#but if there's a discord that isn't just for members i'd be super interested in checking it out!

[crimson-roots]

the fake dating happened because Joey lied to Katherine to try and make her jealous. Joey and Sausage have agreed that they need to be the most extra and dramatic and beautiful couple that the empires have ever seen (and that they need to somehow put more drama into their relationship than scottpearl divorce), because of course they would.

and they are both being So Very Normal about it, certainly. yep, finding a flower deep in the cave for Gem's fey errand is fine. one of these should be taken to Joey, for.... magical purposes. yep. it's probably very magical. which is also why Joey attached said flower to his hat and made sure that it was visible for the date. which is to make Katherine jealous! the date to make Katherine jealous

(Katherine is not jealous and is so very excited that these two are happy together and would choose her kingdom for a date.)

so very normal about it, mhm! yup! (also. god, of COURSE they would, that is the most sausage and joey thing i have ever heard)

and,,. man. this is SUCH a cool story

[gatheredfates]

POSES. It happened! ✨

I made a smaller post this morning, but I am super pleased to announce that Tumblr's moderation has approved SEAFLOOR as a Community! We're live, baeby!

If you don't know what a Community is, you can check out Tumblr's post about it here.

If you are interested in joining, I will copy/paste the information contained on the Community's pinned post in the read more below, as you won't see it otherwise (outside of joining). I'd like to kindly request that if you are already a member of the Community to not like this post (it just saves me doubling up) but please reblog it to spread the word!

Welcome to SEAFLOOR! This a Community run by myself, Sea (@gatheredfates), as an offshoot of the identically named Discord server aimed to contain both my personal projects and promote member-created content. If you would still like to keep up to date with my projects, interact with members of my community, and generally enjoy xiv content without the pressure of a Discord, this is the place!

This server has mandatory tags that MUST be used for spoilers. A general rule of thumb is the most recent patch/live letter is considered spoiler content and must be marked accordingly; as well as major spoilers for the most recent expansion. If it doubt, it always pays to tag. Please mind the following:

#dawntrail spoilers

#7.0. spoilers (will likely come into effect for 7.1 to differentiate from general Dawntrail spoilers, but you can tag for both!)

#liveletter spoilers

Much like my Discord, there are some house rules I want to put in place first for first-time users. Please familiarise yourself with the below. This post is pinned; you can't claim you haven't seen it. A lot of these are near-identical to the server rules, but I'll be no-less forceful in implementation if they are not adhered to.

If I'm being entirely honest, moderation past Community maintenance is something I do not want to engage with, so I will be intervening only when it is entirely necessary and will be harsh in my implementation. Therefore, if you don't think you can conduct yourself in a healthy, adult manner, do not join. Some of these rules may seem 'harsh' but are the product of me making clear boundaries in what I will expect, tolerate and foster. I will not hesitate to curate where I feel it is necessary.

I believe in the age-old phrase "Be excellent to each other," and that underpins every rule featured below. If in doubt, refer back to this mantra.

This Community is strictly 21+ only. This is to keep in line with my personal boundaries regarding minors. It's nothing personal, I just don't have time to moderate for a younger audience.

Common-sense rules apply. Do not break Tumblr's ToS, spoiler/content warm where appropriate and sensible, and don't be rude/harass people in the comments. Just because a rule isn't explicitly stated doesn't mean you have full reign to do the thing.

Intolerance (namely racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.) will not be tolerated. If you don't like it, the back button is free.

Due to this being a predominately XIV focused Community, dark themes will present due to subject manner explored in the game. I will not enforce mandatory tags/censors outside of patch/expansion spoilers; I just ask that people use their common sense and consider peoples' safety and mental wellbeing when posting work(s). If you do not warn appropriately or mock/ignore requests for things to be censored/warned, you will be removed.

As Communities are in their infancy, rules may be amended/adjusted to better fit this space's purpose as time goes on. While I will attempt to make these changes obvious, please check back on occasion just in case. "I didn't know," is not a valid excuse.

