

Are you gonna go check? she didnt have to write the and can i come for thiago to know she was thinking it.

“Yep. Do you wanna go teleport to pai cellbits and go hang out with him and tio roier while i do?”

I can go there if you want.

He frowned. A sentence like that was the hope equivalent of saying no. She was just too afraid to say that was what she actually wanted.

Still. There was a possibility, however slim, that whatever awaited them on the other side of that waystone was dangerous. If something ever happened to her and thiago knew he could have prevented it he wasnt sure what he would do with himself outside of that it wasn’t good.

He had a enough innocent peoples blood on his hands already, but to have a child’s?

You don’t know if there were any children in the holy cradle, a voice whispered. It swirled around his ears and even though the non-functioning one was well non-functioning, he swore he could almost hear in it and yet you burned them all the same.

Now wasn’t the time for thoughts like this. Hope was still waiting for a reply and who knew what slime was doing.

“You can come with if you promise you’ll teleport away when i tell you too”

Hope beamed up at him nodding vigorously before placing a sign down quickly writing I promise! And then beginning to run over to the waystone excitedly.

“Woah woah woah slow down my dear!” He called out after her. Once he caught up he added “let me go first and hold my hand the whole time.”

Trying to contain her excitement hope gave one strong nod. It seemed to be an attempt at showing she was serious.

Smiling at this and taking her hand into his, thiago and hope teleported to charlie’s base

There wasn’t much there outside of a small shack which thiago assumed was Charlie’s house. The two investigating the outside area a bit before thiago used his still functioning ear to listen to the door. After hearing nothing inside, the two carefully proceeded to enter the building with thiago leading the way.

He didnt notice anything odd at first glance until hope gently tugged his hand in the direction of something, a small opening made of dirt.

Traveling into it, they found a large cavern filled with various plants and some sort of train system. Ignoring it, thiago and hope stealthily made their way down till they could see charlie standing in front of what seemed to be. a house. Only, he wasn’t alone.

There was an egg with him. One that thiago hadn’t seen before.

Grabbing a sign of hopes he had stored away he wrote out do you know them? Before breaking it and passing the back sign to hope.

No, Was the response he got. So not another test subject egg, which meant considering how Charlie was treating this egg (with warmth and excitement), they were most likely Charlie’s egg.

Only issue was that Charlie’s egg, juanaflippa if thiago remembered right, had died months ago.

“Stay right here,” thiago whispered to hope before giving a light kiss to her head and letting go of her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Hope nodded and stayed in her spot as thiago got closer and focused his eyes on the outline of this egg. It was times like this that he missed the range of his gun but sword and shield would have to do.

The dead don’t come back. Thiago had known this as fact since the day he learned about the “airplane crash.” But it wasn’t till he joined the order that he learned the second half of the statement.

The dead don’t come back, so when they do. It’s not them anymore. Whether that meant they were a hallucination or a creature, thiago wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was the fact that he wouldn’t let slime be killed by whatever was pretending to wear his child’s face.

Thiago jumped down ready to strike but just as he did, the egg ran back into the house with Charlie sprinting after them, leaving thiago’s sword stuck in the ground. Cursing, he ran after them, only to see the egg disappear into specks of code as Charlie cried out for it.

Code meant code monsters. Thiago was not prepared for code monsters, he was prepared for paranormal bullshit even though none had ever appeared on this island before.

Regardless, he needed to write all of this down while it was still fresh on his mind. It didn’t matter if this wasn’t paranormal, it was still dangerous even if that danger had momentarily passed.

So, thiago turned and quietly walked out the house, back to hope and then the two teleported back home.

Pai, hope wrote upon arriving what was that?

Thiago bite his lip. God what he wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now.

“We’ll figure it out.” He crouched down to her level “So for now let’s not worry about it. Okay my dear?”

Worry crossed over hope’s face for a split second, and it landed sharp like a stab in thiago’s chest.

