#but i dont think i've actually talked about it at all so

[utilitycaster]

hi (:

I'm not very involved in fandom and I also dont really watch 4sided dive, so maybe this has been talked through already but-

I noticed how the bells hells dont have any kind of place to call their own. Vox machina had their own keep, and whitestone, and scanlans mansion on the road. The mighty 9 had the xhorhaus and calebs tower, (and the dome/tiny hut).

The hells dont have anything like that do they?? Or if not just their own, do they have a place they could just show up at and stay for a bit?

That feels rather inconvenient, but also like it says something about them/the campaign- about being settled, belonging to somewhere (or to each other?), their financial&political situation, etc .....

I dont really know whether that's a question. Maybe - do you have thoughts on that? Do you know if other people here or in the cast have talked about that?

thanks (:

Hi anon,

Honestly? My thoughts are that the Nein and Vox Machina situations re: permanent, nonmagical housing aren't actually standard and they left them behind so much (well, Greyskull Keep and the Xhorhaus anyway) that I don't blame Matt for not going back to that specific well. It's fairly typical in my personal experience and in other actual plays I've listened to for even a higher level party to not have a specific home base. For what it's worth I assume Bells Hells could show up at Zephrah or Whitestone and at least be taken in given all their service to Accord and to Keyleth particularly. I agree it probably says something about the political situation that rather than service to an existing government, they are serving a vast political alliance who themselves are staying in a war encampment. I don't think it says much about them financially or being settled though - the Mighty Nein rarely if ever had the amount of money Bells Hells has had throughout, and they didn't rely much on the Xhorhaus other than in the arc they spent in Xhorhas. If anything I think it perhaps says more about how globe-trotting this campaign is, and perhaps how much Vox Machina returned to Whitestone.

As for lack of magical accommodations, the really simple and boring answer is no bard (for most of the campaign, anyway) nor wizard. Tiny Hut and Magnificent Mansion (which is the basis of Caleb's tower) are both available only to bards and wizards. Caleb had specific reason to prioritize these (half the party being kidnapped resulting in the death of another party member early on) but Bells Hells couldn't have cast these even if they wanted to. They also don't have anyone who can cast teleportation spells more than once a day; Fearne multiclassed and won't have Transport Via Plants for another level, and I don't think that's the 7th level Imogen took (and we know it's not what Dorian took). So it's harder for them to return to a static home base, and no one can cast the magical home base because of the spellcaster choices (though I will also note they would have only just gotten to the point of having it now - Magnificent Mansion is 7th level which you get at L13.) I'm interested to see what Sam does if he rolls up with another cleric, because technically clerics have Temple of the Gods, which is basically like if Magnificent Mansion were a lock-in. That's also L7, so also wouldn't have come into play until now.

They did, I should note, have the Silver Sun, which they received at roughly the same level as the other parties received Greyskull/The Xhorhaus, and could have served in many ways as both transport and home base had they not decided to crash it into the key. I support this choice, and yes, their base being an airship does say things about the campaign's focus, but they did indeed have it for a time.

[skeletoninthemelonland]

First of all, so so sorry your situation. Im in a similar one actually so I really hope you're okay. Even though it's not dire, mine isn't either, it's very draining and can be super overwhelming since you dont have the support of your parents to guide you. People have already mentioned keeping documents in order. you mentioned commissions, time how long it takes you do to things and decided how you'd like to be paid based on the hour. Do Not undersell yourself. If you're uncomfortable with people maybe seeing your real name/using real info for payments, there are companies that work as your registered agent (at least that's what it's called in the usa) that you can use the address of for a yearly fee

You can also look into passive income things with art like making stickers for redbubble and Ive heard about artists making stock images before but I don't know how that really work tbh ^^;

-

here's a good post on general adult knowledge

here's a post on things to know once your out

Always Pay Rent First. Normally there's always some sort of way to get food, losing your apartment makes it super hard to keep a job

-

As for staying sane, people really help. Not necessarily even talking a whole ton.

Going and sitting at a cafe or park. wandering around a mall.