HOKAY, now that the serious of the rules are out of the way, you might be wondering to yourself, "Sea, what can be posted?" I'm glad you asked! ✨ First and foremost, as I do not encourage secular spaces, please make sure all content has originated from a public tumblr blog. I want to encourage people to reach out, interact and follow other people, not just stick to this space! Beyond that, I accept:

Screenshots (gpose), writing, art, think pieces and other xiv content created by members. You can tag these with #gpose, #writing, #art, etc.

Resource gathering similar to what is featured in the Discord server including resources, prompts, commissions, etc. You can tag these with #resources, #prompts, #WoLQoTD, #commissions, #other, etc. These do not have to be created by members in the community.

Event, character profiles, looking for content/rp/free companies and more! You can tag these with #events, #character profile, #lfc, #lfr, #free company, etc. These do not have to be created by members in the community.

Links to lodestone posts/dev commentary and other official posts provided they are tagged correctly. You can tag these with #lodestone.

Anything you've created in response to my projects! You can tag these as #sea's character questions OR whatever the event is at the time (for example, Down to Dawntrail posts can be tagged as #(count)down to dawntrail)! I will try to reblog anything that I am tagged in if the owner doesn't reblog it here.

Anything xiv related that isn't covered here but you think is in line with the spirit of this community and what I'm trying to foster. Please DM me if you're unsure.

[nothorses]

Hi! Since you have a Discord server, could you share some tips for both moderating and keeping the space active and free of toxicity? I am thinking of creating my own for a micro-comunnity, but I have no idea where to start (especially what basic action protocols to follow of someone breaks a rule or is reported as abusive in DMs and there isn't much concrete proof).

Thanks in advance. ;-)

Ooh, yes, this shit is my bread & butter! Here's the advice I'd give someone creating a new community Discord space:

Start with a very clear idea of what the space is for.

This is your reasoning for every single expectation you set & rule you enforce. If you cannot explain to someone why a rule exists, you shouldn't have that rule- and you probably won't have an easy time enforcing it anyway.

Ask yourself some questions upfront: is this a space for bonding over a shared interest? Is this a space for building community around a marginalized identity or experience? Why? Who does it benefit, and how does it benefit those people?

The transmasc discord server I run started as a space to build community for transmascs who could not talk about transmasc issues elsewhere, and is therefore a space for discussion of these issues first, a space to build community for a group that faces a lot of isolation second, and everything else third.

Ask yourself: what is this space not for?

Now that you know what your goal is, it should be easier to determine what is in conflict with your goal. If you're a fandom space, you should be asking things like: do you need a vent channel? Why? What level of venting is okay? How will you tell someone in crisis that this is not an appropriate place to seek help? (Or applied to other situations: do you need this? Does it serve your goal? How? Is there a line or a nuance you should clarify? How practical is it to enforce this line?)

Think about your role as server owner

Server owners have a lot of de-facto power, because that's how Discord is set up, like, functionally. Think about the worst server owners you have ever encountered, and ask: what could have prevented those servers from disaster? People make bad decisions without realizing how bad they are, and it sucks. And, frankly, communities shouldn't necessarily belong to just one person.

What is your responsibility to your community? How can you share your power with them? What can you commit to in order to mitigate that power imbalance?

I have some commitments in place within my server along the lines of like... we make decisions on the basis of consensus (if someone really disagrees, we talk about it and, if needed, figure out a different solution; we don't go with "majority rules", and I don't veto or whatever). If there's consensus among the rest of the server staff that I should step down, I will step down. Stuff like that. My staff know these things, which keeps me (and them!) accountable.

You should think about the role of staff in a similar way; they have power over users. How can you mitigate that power? How can you share it with users? What happens if a staff member abuses their power?

Start small.

Unless you have a massive following ready to join your new server right away, you're gonna be pretty small for a long time. Embrace it! Small servers have the benefit of tight-knit communities and a lot of flexibility; you can make changes super easily, and you can be really responsive to your community. Let them tell you what they want and need, and invite them into the process of shaping the space together.