“This scar?” Arnaldo said pointing at a long scar that wrapped around his upper arm. Usually it was hidden by long sleeve shirts but he had rolled those up to be able to kneed the dough of the bread he was making, “It’s just from a stunt that i messed up once. Nothing to worry about my dear”

Thiago took a deep breath in. No nicotine hit his lungs but the oxygen worked just fine. “How about this? I’ll let you know everything new i learn about this case. After all i need an expert on eggs, and who’s a better expert than the best egg on the island?”

Hope looked down at her feet bashfully, but with a glow of praise, “you promise?”

Extending out his pinky finger, thiago smiled gently, “of course my dear.”

Hope wrapped her own around it, and the promise was sealed.

[alchemicaladarna]

I have this headcanon that the eggs have this ability where over time, they gain certain traits- physical or personality wise from their parents. If you consider Pomme's parents though, well-

So my girl has an eldritch entity, a duck hybrid, a sentient intergalactic cucumber, an undead robot, a fallen angel turned demon, and Kameto as her parents, and you're telling me she's not at least a little bit on the biblically accurate eldritch horror side of the cryptid scale??

So here's my personal HC: I think Pomme doesn't physically look like any of her parents. Personality, yes. French, yes. Physical looks, far from it.

However, nost people don't end up seeing/realizing that, Pomme did inherit all her parents' physical traits- it's just very well-hidden.

Whenever Pomme feels a lot of strong, especially negative emotion, she transforms from a small dragonling, to a demonic looking/heavenly figure.

Her skin becomes like a void, and you can see stars in them. So her body is like an inky midnight sky full of stars.

Pomme's eyes become completely white and start glowing.

Other eyes appear on one side of her face.

Her horns are more prominent and become longer.

Multiple wings sprout from her back, and her arms and legs are just covered in feathers.

She completely affects the surrounding environment. Especially electricity. Like, lights would begin to flicker, machines would go haywire, etc.

Basically Pomme as a monochrome biblically accurate void who is also really op and a glowstick.

Only Richas ever saw Pomme's full form- when ElQ kidnapped Dapper and Pomme was so angry, she was demanding Richas to let her go, despite being told to just stay and wait in Richas' room.

This form was beginning to appear in her anger, but only a little bit when Dapper was kidnapped again, and qBad was trapped in prison, and the feds did jack shit to help them.

I wanted to draw this, but I'm way too sleepy right now XD. More people need to talk about Eldritch horror Pomme though. So much potential.

[toiletdestroyer3415]

here's the silly little pikmin wraith I've been holding hostage in my brain.

meet the amber wraith!

for visualization, he's an amber-orange color (obviously) and takes on the form of a wormy fella. his core is shaped like an egg and is a glossy black color with two glimmer (✨) shapes on each side of the egg, with the pointy end turning and twisting around inside the goop whenever he wants to focus on something.

this guy is a WEAKLING. unlike other wraiths, his body can't absorb mass normally since he has ZERO digestive enzymes and he can't quite solidify himself aside from a sort of 'squishy but not goopy' form. that means his core is very very vulnerable.

BUT. he has a gimmick.

he's able to possess creatures up to ten times his size, and use them as a sort of puppet/mouth so they can digest food FOR him, like a parasite. and his core is buried somewhere in there so he has a better defense.

he can trap creatures in place by surrounding them and forming a little structure similar to hydro jelly in terms of consistency, but this takes up his own goop. this is either to 'wear' them for later or come back controlling a host so he can eat whatever he's trapped.

I made a silly little thing where he sort of kind of is holding an entire human being hostage.

not a captain. a human.

he originally had a lot more mass coming onto PNF-404 but the gravity didn't allow him to keep much of his form, so he had to shrink down. with all the excess mass he couldn't carry around, he trapped a perfect candidate to be 'worn', a human that, unfortunately, happened to be around! and yes, it was scared! very scared!

so now he's just holding it hostage until the time is right to bring it out, since when trapping creatures, it has a unique ability to act like a time capsule and prevent creatures from moving or aging without needing food or water.

