#*difficult guests

[octylish]

💪

[menlove]

I have to be so open and honest if I never had to be in the same room as a dog again ever in my life I'd be so happy. why are dog owners soooo nonchalant about their dogs constantly jumping on people who clearly are not comfortable w that like it's actually heinous. if my cats were clawing up people's legs and biting them or hissing/screaming at them I would put them away and yet Every Single Dog Ever does this and the owners are like "haha ooooh he's a silly boy! down! haha he doesn't listen DOWN! he's so silly!" well I'm about to be sillier!

[enquire]

Mystic Moonshade

I think I finally figured out what to do with Mikako, so here we are.

This design was a little more out there, as I went for making her a zebra/okapi/pony hybrid!

My intent was to give her a connection to other forms of magic, and give her a bit of a mysterious vibe. The one zebra in MLP we get, Zecora, is an expert in potions and obscure medicinal magic/plants, and is a general example of a pony who uses alternative magic in a way.

I think Equestria's non-unicorn based magic; things like alchemy, potions, charms, earth pony and pegasi magic, curses, magical creatures, and of course, spirits, ghosts, and the like, would fit in well with the 'ultimate excorcist' talent. So Moonshade is an expert in all things supernatural, and obscure. (since magic is an everyday thing in Equestria after all) Still focuses most of all on the departed, but she has a lot of knowledge /interest in various stuff.

Her okapi aspects came from wanting to give her extra horns (which might be capable of producing some slightly different magic) and because the markings give here a bit more a mysterious vibe which I liked. It's a bit more detailed, but I think it's fine for now at least. Her unicorn horn functions the same way any other unicorn's would.

Anyway, on to her little background info segment:

Mystic Moonshade is passionate about Equestria's strangest and most unknown phenomena. Ever since she got her cutie mark, she's been uncovering secrets and solving mysteries; from hauntings to ancient artifacts, Moonshade explains the unexplainable. Either via science, magic, or through healing the hearts and minds of the ponies involved.

She's discovered and named several new creatures, placated spirits, and even managed to lift the decades old curse or two. But her biggest strength might not lie in the supernatural, but rather in soothing the hearts of those faced with the problems and occurrences she is called to solve.

When she was just a filly far too young to remember her parents or where she came from, Moonshade fell into a river and almost drowned. She was swept far away, only managing to survive by clinging to a hollow log.

She was spotted by a pony named Spark Stardust, not far from Canterlot, who immediately dived in after the tiny filly. After rescuing Moonshade, he brought her home to stay with himself and his son, Gizmo.

She couldn't offer any explanation as to how she had gotten there, or much of any information about herself beyond her name. The Equestrian Guard opened an investigation into her parents, but without much to go off of, and a huge distance potentially between Canterlot and where she had fallen into the river, they had very little success.

No pony ever came forward looking for a missing filly matching her description, and the leads quickly ran dry. After a year, Moonshade had already begun to become a part of the Stardust family, so when the time came that Moonshade was officially labeled an orphan, Spark decided to adopt her.

It took some time for Gizmo and Moonshade to adjust to it, but in time, they became extremely close. Nowadays, the two of them are often seen together, and both support the other in any way they can. Gizmo has created multiple inventions in order to help Moonshade in her work, including a arguably effective ghost detector, and a more practical set of very durable saddlebags with locks for when Moonshade comes across an item with less than stable properties, or that is particularly valuable. Meanwhile, Gizmo's go-to unicorn for help testing his inventions is his sister. They have participated in many experiments together, both scientific, magic, and everything in between.

Gizmo's inventions often rely on magic as much as science, and most of his knowledge on the subject came from Moonshade. He also has gone on many of his sister's quests and travels, helping her bust myths and the occasional ghost.

