#>~ask sphene

[ametau]

The sillies

Sphene and @pink-onyx-au’s pink onyx

the beb is surprised

[zylphiacrowley]

Sphene: I shall become the most BRUTAL QUEEN IN ALL OF HISTORY

Azem Blight: Alright but which set of squares indicate the Motorcycle in this picture?

[daily-orange-character]

Daily Orange Character #219:

Sphene from Land of the Lustrous!

[parallelkozak]

ive never seen you before in my entire life

[pocket-gems]

I'd LOVE to see Sphene updated tbh. it's been a few years, i kinda miss her

I had NO IDEA someone actually cared about her 😭. She was my first gemsona and was supposed to be Peridot's supervisor.

There's this big gem that I believe is a Titanite (Sphene being orangish) so I redesigned after them. It's kinda funny how the shaped her and pointy nose was already there x)

Probably not a supervisor anymore at all, judging by the canon design. Maybe she does some kind of heavy work like lifting an injector for the colonization process. Not that she liked it.

[tallbluelady]

e1 please!

"Hey, stop it with the hostility! The least we can do is hear her out."

"Fine. But we need to be careful. Anyone able to maintain an alliance with your brother isn't one to be trifled with."

[hazelkjt]

11. What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?

Spoilers below the Read More, as before

Hazel is not the best judge of character, jumping to conclusions about people far too quickly. And she knows this. She was initially wary of many who would become close friends and allies and openly friendly and trusting to others who would become enemies. So when her first instinct was not to trust Sphene, she pushed that part of her thinking to the back of her head and allowed Sphene to "make her case" if you will. And after a while Hazel was slowly won over to Sphene's seemingly genuine love for her people, but the doubt still lingered in the back of her mind. After learning about the Endless however, Hazel's understanding and perception of Sphene took a drastic change. Here was a program, something only comprised of memories stored as data, acting and talking like a person. But she lacked the soul of a person. She wasn't truly alive, she was merely pretending to be...right? As much as Hazel still sympathized with the person the memories came from, Hazel from then on struggled to determine if she thought of this Sphene as a living being, or just a machine acting how it thinks the real person would have. Emet-Selch's point of view of the reflections not being truly alive from his perspective came flooding back to Hazel during this internal struggle with herself. And so she decided not to make that distinction herself, as she had no authority to decide what constitutes something being truly alive. Hazel of course has her preconceptions on what living your life should be like, everyone does, but she put no more thought in trying to rationalize if the Endless truly were alive. Sphen eventually revealed herself as a threat, and living or not Hazel could not stand by and let what she was going to do happen.

---------- Dawntrail WoL/OC Questions

[ferrocyan]

Hi! I’m curious, where does the “or” in “orphene” come from?

ahhh (ﾉ∀＼*) it's from my wol's name! tart's birth name is c'orhtus tia which i realize i have mentioned in a fic before but it was really vague and i forgot to like, say this explicitly until now. oops. it's a very personal thing for tart and he doesn't let anyone other than his partner call him orhtus. oh, and sphene :) i wonder why? we'll see when we get there hahaha

[scionshtola]

4. What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?

ty for the ask!

Cori was initially pretty wary of Sphene. They tend to be very trusting of people but something was off from the beginning, and Cori was skeptical of anyone who would join with Zoraal Ja for any reason. It was obvious to them that Sphene was keeping something from them, and their distrust of her grew even more when they found out about what happens to memories when people die. But they kept their feelings mostly to themself, allowing Wuk Lamat to take the lead on the matter, which only led to them feeling like they let her down when the truth about Sphene and the Endless finally came out. They can definitely agree that Sphene cares a lot about her people but it doesn't excuse, in Cori's eyes, the lengths she was willing to go to in order to sustain the Endless.

[improvised-finish]

i gotta ask 11 hahaha but also 5 if i may

11. What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?

“Sphene left me… confused. I struggled to get a read on her when we first met. I suppose she came off nice enough, and certainly seemed to have the love of her subjects, but eventually as things progressed, I started to get inklings that things were not right. In almost any other context, her steadfastness and unwillingness to compromise for the sake of her people might be a positive, but when it comes at the cost of other worlds… it’s no longer a virtue. Aiming to preserve the past eternally and maintaining eternal happiness by making the populace unaware of death are not the actions of a leader who is willing to compromise or have their beliefs meaningfully questioned.”