It's why I adore anime cons. You can look up board game or crafting groups in your area. If you're lgbtqia you can look for nearby queer centers, they're really helpful for advice and resources. Libraries are ridiculously useful. My nearby one hosts plenty of events and has a poster board for nearby event happening. You can just spend the afternoon there.

Journaling and deep breathing and calm music all really help me too.

Therapy has always been the most helpful but not everyone has access to that.

Also getting a good nights rest. So many of my problems have been helped a lot by getting better sleeping habits

-

As for where to move, think about things like climate, laws, how the people there act. My town is super queer friendly but two towns over they're very much not, so be careful. Normally a simple google search on the name of a town can tell you a lot about it.

When picking out apartments, things like if you have animals or a car are super important. I have a car so Im looking for somewhere that has dedicated parking cause I can't afford someone hitting it when it's parked on the side walk.

-

There are jobs that lead into other jobs. Knowing powered equipment, such as forklifts, can score you better paying jobs in the future.

If you're looking into something art wise, just focus on portfolio, no one cares if you went to college as long as you can do what they need.

There's also apps for things like setting up dog sitting. I've also heard of event staffing companies that'll give you jobs as they come, never done it though so look thoroughly into that.

you can look up the average rent/utilities and such of a town you want to live in to get an idea of what you'll be paying

-

Credit score is super important in the usa to renting, but I don't know if you have that or an equivalent. If there's is, there should be secured credit cards that help you start building credit if you have none.

-

Just remember that this won't last forever and you got this!! it's painful and scary but it's temporary.

Also remember that you still deserve better even though you're not being abused, it still hurts and that's vaild.

I dont know if any of this is helpful but I wish you the best and feel free to ask questions if you need anything :D

.

[son1c]

y'all don't even know about what happens after fibula encounters femur that first time... because, like, sure, he runs away from her. he flees the graveyard and disappears into the woods because he can't bear to face her.

but he doesn't go back to eggman. he can't. he's panicking too much to think straight. stumbling through the trees, overwhelmed by a cavalcade of emotions brought forth by seeing his sister again. he thought she was dead, but she's not. he thought, if she was alive, that she wouldn't care about him anymore. but she does. clearly--since she was visiting his grave, and leaving him gifts.

fibula is CRASHING through the woods, making so much noise and not caring at all about how many plants he's trampling underfoot. the flickies are pissed. he doesn't care. he doesn't even see them.

all he can see is his sister's face--older. her eyes, confused. because she doesn't recognize him.

and it hits him all at once the situation that he's in. undead. stitched together with chaos energy and mechanical legs. a monster. he never cared before. in fact, he actually thought it was pretty cool to be a monster. but his own sister's failure to recognize him causes his still heart to twist painfully.

is this really right? everything he's done since being revived, all the torment he's caused and ENJOYED causing... he's rethinking it now that he's seen femur again. because even though being a menace has made him happy, what would his sister think? would she be disappointed? or, worse...

would she be afraid of him?

the thought of it causes him choke and stumble, and by this point he's made enough of a ruckus to attract the attention of a certain blue hero... who of course, starts on a quip about how he wasn't planning on kicking any zombie butt today, but...

and then sonic sees The Absolute State(TM) that fibula is in, and whatever he was going to say dies in his throat. cuz he's seen a lot of stuff, but one of his enemies crying their eyes out? gotta say, this would be the first time. meanwhile, fibula is NOT EXCITED about running into sonic, because spilling so many tears--which are actually just liquefied chaos energy, aka the stuff KEEPING HIM ALIVE--has left him exhausted, and he doesn't think he has any energy left to fight.

and he's right! because he collapses shortly after sonic steps closer, his ears perking up curiously after fibula chokes out something about his sister... and when he wakes up some time later, he finds himself strapped to another metal table (different from the one eggman revived him on).

as it turns out, fibula's little "face down in the dirt" stunt from earlier made sonic think he was dead. like DEAD dead, for real this time. so, our favorite blue hero dragged fibula back to tails' lab to see if he could fix it. (tails, of course, was baffled by the situation, but a chance to examine eggman's handiwork up close could be useful regardless of the fact fibula is less tech and more flesh than most things the doctor works on.)