Moonshade has an uncanny ability to read other ponies. While she cannot read others' thoughts, or anything like that, she can sometimes sense more hidden emotions, and other things like that. If Moonshade says somepony is giving her a bad vibe, it's probably with good reason. This leads to her both being an excellent judge of character and being very good at noticing when something is wrong. For example, she was the first one to pick up on and understand Saber's invisible wounds even though he almost never lets a single glimpse show on the outside. She also has a knack for sniffing out secrets.

This ability of hers only gives her insight into where to direct her attentions, though; it doesn't reveal all, and in fact can sometimes be altogether unhelpful, as the feeling that something is wrong without being able to pinpoint what can be quite frustrating.

Moonshade is more of an extrovert than her brother, being fine with meeting various strangers for her work, and the one responsible for introducing her brother to many of his acquaintances and friends.

Out of the group besides her brother, she is closest with Thrift, as the three of them were childhood friends. She also managed to get Ember to warm up to her impressively fast, despite them not knowing each other for as long or and living in different places. The two of them bonded over their penchant for unraveling supposedly unsolvable puzzles, and reading. Whenever Ember visits Canterlot, she makes it a priority to spend time hunting through the cities many bookshops with her.

Moonshade is not as close with Saber as he is with Gizmo, but they are still good friends, and with Gizmo and/or Thrift often around they are often drawn together regardless. (and happy for it) Saber is one of the few ponies Moonshade often finds herself spending time with in comfortable silence.

It's not like she and Clover aren't not friends, but for some reason, there always seems to be a bit more distance between them, and Moonshade is a bit bugged by the fact that she knows very little about him compared to everypony else. Despite him being very close with some of her closest friends, she is more familiar with most of her acquaintances than she is with him. And for whatever reason, they never seem to end up one on one, either.

I think that's it for her! I always start these background posts thinking 'I don't have enough lore for this one yet' but then end up filling up the post by the end haha. To be honest, I struggled a lot with her design, and going a more unique route helped me land somewhere, but I'm still not entirely sure about it. I'll have to think about it.

Also, I think "mystic" moonshade is alright, but perhaps another first name could be better. Also, Spark Stardust for Hanzo is still up in the air. I'll see if it sticks... I wanted he and Gizmo to have a family naming convention that fit with Stardust Industries, but it is a bit unusual to have the exact same word in their names by MLP standards... I was going for something like the Pie family names, but I'm not too sure about "Spark." It's just okay.

Saber Frost, Cold Steel, and Radiant Ember are my favorite names so far. Coming up with pony names is surprisingly fun. It's great when I can get some phonetic similarities in as well haha. (Radiant Ember - Rei Mekaru anyone?)

[luna-the-cretar]

Man, I hate dress shopping. My bust is too big for dresses with little boob coverage (I tried on this one dress that had 2 bra spots around very sheer material, and they fully were in line of sight. Even if I wore those bra pads, all they’d see is bra); and any dress with a form fitting top I have to get a couple sizes bigger just to have it go over my bust. And that’s HOPING that I could potentially zip it up.

We’ve been to 3 stores so far, tried on 2 (neither of which fit), and one might’ve been the right size and the right color, but it was a bit more mature so of course my grandma was like “no, that kind of dress is meant more for the mother in law”

We’re going to another mall to hopefully see if they have ANYTHING in my size that’s in the right color.

[kirkwallguy]

I get that it's game mechanics but they go and do the clunkiest dialogue for poor Taash's gender search and then present you with a binary choice for their culture like??? Haven't we just talked about not having to do either of these. You have a half dozen codex entries on queer Tevinters helping them through this but they gotta pick ONE culture.

The bird feeding and meeting Karash was cool! Why is the rest of Taash's companion storyline so... bleh. If they needed to have a binary choice on their companion questline why did it have to be about something so personal and that Bioware is so goddamn bad at.

it's just so fascinating to me that this was written and went through multiple edits like... even if it gets miraculously better later and the conclusion of their story is "they can be non-binary with their culture AND their gender :)" (which is still uh. in the words of jessica, not everything feels like something else.) it's still crazy to have them talk about being forced into boxes and then have you choose to encourage them to pursue one culture or the other, especially since it feels implied that qunari culture is traditional and stifling while rivaini culture is accepting and free, even though so far we've barely SEEN any of either culture lol.