I really recommend that you start with the bare minimum, and add new rules, channels, staff, etc. as the need comes up organically. This gives you lots of room to think and discuss, and it means everything you add is tailored to the actual people that make up your community.

To use my own server as an example again: we had like five channels when we started, and adding each new channel has been a conversation about why we're adding it, whether we can fit that topic into a different channel or if it's getting overcrowded, how it impacts the server atmosphere (heavy/negative channels really add up!), etc. Which means they're generally, like, not completely unnecessary and unused.

Think about scaling

As you gain more members, you'll need more staff (and more staff time), more infrastructure, and more consistency. There's no one perfect way to do this, but I want to name it because I think it's good to keep in mind; I've seen big servers who try to act like small servers and end up chaotic and under-moderated, and small servers who try to act like big servers and end up drowning in their own (completely unnecessary!) red tape.

Rule enforcement

I recommend having a blanket policy of "we reserve the right to kick you out if it's obvious that you're not here with good or honest intentions". Don't try to litigate every little thing with every single person; if they're not there because they wanna be a part of the community you've made, there's absolutely no obligation to entertain their bullshit. Being upfront about this cuts out a lot of "but I didn't technically break a rule!", and "explain to me exactly why you're doing this so I can argue it to death!" nonsense from bad actors.

I also recommend a blanket policy of "infinite honest mistake forgiveness". People forget, slip up, whatever; don't stress about it. Give them a reminder or a heads up and move on.

For the stuff in the middle, you'll figure out what systems work for you. I prefer DMing people about things; being specific, transparent, and offering support does wonders for most issues. Name some clear expectations if you're noticing patterns, and ask what you can do to help them meet those expectations. Assume they didn't mean to do any harm, and that they want to get better. Even if that's not the case, most people will rise to that assumption if given the opportunity (and if they don't, you can kick 'em then).

Encourage a self-regulating community

Do not get involved in petty bullshit!! If someone has an issue with someone else, your first step is always to ask yourself: is this something staff need to take care of, or could this be resolved with a conversation between these two people?

Oftentimes, even a broken rule is something people can sort out themselves. If someone forgot a rule or made an honest mistake, there is literally no reason that it needs to be you or other server staff telling them so. Encourage people to talk to each other! You will save yourself so much grief (and petty drama, and serious conflict) in the long-run if your community can talk to each other like humans.

Encourage people to set their own personal boundaries, too! If they have a unique trigger or a particular need, encourage them to communicate that need to other people. This also allows people to negotiate their own solutions to conflicting access needs, and prevents staff from "taking sides".

As a bonus, this will also make it super clear when someone is just an asshole.

Maintain the vibe!

Don't try to duke problems out in the middle of the server! It sucks, everyone hates it, and the people that don't hate it love it for all the wrong reasons. Drama breeds more drama, and toxicity breeds more toxicity.

I recommend telling people exactly where to take their disagreements, discontent, and emotional outbursts. My personal policy is: if you can't have a productive conversation or offer everyone else basic respect, you need to step back and cool off until you can. if you have personal beef with someone else, you can either talk it out in DMs, let it go, or block them and move on. If you disagree with a rule or how a rule is being enforced, you still need to listen to staff, but you can (and should!) bring that up in the appropriate channels to discuss for the next time it comes up.

We have the "ticket tool" bot- which is great for when one person wants to argue about stuff like that- and an "office" channel for all kinds of administrative-y suggestions, questions, discussions, etc. which is great for respectful disagreements/discussions. I recommend using Discord's "Time Out" feature to mute people if they won't respect a staff request to pause or step back, and even removing everyone's ability to post in a channel if it's getting rancid & you need to buy some time to figure out exactly what's happening and how to handle it. (Let people know what's going on when you do this, though!)