immediately, fibula tries to break free, but tails has that shit locked down, so the restraints don't budge. then, fibula remembers seeing femur earlier, and resigns himself to laying on the table. it's not that he's given up, it's just... this might be the worst day of his life (and the competition is pretty steep, so that's really saying something).

meanwhile, tails isn't sure what to do. by this point, he's noticed that fibula is awake, but sonic isn't around--he ran off once it was clear that tails had the situation under control--so he doesn't have his big brother to guide him. and he doesn't even really know fibula. since this is the first time they're directly interacting (before this, all tails would've heard was wild tales from sonic, amounting to nothing more than spotty secondhand knowledge).

and the thing is, fibula has no idea who tails is either. all he can see is that he's a kid. and fibula has a very strict rule against hurting kids (because they remind him of his sister. who is apparently still alive. and doesn't recognize him. oh, man--)

fibula forces himself to say something. "you don't look like you work for eggman," probably. with his typical snark, but it lacks its usual bite.

tails would scoff. an astute observation from the guy who was clinically dead a few minutes ago, he thinks. then, he tells fibula that he doesn't work for eggman, because he's on the opposite team.

that makes fibula grimace. great. so, he's strapped to an ENEMY'S table. and then he remembers running into sonic after having his little freakout in the graveyard, and everything starts to make a little more sense.

and of course THAT is when sonic saunters back in, probably with a snack in hand like, "how's it goin' in here, tails?" all casual-like. but he Knows. and fibula knows that he knows. and fibula is DETERMINED to act like nothing happened and sonic didn't see ANYTHING and nothing is wrong. so he instantly snaps back, because now he can focus on being a jerk again instead of whatever awful feelings have been brewing in his gut since last night...

and tails watches. he watches as fibula and sonic bicker and comments on fibula's strange state of not-life, not-death but fibula ignores him on purpose... until tails gets fed up and states bluntly that maybe he shouldn't've revived him, even though sonic asked, cuz he's so mean.

and there's half a second where fibula has nothing to say. SONIC helped him? even though they're enemies? but then fibula sneers at sonic and says "your mistake."

and sonic has that fucking look in his eye... you know... the one where he thinks he knows everything. the "we'll see about that"-type look. and fibula hates it so much because it just adds to his Inner Turmoil(TM). like, he's evil now! he's evil! and bad! and a no-good, rotten hedgehog!

and he's also strapped to a table. and owes his not-life to a tiny little fox, apparently.

and for the first time since sonic showed up, fibula looks at tails. he looks him right in the face with his unsettling orange eyes that shouldn't be. and he says, "your big bro thinks he's got it all figured out. but you're the smart one, i can tell. so i'll take your word over his."

and tails kinda like... falters. cuz he wasn't expecting that? and fibula doesn't realize it, but what he said reveals a lot of his inner conflict to tails. cuz he's right... tails IS the smart one. and when tails eventually lets fibula go, and fibula scampers back to the empire, tails is left wondering about fibula and his cracked facade

[spookygibberish]

Dogstock are typical of what are often deemed the ‘evil’ races in many other fantasy works. They were created by some higher force to be slaves, they are carnivorous by nature, they resemble animals other than human in dentition and build. They growl and bite and walk behind.

The Uhasr (a dogstock culture) are descendants of such slave-infantry that was abandoned when the empire that used them to capture the steppes decided the land wasn’t so profitable after all, and more pressing matters drew their attention elsewhere. Like tools left spent on the ground, the unneeded, excess dogstock were left to survive on their own in Hochkiskuph. The native peoples, of course, did not welcome them any more, or see them any less as oppressors when the hand released the lead. To the Hochkiskuph peoples, the Uhasr are a predatory ghost, an echo that consumes them even in absentia. To the Uhasr, one human is much like another, differing in number and equipment, but never in essence. Uhasr are a species of wild animal with a human face. Humans are prey on two legs. Humans smoke and poison uncovered dens on principle, Uhasr abduct and consume men and women and children all the same.