this is because it has regenerative properties! so he's not just holding a human hostage, he's molding it to become the biggest, baddest beast. he's done this before with other creatures, but he's taking his sweet time perfecting his 'weapon,' as he likes to call it. so PNF-404 has plenty of time before some horrid, gigantic, ancient beast is unleashed by a crazy mass of orange goop. also he forgot that humans were sentient and overrid it's brain, essentially wiping its memory and turning it into a stupid two-legged monster. oops!

luckily, on every creature he possesses, there's a cute little weak spot somewhere marked by a little splotch of orange goop. since it's vulnerable to most elements, attacking it enough times will cause him to lose mass and in turn, lose control of whatever body he's currently using if attacked enough times, and he'll be ejected from the host and needs to run away. plus he sucks at controlling beasts and they are usually slower than normal whenever he's controlling them, especially on larger species like bulblaxes. so the human he plans to possess is going to be hella slow, slow enough to give whatever fearless soul(s) brave enough to face him a good chance at defeating him.

for now though, he's just hiding in his cave plotting evil stuff. he's not good at it, but he's still evil.

since he can't solidify like other wraiths, he can't mimic captains. but what's to stop him from possessing one? nudge nudge

[luridlurkerwithout]

Mech that transes your gender

Like it's a mech inhabited by sentient AI that is like, full on, a person. Likes she's got this fun, adventureous peppy personality and her system defaults set her speech pattern to that of a ditzy valley girl but she's an AMAZING pilot, like think Legally blonde.

She's masquerading as an advanced corrective piloting program in this unassuming older hadmedown model that's being passed around by the galaxy's military and ends up in the possession of a Trainee who has essentially been brainwashed by the larger galactic government to serve loyaly and without question.

He initially leaves the strange system in because it's too helpful to delete, especially due to its failsafe where, when Ilin incredible danger it will just assume control of the pilot and make all the best moves for them. But also, Everytime that failsafe activates, he's starts to change a little. It's small changes, like the fat on his body is redistributed so his arms are slimmer and can more deftly dance across the control panel's array of inputs. Or he picks up on his Ai's strange verbal ticks, like jamming 'Like's into every sentence, and begins speaking like her outside of battle. It's all stuff that makes him more like her but also it's making him a better pilot so it's not so bad.

Eventually the two become very well acquainted and are an undefeated duo in terms of combat efficiently. The pilot starts tricking out the outside of her once plain white and grey mech with pink flame decals and hearts at her ai's request. She also gets promoted but at this point she trust her AI to guide her more than the military she serves and ends up defecting when they find out about her and threaten to delete her.

So basically girl mech cracks your egg and turns you into a badass bimbo space rebel,

do you SEE MY VISION?

[taranodongirl]

Ideas for my own Pokemon x Twisted Wonderland fanfic Part 2

Alexia's Pokemon Part 1

Alexia’s Pokemon

Ben the Swinub : Alexia’s first pokemon. They met when she was 6 and they both got lost in a mountain. They are both the same age and have a bond similar to Ash and Pikachu. Ben is very upbeat, cheerful and can read his trainer very well. He is a lot more social than Alexia and is a major help in Alexia meeting new people (for good or bad). His name is based on the song “Ben” by Michael Jackson and I feel that it fits their friendship bond.

A group of 14  Unknown that spell Kokoro ?! Kiseki (a reference to my favorite Vocaloid song and to how Alexia’s kind heart and open mind are her greatest power): as a child, Alexia would often explore the ruins and play with the Unknowns that lived there. Since Unknown can read the minds and hearts of sentient beings they found Alexia’s autistic mind fascinating and used their reality altering abilities to teach her how to use her Aura abilities. Alexia’s mother however is afraid of Unknown and made her family move (this is one of the events that led to Alexia temporarily living with Professor Kakui and starting her Pokemon journey early), but 14 of the Unknown followed her and unofficially became part of her team. They do not battle or have their own pokeballs, but they gave her a special charm and occasionally teleport visit her.

Rocky: a male Buneary that hates his evolution’s feminine appearance and wants to be the strongest, toughest, and manliest Buneary in the world. He wears a luchador mask to hide his cute appearance and keep a masculine appearance and a belt with an Everstone on it. Rocky has a pretty good relationship with Epel due to them having similar struggles and even used Sucker Punch on Vil and Rook for their treatment of his friends.