This is maybe the biggest thing for keeping a server active and not toxic, tbh. People do not want to spend time in a space that sucks! And while it's vital to make space for conflict to happen, that space doesn't need to be the same one that everyone else is trying to share art of their blorbos in. And that conflict should never be abusive.

(Note: not all disagreements are conflicts, and not all conflicts necessarily need to be stopped or moved! This is generalized advice; there's a lot of gray area, and you'll get a feel for it over time if you don't already have a clear idea.)

TL;DR:

Be thoughtful and intentional about exactly what you're trying to do and why. Be responsive and responsible to your community. Have as much patience & forgiveness for earnest people as you refuse to have for ill-intentioned people. Don't be afraid to draw hard lines in order to protect the space for everyone when you need to, and encourage people to talk to each other, enforce their own boundaries, and help keep each other accountable in kind and compassionate ways.

I think this sounds very big and grand because I have run a lot of servers and I am also drawing on some educational philosophy background, but like, all you really need to do is start with a clear purpose and go from there. You can be flexible and make changes as stuff comes up, and focus on having fun with the process and the community you're creating!

Good luck!!

[tierra-paldeana]

1.) What made you decide to roleplay this muse? 11.) What’s a thread you’d like to do in the near future? 20.) What’s something that would make you unfollow a mutual? 22.) Three interesting little tidbits or facts of your muse

Questions for the Mun!

What made you decide to roleplay this muse?

// i think i mentioned this elsewhere already, but basically, the moment i saw her in the game and got to know her better, i was fucking sold. she's everything i craved to see in a female character but almost never got, from the design to the personality, to the attitude, to her potential... not to mention i felt seen as someone GNC, and the fact that she's from the region based off iberia, like me, spoke to me super deeply, among other things.

and i was seriously considering roleplaying as her once i finished the main game, but because i knew there were DLCs coming in the horizon, i decided to wait until they came out to finally form a more or less complete idea of what i wanted to do. and because i never do well in discord servers (at least ones where i don't know anyone involved from the offset), i decided to come back to tumblr after having left in 2017-8-ish, cause i knew i'd be able to meet peeps more comfortably here. i don't regret it one bit!

What's a thread you'd like to do in the near future?

// honestly... hard to pick. i got so many thread ideas i'd love to do. but one thread i'd love to do would be definitely something involving area zero, or big scary pokémon. i just want to throw rika at these, specially if someone she cares about is involved, just to see her overcome her traumas bit by bit. she might be scared, but her love for the people she appreciates is stronger and can push her to do things she'd freeze over if she was alone...

and of course, things like angst, hurt-comfort, fluff. character exploration threads... that kinda stuff.

What’s something that would make you unfollow a mutual?

// breaking my rules is the easiest and fastest way to get me to unfollow someone. also, being a dick in general, messing with other rpers unfairly, or bringing twitter-like discourse onto my dash for no other purpose than to stir shit up. of course there's other reasons but they're very basic (being lgbt+-phobic, racist etc) and something i think should be common decency not to be/do so yeah.

Three interesting little tidbits or facts of your muse

rika can climb trees pretty well, believe it or not! perks of having been a semi-feral child hahaha

rika's the only elite four member that doesn't have any flying type pokémon... which are usually birds... my rika has trauma related to being attacked by a espathra (which i know isn't a flying type, but it's still a bird)... hmm... much to think about...

she often takes poppy out to public parks to pass the time when she's free from work c:

[kafus]

omg forums are one of my interests, if you want good free ones, jcink is the place to go! these days the most active of jcink forums are usually roleplaying boards [if you're into rp, totally look into those!] and most importantly the owner of the service is SUPER active and refuses to sell out, meaning it will be around for as long as it can be supported. you can find forums to join through the support board, or the website jcinkdirectory.com.