A common trend I have noticed in media which aims to humanize monsters, is that it often relies on passivity. Humanity is contingent upon kindness. The monster that is A Person only so long as they are a harmless thing at heart, something which can be understood and befriended. Their violence is reluctant, their hearts noble. Grace is a concession to the dominated. Only the toothless beast, declawed and pinioned and caged, is one which has earned its personhood. The ontological enemy supersedes the ontological man.

[shepards-folly]

WHO NEEDS GOD WHEN YOU CAN BE WORSHIPPED LIKE ONE?!

[fitzrove]

Fun facts about crown prince rudolf 🥰💖

Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria was this super tragic figure whose super tragic life was always tragic and very sad. Also he was an irredeemably evil sexist jerkface and if you like him you're a pick me girl who wants WOMEN TO DIE,, anyway here are some fun facts about him!

He died in 1889 from suicide :( Or he may have been murdered by French agents sent by his friend Clemenceau,, listen I know they were friends who were aligned politically, but Empress Zita said this ~40 years after Rudolf's death, and because she's distantly related to him through marriage it must 100% be true!

He shot himself in the mouth, I don't know why all of these adaptations change it to be the temple lol

He infected his wife with syphilis >:o

According to his writings (mostly Eine Orientreise where he frequently admires the fresh manliness of his Arab hunting companions) he was heteroromantic polysexual <3 representation

He used to keep this creepy sex register where he used different colors of pens to mark what kind of woman he slept with (virgin, of noble birth, etc...). No trust me bro it's legit even though nobody has ever presented proof of this register existing anywhere or even a credible primary source citation to point to someone contemporary describing it

During his travels in Egypt and Palestine Rudolf acquired many cultural and historical artifacts for museums in Vienna as well as for his personal collections<3 Explorer king. Wait what do you mean imperialism, graverobbing and arson?? Noo I wouldn't describe it as such haha...

He was really sexist and that's not ok tbh :/ How can anyone be interested in him when he was horrible to women :( I mean it's kinda hard to find 19th century european men who would not have been and a lot of our still-revered statesmen had comparable attitudes that people let slide, but actually when it's someone that was also mentally ill in a Scary Violent Way it's ok to center his negative traits and ignore everything else about him haha. Also women are only allowed to enjoy researching and discussing historical figures who are unproblematic and good representation<3 ALSO women are not allowed to make arguments about historical figures being interesting or sympathetic based on their political views/positions if those figures were awful people in their personal lives, it's like the rules of feminism or something! ~~

He was involved in this crazy conspiracy to crown himself as king of Hungary. Also he was really hyped about hungarian nationalism and independence and totally wasn't an imperialist first and foremost who would've seen the ideology as ultimately destructive regardless of any personal fondness for Hungary

The italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni actually really wanted to fuck him and this was a motivating factor for Lucheni's assassination of empress Elisabeth in 1898 😳

[THIS POST IS SATIRE (inspired by) and the "facts" are purposeful misinformation kfkfkfkf. If anyone can provide actual proof of that sex register thing that does NOT come from greg king and penny wilson (derogatory) I will graciously not duel them in the hofburg parking lot xD I hate that this disclaimer needs to be included because it ruins the joke, but a lot of these are such common takes that I can't not]

[fleshdyke]

[britneyshakespeare]

the fact that all grown up ran for five seasons is unaccountable

[juicedbeetle]

I just love when he does creacher shit like this so much

[softshuji]

Any men out there wanna pretend to be my bf to get my parents off my case about marriage? I am so so serious right now.

[deoidesign]

I love Time and Time Again!! It was genuinely interesting to see two characters talk things out. Of course they kept secrets, but they knew when to reveal them and that made me want to stick around and read it. Thankyou for making such a wonderful comic!!

Thank you so much!!!

This really means a lot to me <3

I think there's generally a tendency to believe that relationships can't be nice in a romance or the story will be boring.