Tonka: a Turtwig that served as Alexia’s starter pokemon in Sinnoh and is now a Grottle. He likes chewing on her head and sometimes forgets how big he is, because of this he decided to not evolve into Torterra. He has a little brother Turtwig named Tucker who came from an egg that Alexia brought on her journey and hatched in Twisted Wonderland.

Prince Nettles: a Mareanie that came in handy in the Octovinelle Arc. Nettles would eat the anemones off the contract victims' heads which  would temporarily release them (and poison them) until Azul noticed what happened. He evolves durning the overblot fight and his poison becomes strong enough to incompassitate Azul long enough to defeat him. Nettles became good friends with Vil’s Gloom and helped him gain self confidence.

Poseidon the Magikarp: A friendly Magikarp that Alexia often carries around in a water filled hamster ball like container with a leash. He evolves into Gariados and becomes upset that he can no longer travel that way and Alexia considers letting Posidon go because she is worried that she is holding him back from his love of travel, but after defeating Jamil’s overblot, Poseidon lets her know that he wants to stay with her. He becomes the pokemon Alexia uses for surf.

Belladonna the Croagunk: an adult, female, crogunk with freckles on her cheeks and usually wears a maroon scarf with purple flowers embroidered on it. She has a strict and maternal personality, especially towards Alexia and the baby Pokemon, and is extremely strong and will go above and beyond for her team, even if she has to break through walls to do it. When Belladonna was a wild pokemon, she was considered an outcast among the other crogunk for her freckles so she wasn’t able to find a mate and have her own babies, so she wondered off to greenbelt near a town and tried to make friends with the children, but the kids found her rigid and unreadable face uneasy and were too scared to approach her. One day, she met Alexia who had a rough day at school and was covered in ink (she decided to play connect the dots with her freckles in an attempt to make friends but instead she got in trouble for drawing on herself) and Alexia said to her “You have freckles just like me!” and connected the pokemon's freckles too which formed flowers that are the same shape as the flowers embroidered on her scarf that she would get later. With that their bond began and Alexia and Ben would visit the Crogunk and explore the greenbelt together, not always talking but still enjoying their company. One day they found some flowers and when Alexia wanted to pick them, but Belladonna stopped her and signaled with her poison jab that they were poisonous and this inspired Alexia give her the name Belladonna. In Twisted Wonderland, Belladonna can often be seen with Alexia and the baby pokemon, but she also tends to show up in random places and surprising people. She doesn’t like Crowly’s incompetence and will often use poison jab or brick break on him for any offense she can find. She later finds two pollywag eggs and becomes a surrogate mother to them.

Sparkplug the Magnezone: Alexia had this pokemon ever since it was a Magnamite. It is a good friend and a trained orthodontist, which is handy since Alexia wears special braces that Sparkplug can remove when she needs to eat and put back on perfectly. Sparkplug later gives birth to a Magnamite which befriends Tinker, Ortho’s Meltan and moves into Igniahide's dorm.

[ruthlesslistener]

Hello! I just read through your post on Mating Systems in Hallownest and thought it was really cool! Everything is really detailed and thought-out, and it was really neat to see the differences and similarities between the different tribes/species.

Reading your post got me a bit curious about how mating systems would work between other bugs, specifically parasitoids. Also, how do you think paraitisum would work in Hallownest? Spiders and mantises do eat other sentient bugs, but they live outside of the main kingdom so entering their territories would mean one was fair game to get eaten. Maybe the kingdom would have some sort of structure to substitute what parasitoids use for feeding their young with non-sentient bugs? I saw another post suggesting booflies for this purpose.

Your worldbuilding and headcanons are always really thought-out and fun to read, so I wanted to ask your opinion on the practices of parasitiods in Hallownest. Thank you for sharing your cool interpretations/headcanons about Hollow Knight, and for inspiring me with my own ideas as well.