“But as it turned out, there was a reason for that. The Sphene that I knew, that Lamaty’i knew, was, in essence, just a program. And from my very basic understanding of machinery gleaned from listening to Raha talk about his research into Allag, I know that computers, even complex ones, cannot think entirely for themselves. Not to say we haven’t met machines with a semblance of sentience! It just seemed likely that there were certain parts of herself that she was incapable of changing in this form. And that thing her creators imparted on her was a singular drive to protect her people at all costs. Once she had been convinced that maintaining Living Memory was an essential part of that task, all other reasoning was necessarily set aside. So if anything, I just feel sad for her. From what little we saw in the Meso Terminal, it seemed she truly was a good queen who tried to help her people, even at her own peril. Unfortunately, she had those qualities taken advantage of and twisted into something that would maintain this ‘perfect utopia’ at any cost, and that could not be allowed to stand.” Question 5 got answered here!

Thank you for the ask, questions are from here!

[mahniminobu]

finished dawntrail….. mahni’s main takeaway is that she has a much deeper respect for the sanctity of souls and life than she expected because the entirety of living memory made her actually sick to her goddamn stomach

[ametau]

Medusa quartz

Extremely strong quartz soldier

One of a kind

kind of like a bismuth-jasper hybrid

single gem

Used for eradicating rebels

very very pretty

Taller than almost every other quartz soldier, standing at nearly 8’9.

dreadlocks,,,

Favors her lil buddy (Sphene)

[housekinokuni]

Would you be willing to colour any panels with obsidian I know it's a more basic design but I would love to see it.

sure! tho.. i couldn't find that many (and yes i'm taking requests)

[arty-e]

I just wanted to say I loveeee how much we’ve been seeing of Diamonds in the latest updates - I think it’s my favorite of all the Cards kingdoms!! I especially love getting more Sphene content; I feel like we didn’t see as much of her before the comic - she’s just such so pretty and I love myself a girlboss character! I also like how you portrayed her and Rubis’ relationship; I know that they’re not particularly *in* love, but it’s clear that they do *love* each other and it’s just so sweet! And, maybe you’ve answered this before, but I can’t remember: Does Sphene have a canon sexuality (ik she likes men but I really hope she’s also at least a little gay/sapphic too 👉👈)

I’m glad your enjoying the diamond chapter (we’ve got a few more to come so they’ll be here for a bit)

Sphene is both Aromantic and pansexual so anyone is game to her

[tenowls]

You saying you've been doing life drawing classes lately had me imagining Murderbot posing for (clothed, possibly helmeted) figure drawing classes... man, it would hate it so much! And you're right, imperial radch is amazing.

HSKKSK oh no it would!!! it might not mind if one of the mini mensahs did a drawing of it tho :’DD

and Y E S i enjoyed imperial radch so much!!!! especially ancillary mercy…. THAT breq + seivarden + MoK scene. MAN

[lilas]

✨ 22 Dawntrail Inspired WoL/OC Questions ✨

A little list of WoL/OC questions based on the events of Dawntrail. Feel free to reblog so people can ask about your WoL’s experiences in Tural!

Though vague in places, this list contains many spoilers. Please be considerate of new players and tag with #dawntrail spoilers

—

Why did they agree to accompany Wuk Lamat to Tural?

What was the first thing they did when they arrived in Tuliyollal?

What was their initial impression of the four claimants? How did this change over the course of the story?

What is their impression of Gulool Ja Ja? Do they agree with his method of cultivating leadership?

How do they feel about Wuk Lamat looking up to them as a mentor figure? Did this attitude change as the story progressed?

How did they feel about competing against Thancred and Urianger?

Were they happy with the outcome of the rite of succession?

Why did they want to explore Xak Tural? Were they happy to have Erenville along as a guide or would they have preferred to explore on their own?

What was going through their mind when the dome dropped?

What were their first impressions of the Alexandrians?

What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?

What was their opinion of the culture of recycling souls and the use of regulators? Did this change as the story progressed?

What was their initial impression of Cahciua?

How did they feel about the Endless?

What was their experience like in Living Memory?

What are their thoughts about the Key?

The theme of family and legacy is repeated throughout Dawntrail—did this theme resonate with your character? Were there specific moments relating to family that impacted them?

What important relationships changed or developed throughout Dawntrail?

What was their favorite location in Tural?

Do they lean more Tuliyollal or more Solution Nine?

If they had to summarize their journey in Tural, what would they say?

What are they doing now?