I understand where this idea comes from, stories should have conflict! And, real world relationships have conflict, as well. They always will! It makes sense that most stories centered around relationships would, inevitably, at some point, have disagreements, fights, anger...

I get why others enjoy it, its messy it's fun it's drama! but for me personally it just stresses me out since I've done so much work to NOT be like that!

As a writer, when presented with two people who are reasonably at odds with eachother, where neither of them is in the wrong per se, but someone still ends up hurt... it's a fun challenge to write them working through it in a believable way. it's a fun challenge, too, to put them into situations that feel equal and human.

I just think it's a necessary thing for who I am as a person to write relationships the way I do, and so I'm just very very very glad that other people resonate with it as well!

It means a lot. Thank you.

[caffeinatedopossum]

People be like "merry Christmas" meanwhile I'm over here uncovering new depths of my trauma

[wiinterbunny]

,,

[silverselfshippingchaos]

ash and a.qua, as told by pokemon since I was digging up some old writing about them

[pekoeboo]

hhh i've had like. no drive to work on any art or writing projects. ;n; my heart is still so invested in the stories and characters I've created, but the motivation to take those feelings and put it into some form of content is next to nil. i don't know why it's been like that but it's kinda sad :c

don't get me wrong - i'm happy with most of the things i've created lately, but it's also been this strange game of doubt and comparison going on in my head when it comes to actually sharing what I make. there are a lot of pieces of art and writing that i just haven't posted because i feel like it's not in a place where it's good enough for anyone other than myself. the idea of editing and actually finishing some projects so that i can make sense of them online is overwhelming even tho i would love to just... get some of those ideas out for anyone who might be interested in hearing about them, you know?

anyway. probably just need to let myself take some kind of break?? idk what that would really entail at this point tho. it's just been a weird mental state that I need to work out i guess.

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

Aspect of Order: Primordial & Present-Day

One of the first deities, part of what is known as the Primordial Triad. It created the planes alongside the Aspects of Chaos and the In-Between and held dominion over the Material Plane. It embodied order in the way nature has order: the life cycle, gravity, the tides, the surety that the seasons will change, the patterns that appear in flora and fauna alike, the symmetry of pinecones and butterflies. It was associated with the night as a time of quiet preparation where the world rests, and when one can see the remains of creation in the darkened sky. It is said that the two moons of the Material Plane are its eyes, watching over its creations.

All three members of the Primordial Triad are referred to with "it", so ancient and unfathomable that applying a mortal, transient concept of gender to them seemed almost blasphemous.

Almost.

The modern-day conception of Order is quite different. Though she still reigns over the night and natural laws, her followers have placed her at the forefront of the creation process, reducing the In-Between's role and rejecting Chaos altogether. Though most present-day cultures think of her in this way, many of them do not emphasize her: she is an invisible Over-God, keeping the other deities and forces in line and maintaining cosmic balance from behind the scenes. In places where she is worshipped heavily, however, she is placed at the forefront of the pantheon. In those cases, worship of deities with overlapping domains is either illegal (ex local gods of justice) or considered secondary to her (ex the god of the Wilds). The worship of smaller, local deities is usually discouraged or suppressed over-all in these areas in order to encourage a more structured, uniform religious practice. While both aspects of Order championed paladins, Primordial Order also championed druids and rangers while Modern Order champions clerics.

Ancient theologians debated whether or not Order and Chaos were two aspects of the same being (ironically, there was no question that the In-Between was its own separate force). However, following the iconoclasm that effectively forced Chaos out of the pantheon and created the modern conception of Order, such lines of thought were considered heretical, and then blasphemous.

The iconoclasm did have an unintended consequence, however. Crying motifs appeared in some art of Primordial Order around that time, particularly in the areas that resisted the iconoclasts more intensely. Some scholars believe that it may have been a direct reaction to the event: Order mourning the loss of its counterpart. Others have argued, however, that the lack of such motifs (or equivalents) in depictions of the In-Between prove this wrong. After all, why would it not also be grieving?