I can't guarantee non-rp boards' activity levels because most of the forums i see these days also tend to have companion discord servers, but as an owner of a forum that isn't very active, we don't care, every post and member is MASSIVELY appreciated. i squeal whenever i see a non-searchbot lurker on my forums, lmao.

oh shit thanks for sharing!! i used to roleplay on forums a LOT when i was younger but i fell out of the hobby and. honestly for a lot of reasons i'd be very nervous to go back but i'd still take a look anyways even if just to observe and enjoy looking at it :]

and yeah the companion discord server thing is actually actively frustrating to me like if i was here for a discord server i'd just join a discord server... but it also makes sense unfortunately :/ but yeah ty :D

[luvsavos]

Hey, it’s the Aiden anon again! I’m sorry bro, but I don’t have Discord, but I’m STILL SUPER interested on your thoughts on Aiden. PLEASE I’m begging you Mr. Martin, I need a MASSIVE text post from you about him. And honestly it’s for my friend too. Aiden is her babygirl. She has been in love/loved him since 4U and we both are always so excited to see him.

oh hello again!! it's no worries that you don't have discord, i definitely do Not at ALL mind going on a ramble about my boy, though i absolutely apologize in advance for the length of this post LMAO

for the most part until after the events of iceborne, my interpretation of him is fairly close to canon, though there is Some differences or original things here and there so disclaimer in advance since i'm maintagging this for canon divergence, this is my own little au that i am completely normal and not at all insane about; all of the stuff post-fatalis is based on rps with a friend so there's a Lot

if you/whoever's reading this just want my general Thoughts on aiden as a character and not my whole batshit insane au lore stuff, that'll be at the bottom of the post! (sorry)

when he was a kid, he was pretty carefree as you'd expect, he loved to help out around the village when he wasn't off playing with the other kids or his little sister (i don't think we ever got anything about his bio family in canon so this was entirely just me making things up LMAO). when the elder dragon activity caused the monster stampede that destroyed his village when he was only 7, he tried desperately to save people (specifically his sister) but, of course, failed, and i BELIEVE i'd headcanoned that he watched At Least One of his family members actively get gored/trampled by some monsters?

obviously the entire experience left him with a fear of monsterkind, and even into adulthood it still weighs heavily on him and likely occasionally causes nightmares and the likes. running blindly from the stampede with absolutely no sense of direction nor semblance of anything to help him survive in the wilderness, it's a miracle that he came across timben when he did, and naturally the people there took him in. though still weighed down by his trauma, aiden did his best to be as helpful around the village as possible, and he quickly became popular among the villagers for his willingness and readiness to help out wherever he could, and for his cheerful, outgoing personality. eventually, he decided he was tired of being frightened of monsters, so he took to studying them and making puns of their names as a way to cope and make himself less afraid of them. all this is pretty much just canon so far, from the legends of the guild movie (save for the parts about his old village, other than the stampede thing; i think that's the only real details we get about his home village?)

and then, of course, when he was fifteen (this isn't his canon age, i don't entirely know how old he's supposed to be in lotg? i THINK 17-18 but cmon he gives me the vibes of Unmedicated Adhd Teenager. fun fact julius is only 4 years older than aiden so that makes him 19 in this so that doesn't make a ton of sense but its fine i can ignore that, bro's already stressed himself to the point of white hair LMAO i think i'd make him a bit older than that though, maybe in his mid-late twenties?) came the elder crossing, and with it came julius, to warn timben of an oncoming lunastra that was headed in their direction. honestly idk why i'm recapping this canon stuff but listen i love talking about aiden okay ahdnsbfjgn

since the villagers refused to budge, aiden accompanied julius to go see the elder dragon for himself so that he can tell the villagers so they'll evacuate, and of course imprinted onto julius like an orphaned (ha bad joke) duckling along the way

don't need to recap all of lotg since it all plays out the same way; he admired everyone that helped try to fight off the lunastra, but he particularly looked up to mae like an older sister (this would later lead him to naming a kinsect paisley in honour of her's), and he still in present-day keeps her journal. the entire experience was... rough on him. he didn't feel any sense of victory, just a sort of hollowness and guilt---he blamed himself for mae and ravi's deaths, considering it was his impulsive suggestion to fight the lunastra rather than run that got them killed. it also left him with a permanent terror of lunastra specifically (this will come into relevance somewhat a bit later), and it solidified his resolve to become a proper hunter, so that he could learn how to properly fight monsters and protect people like he wanted to, and ensure nothing like that would happen again.