Ooh, that's a good question! I have thought of parasites/parasitoid species in Hallownest, but not in too much detail. IIRC, none of the species in Hallownest are parasitoids (flukes might be free-living parasites but i already made a post on that), so I sort of mentally chalked them up as being either individual wanderers (which seems likely), or shunned from Hallownest (also likely). I do have a headcanon that the Moth Tribe used to suffer their attacks more often than others because they lived on the surface, and that the Radiance herself would brood over the hatchlings so that she could sense and burn out the eggs/larvae of an afflicted caterpillar, something that PK would never do. Which, now that I think about it, might be a valid reason why the Moth Tribe declined...ew.

Anyways, for how parasitoid species reproduce, my guess would be that they're lone wanderers who either spend a lifetime flitting from one society to the next, or find a job where nobody would blink if their brood killed someone, like an assassin. The main reason I think this is partially because of the inherent horror of dying in such a manner, which would of course cause one to be shunned from society, but also because parasitoids tend to have specific host species that they target to carry their brood. That means that they would be on the lookout for communities that fit their targets, and that settling down next to said communities would eventually lead to some form of conflict as the host villages tried their best to either repel or kill them. Hell, I can also see parasitioid species being the bug equivalent of vampires or demons to civilized races, except instead of having a weird affinity for virgins, they simply target different types of people.

Which is why I don't think that the boofly thing would work: not only do parasitoid species tend to have specific hosts, booflies also strike me as a livestock animal that's run feral after the fall of Hallownest, so its unlikely that anyone would be willing to contribute them for incubation purposes (unless the parasitoid individual bought them out for a fat stack of geo). There's always a demand for more food, especially in societies with lots of omnivorous/carnivorous species, so if they're a subpar food source for the babies then it wouldn't be worth the cost of buying one just because you want to reproduce.

[Also on a tangent about bug livestock, I headcanon that vengeflies were a poultry equivilant, gruzzers were pigs, and booflies were cattle to the bugs of Hallownest, and that they're abundant in specific areas because they've gone feral post-fall. It's fine, though, they're native species that got semi-tamed down over the millenia, so they aren't wreaking too much havoc on the ecosystem other than simply overpopulating.]

There is, of course, the idea of trying to find ethical alternatives, and/or having willing hosts for your eggs. Especially in the peak of Hallownest, I can see there being rich freaks that wanted to magically freeze their bodies on the precipice of death so that they can be brought back later (much like cryogenics) that had that spell taken and then used as an ethical host for parasitoid species, so that the brain is dead and can't feel pain but the body is still alive and kept that way for the hatchlings. There's also the option of attempting to artificially recreate the conditions of a living body in specialized incubators + feeding the young meat scraps that are close enough to the host's species that they get all the nutrients they need, or by injecting the eggs into willing participants who offered themselves up to be brood chambers for the babies, because we know that weirdos with fetishes like that would probably exist in the world. Or maybe its something that bugs with terminal diseases might sign up for, because then they can die knowing that the body that failed them would be used unselfishly by creatures that need it. Which is a morbid thought, but it's one that I can see the appeal of.

So yeah- pretty cool idea, but I think that parasitoid species probably wouldn't stick around in civilized areas for long. Most people don't really enjoy being eaten by the inside-out by another person's children, but on the other hand, that makes for a great idea for bug boogiemen ocs!

[anon-e-miss]

For the Praxian finmech thing, would Jazz want to get a doctor in for Prowl to see why he hadn't transformed after Smokey shows that it's possible? I feel like that would be a great way to have someone like Ratchet or Ambulon drawn into the fight to get the finmech classified as sentient- and it would be especially interesting to see how they would react since I'm sure Pharma would be part of their history, and as a Seeker himself he seems like the kind of guy to have a finmech simply to show off as a status symbol, or to impress his peers.

I feel like it would be an interesting route to go down if the DJD were involved in the market for T-Cogs harvested from finmechs, though that doesn't fit much with the rest of the Praxian finmech stuff and the Jazz + Prowl storyline. A side tidbit or an AU, possibly. Still, Praxians being unwilling organ donors to make the trade more gruesome and horrible? Or trophies of their fins and plating, just to add a more desperate level of obedience in most of the pets, as well as further incentive to escape?