[bam-monsterhospital]

every work of art i've seen depicting the archivist using eye-powers/becoming eldritch comes off as way too majestic to me. yes, eye-influence has resulted in a multitude of eyes everywhere in many cases, but I have yet to come across an interpretation of any beholding-related thing being actually visually unnerving. i thought "maybe i just don't find eyes/staring to be creepy ever?"...

then i remembered "The Guest".

Linking to the short horror story vid on youtube "The Guest" below the cut. TW: for eye/scopophobia horror in the thumbnail and video (i shit you not, even if eyes don't upset you i'm still giving you a headsup).

MMM. YEAH UH.

(i haven't seen 'the guest 2' but the same creature in the thumbnail looks goofy rather than brain-piercingly-upsetting, so i think i'll hold off on watching that one.)

(i also really love the body language of the creature at the end. it endears me to them).

But ahem, yeah uhhhhhh. Fellow artists? If you want to make eyes scary? Make them upsettingly round, focused, and wrong-looking?? I dunno man, most of this is just a thought experiment into how to depict horror visually. (again, no shade on all the artists behind those lovely tma beholding works, they're all beautiful. i just wanted something that upset my own brainmeats instinctually).

[selfportrait27]

Ween interviewed on Image Mind Television, 1997

Watch the full interview and concert highlights here: [x]

"How did the interviewers get such good answers out of them?" They did some basic research, listened to what they were saying, and treated them like humans. I've never seen a "bad Ween interview" that wasn't mostly to entirely the interviewer's fault.

[biasomnia]

Beloved found family

Evil and intimidating horse Amy Kirio

[power-handmaiden]

Day 64: Rainbow scarab

I was saving this guy for close to the end of my beetle notebook because.... Obviously. He's so pretty.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

it's been a long day guys. I'm going to go cuddle a mustang in the morning

[zukosdualdao]

okay i should have said this when i was still on the beach lmao but.

something else about the beach is that i feel like it’s part of where this weirdly accepted fanon in certain corners of the fandom that zuko was like, part of the friend group between azula, ty lee, and mai and that is just… not actually true. and i don’t think the episode even really suggests that it is.

it can be immediately countered by the fact that they are explicitly on a “forced vacation”, and zuko quite loudly does not want to be there. we never otherwise see zuko choosing to spend time with all three of them in the first half of book three.

and in fact, the only other time we see him spending time with them is also against his will, as it happens in the flashback in zuko alone when azula uses ursa’s desire for her children to get along to coerce zuko into playing with them (for the explicit purpose of humiliating him, which zuko knows and is why he didn’t want to in the first place.)

it seems very clear to me that in young childhood, mai and ty lee were azula’s friends, and any time zuko spent with them was incidental and not by his own choice. of course, this changes when he and mai begin dating, but he is just… not part of this dynamic in a way i’ve seen some fanworks act like he is.

[prehistoric-android]

Irony if it wasn't for Death and everything else. I think Rachel would be a conspiracy theorist.

[bruneburg]

Sooo it looks like I might need even longer to end the current hiatus, I suddenly got invited to go to one more film festival, this time a Turkish one. And they are very kindly taking care of everything. I don't know what I did to deserve this. What is even happening.

What a rollercoaster of a winter.

[toastinthegrass]

[kurozu501]

fuck.

[semi-automaticlonelyboy]

man i need more green day friends/mutuals to talk to regularly 😭😭😭

of the 2 i have, one hyperfixates on them when the moon is in the right place and the stars align, and the other……….. the other i had to explain who henry pissenger was and why i was happy that old fuck bit the dust snnfjdjjfjdj (plus other things said friend has done/said that are. not okay)

pls. pretty pls someone