now here's where we start to get a Liddol Bit of canon divergence; anyone who's talked to me about my au knows that i REALLY like the idea of the guild being not as clean and morally sound as they like to seem---i really like exploring the concept of corruption within it, and the shady practices they keep under wraps. after all, power tends to breed corruption, and even if it's run by wyverians and Is primarily dedicated to genuinely trying to preserve the balance, the guild IS an incredibly powerful and influential organization (if not the single most powerful/influential one in the mh universe), and that's likely going to inevitably attract people who don't exactly have the best intentions in mind.

so! the guild. guild knights. we know that the knights are sent out to deal with poachers and the likes via apprehending them and/or killing them. that already means that, more than likely, our sweet boy aiden has human blood on his hands. so why not delve into that? aiden tended to prefer to stick to just helping protect and maintain the safety of places rather than do the whole Killing People thing, as i don't doubt that the concept of taking another human/wyverian/etc life upsets him. HOWEVER. early on into his days as a knight, he was sent out with a group of unfamiliar knights to deal with a velocidrome that was "causing problems" in a small village. the problems? it had been injured, and an old woman that lived some distance away from the village had taken it back to her house and nursed it back to health, and it chose to simply Stay, and that made the villagers uneasy. honestly, it wasn't really causing any genuine issues---it was just existing and choosing to stay with the person that had saved its life. the orders were clear cut: deal with "the problem" by any means necessary. aiden was gentler than the others (who were far more shady and... much less well-intentioned than him), but the woman was resolute in that she wouldn't let them kill the drome. so, as a "rite of passage," so to speak, the other guild knights forced aiden to kill not only the velocidrome, but the old woman as well. Guild Trauma, Babey!

the experience left a lasting mark on him, and he never told julius or the other ace hunters what exactly happened, but they could all tell that Something had based on how quiet and somber he was for several days after the incident. that was the first human life he took, and while he's undoubtedly had to kill poachers and other people who genuinely Were in the wrong, knowing that he has innocent blood on his hands has remained with him even long after he left the guild to join with the research commission. i'm nice to my faves i swear (<- lying)

so! fast forward to the commission, since there's not much else of importance for his guild days (yet, once i play 4u/gu this might change). this is where things really start to get divergent as they involve my ocs so buckle up lads we're going on An Adventure™️

like i said, really things are Mostly the same until post-iceborne; rather than a proper hunter, my player character oc is a "rider" that was raised by an anjanath so rather than kill all the monsters (though he doesn't have much issue with doing so) in the story some were simply communicated with and/or relocated if necessary, ie the agitated pukei, vaal hazak ("without a vaal hazak the entire rotten vale ecosystem would collapse!" [kills vaal hazak anyways] thank you monster hunter very cool!)

aiden takes a liking to the field team leader (achilles, as my friend i rp with named him<3) and they grow closer throughout base world, enough so that aiden ends up his second-in-command in seliana (this appears to be canon? idk he can be seen giving out more direct orders during the defense of seliana quest while ftl gives out generalized ones and theyre Always Seen Together except for in One (1) cutscene, post-velkhana death (i'm normal about them i promise) and theyre both at the council table right next to each other.....), things are Nice, everything's Great

and then Fatalis Happens. canonly, as i recall, aiden Nearly Died because of fatalis. like. lea/serious handler talks about how if he'd died she doesn't know how she would've kept going, aiden talks about how thinking about julius and ftl gave him the strength and willpower to keep fighting (totally normal bro things to say just guys being dudes am i right) and Not Die, it's a whole Thing. so my interpretation of aiden has a TON of absolutely AWFUL burn scars across the right side of his body from that. they're obviously nowhere near as bad as they COULD be, since i'm assuming he had some fire res on his build (that feels weird to say when not talking about gameplay), but they're still Bad because. well. fatalis LMAO