Or there could be some worse sides of the market- things like their fins and their young being seen as a delicacy (I'm assuming they lay eggs if they're based off of bettas?), and wild caught or 'unfit for sale' captive bred Praxians having their fins cut off before being left to starve because they can't swim or find food, just so rich mechs can have a bite of their frames. Just truly awful stuff that Jazz finds the deeper he goes into investigating the new additions to his home.

(I'm sorry that was really long I'm just super excited for this idea and I've been thinking about it all day haha)

Don't apologize for being excited by a plot. I like the engagement. Everyone had been very decent about their asks and no nagging or weird shit and I am very much happier for it.

I would see the DJD as perhaps... procurement specialists and I'd go with Pharma working with them t-cog trade-wise. Hell,theirt-cfaexcusemeharlothasdecidedfotofuckoffagain.

[scribe-cas]

You can't just drop that you have an absolutely unhinged fact and not share it. So give up the weird fact, do eet.

.

.

EVERY WRITER HAS AT LEAST ONE. THIS IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE.

Okay fine I will give in

Okay, so.

I think my weirdest fact, just off the top of my head-

Has to be probably that the wendigo species lactates regularly. Like, with no prompting, pregnant or not. A tie between that and the fact that angels do not have genitalia, but instead, a small star system between their legs.

The wendigo one is weirder so that’s the one I’ll elaborate on.

Okay so

The reason for this is because at one point, some of the species were not given the option to go out and hunt fully grown humans. They were aggressive, harder to catch, and more willing to burn things down to be rid of any monsters.

However, murdering a child (while usually considered bad form anyways) while far easier to do, because you could simply go in, pick up this barely sentient being, and then get rid of it as long as it didn’t start screaming, didn’t provide them with nearly enough food to last off of, and the entire species of demon was slowly dwindling and dying out because of that.

So certain wendigos (there’s not a defining factor yet, although I’m thinking it’s those who were afab?) just somewhat regularly produce milk, because evolution’s solution to this was:

If you can’t kill the adults, but the children don’t give you enough meat-

Steal away a child, and then raise it to become an adult.

They, as wendigos, could essentially raise us like livestock.

And for a while, that was exactly what they did. Like as a species, collectively.

Now, things are a little different, as while we do have much more advanced weapons, we aren’t exactly using fire to light our homes and we definitely aren’t going to throw a lantern into one of our massive industrial sized buildings, because god forbid we have to build that shit again- we just won’t do it, we’ll go get a gun or something. Therefore, adults have become easier to hunt again, especially what with all of the cameras and gadgets that we now use to watch our children with- we have baby cams and the doorbells that let us see what’s at our door and household security systems- it is way easier to run face first into a car and just have an adult go missing than it is to actively scrounge up a child unless they’ve got particularly neglectful parents.

But, the milk gene never went away or dwindled off. It usually stays somewhat out of the way, but often flares up when a wendigo is under times of duress and stress.

Wendigo milk, designed to produce humans good for food, is actually massively full of nutritional value, increases our capacity to build muscle mass, assists our digestive system, and usually tastes vaguely sweet to encourage drinking. (Although the flavor from wendigo to wendigo is different, it’s really neat)

Most wendigos don’t struggle with this as much, but the more time you spend on earth/around humans, the more actively their systems think they need it. Usually, this isn’t an issue- but for some demons who choose to spend the majority of their time on earth, it can get uncomfortable if there’s no pressure release, but usually a nursing pump does the trick to minimize discomfort. You just then have. Milk lying around

This, shockingly enough, ties into multiple plot points of mine- none of which are important to the main story, technically? It doesn’t change anything drastically other than kinda one main detail and then a few background details. But I think its funny because it’s essentially an Easter egg for my friends and I, because all of them know this fact from when I was originally working on the series.

Anyways if you’d like more elaboration I am happy to give it, but for now I will put a cap on my rambling so that you can digest this unhinged mess first. /lh

Hopefully you don’t hate me for this, if you do, I’m sorry LMFAO I know my characters to a near uncomfortable level