fast forward an indeterminate amount of time (i don't think my friend and i ever decided on how far after fatalis our stuff is💀) and everything's Great. here's where the balls to the wall canon divergence starts btw! shang, my "rider" oc, has helped people learn that some monsters can be reasoned with, and the monsters he's befriended are allowed about the base and the reach as they please (even if some AHEM VUGEL (my bastard of an ebony odogaron) COUGH are an absolute hindrance on purpose). aiden and ftl have gotten together by this point. shang's taken in a lot of orphaned monsters, one of which is a little lunastra that he's named chang'e, that seems to sense aiden's unease and tries to capitalize on it, but shang (halfheartedly) tries to hold the young elder dragon back from doing so.

one particularly notable monster around base is a gold-crown sized namielle, "nami," who's pretty much adopted shang. she's warm, motherly, and after the initial unease of having An Entire Elder Dragon around wore off she quickly became a familiar and welcomed face. another is the mountain god, shara ishvalda themself, having chosen to try to aid the commission as a way to "apologize" for the damage and chaos their presence in the everstream caused. nami's presence attracts a tall, foreboding man, with white hair and a beard, scars across his face, a permanent resting glare, and piercing golden eyes---he speaks very little, and when he does it's in a low mutter, and he seems to be observing the people of seliana. his presence is dread-inducing and sparks much unease, but nami is ecstatic to see him, stating he is an old friend who she hasn't seen in ages. for some time, things continue normally---until an argument between shara and nami breaks out, and the imposing stranger reveals his true nature as a dire miralis-sized white fatalis; the destroyer moon, alaakiilah, he who wiped out the ancients in a single night, in order to get the pair to cease their bickering.

aiden ends up being absolutely fascinated by al---sure, he's scared shitless of fatalis, but all the same... a fatalis, there, IN seliana, the fatalis of legend, and he's... not attacking them. granted, it's because he knows nami is fond of the mortals there, and he begrudgingly promised her that he wouldn't do anything to them, but still. the moon god is begrudgingly tolerant of aiden, and eventually achilles as well, as the pair typically don't stray far from one another (unless they Do, but that's not relevant right now), and eventually, through sheer persistence in his fascination, aiden (and achilles) are allowed the one single highest honour one can have: the permission to touch alaakiilah's beard. much as he might disdain to admit it, al ends up being genuinely, albeit begrudgingly, fond of aiden, and aiden's all but dadopted him (he's collecting white haired father figures, isn't he?). this comes into more relevance later.

after some time, al comes across an abandoned fatalis egg (i have my own whole Thing on fatalis eggs and reproduction in general but that's its own post LOL), which he brought back to the supply cache (after achilles offered to let him nest there with the egg) to incubate, and after a day, it hatches, into a tiny, defenseless, harmless baby female fatalis, which namielle names yunhind---that translating to "new hope," in honour of how no fatalis in recorded history has ever been raised in proximity to mortals before, and the destroyer moon's decision to trust in the commission to not fuck things up. the little one immediately takes a liking to aiden, and though he's more than a little nervous at first at the prospect of babysitting the destroyer of humanity's adopted child, he quickly becomes more confident in it as she grows and he becomes more attached to her---it makes him think back to his younger sister, and his inability to protect her, and he's determined to make sure absolutely nothing happens to yunhind.

there's a whole Thing that happens with the guild, having learned of the abundance of monsters around seliana, threatening achilles to try and pressure him into killing and/or relocating them all to "protect the people," then taking matters into their own hands when he refuses---this entire debacle (affectionately dubbed The Guild Arc, Part One) leaves aiden shaken up as it confirms a lot of his fears and doubts that have been building under the surface for years on end now.

fatalis mature quickly, even when naturally hatched, and within a few months, yunhind is a fully grown and wholly unique fatalis, dubbed an "ashen fatalis" due to adapting to her surroundings and taking on the properties of ice element as well as fire (they're interchangeable, though her ability to use both at once is somewhat limited), and the unique ability to transfer energy to heal others, and her scales being an ashy grey colour. she spends most of her time in her human form, and she views aiden like an older brother. things settle back down around base, and everything is okay again.

until it's not, of course<3

achilles goes missing, which stresses aiden out, naturally--and then vodrem happens, because nothing good lasts forever. well, vodrem happens Again, but i hadn't started rping aiden by the first time, so uhhh. idk he was on a vacation in the old world i guess?? that was an entire Year before the second Vodrem Event

now, dear reader, you're probably wondering, "martin who the fuck is vodrem", which is a VERY good question! vodrem is my nonfandom/multiverse god of chaos oc, who's part of his own little original oc bubble, though they're all based on monhun monsters; vodrem in particular is based on nergigante and morodumunto, though he usually takes the form of a not-quite-right nergigante

he makes a habit of consuming entire universes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and psychologically tormenting people just for the hell of its. he's power hungry, immensely dangerous, and cunning.

in his wake, he leaves "instabilities"; where the very fabric of reality itself gets fucked up, and these can have a variety of effects on anything that enter the area, but the most common has been people getting turned into monsters. the five were INCREDIBLY meticulous about mending any left behind after the first vodrem event, and they made absolutely certain to mend them all.

but a new one appeared. one which aiden wandered into---the change wasn't instantaneous, it started with just feeling sick and feverish, with heat specifically concentrated in his chest, to the point that it would get unbearable and he'd have to lay in the snow just for some relief, and finding his temper to be increasingly short and explosive. then came the headaches and soreness of the throat, and tiny black scales forming across his skin. then the desire to find some small space outdoors, perhaps a cave or the likes, though he ended up seeking comfort (ironically) in the destroyer moon's presence. i'm sure you can see where this is going, yes?

of all the monsters in the world, it had to be a fatalis. because of course it would be. as you'd expect, this caused him an IMMENSE amount of distress on top of the distress he already had from achilles' absence. for some time, there were no other signs of vodrem, and yunhind and al (mostly yunhind) helped aiden learn How To Fatalis.

and then all hell broke lose, as it does with vodrem. he claimed to have killed achilles, and though aiden had been trying his absolute damndest to suppress the fatalis rage and instincts, he let them overtake him---he went after vodrem, intending to unleash an ocean of flame upon him... didn't SUCCEED, all he got was speared through the lung and his back torn into by vodrem, the wounds afflicted with what was dubbed as "tarblight"; a corrosive, highly painful substance that vodrem secrets that seems to only be able to be cured by vodrem himself or his much more well-intentioned brother, vodinok. for the rest of the fight, aiden was simply unconscious, so he doesn't have much relevance for the rest of it. as i recall, one of the five managed to transform him back into a human, and vodinok cured the tarblight while yunhind healed his wounds.

unfortunately for my poor darling aiden, the form of the fatalis is not one so easily controlled, and so despite the five's best efforts, that part of him never really left---strong negative emotions still cause spontaneous transformations, and he's typically very skittish and nervous in this form because of how hard it is to suppress the fatalis instincts. the transformations take a LOT of energy out of him too, and while he CAN force a transformation back, that takes even more energy, so he's usually just kinda Stuck like that for a few days, which he usually spends hunkered in the supply cache, because for as good as he's gotten at maintaining his usual demeanor, the innate rage and violent instincts are always just a breath away from the surface, bubbling and boiling, like a pot of water just seconds away from boiling over. Not at All a fun experience for him!

after this the Guild Arc Part 2 happens, with aiden traveling to the old world with al to retrieve achilles from the corrupt and shady part of the guild who'd come to seliana in the first place; that's a whole Thing in of itself as well, and aiden ends up having to take a few more lives, though the guilt and emotions of, well. Everything, really, don't set in until after its all said and done, considering this entire thing takes place only maybe a few days after the vodrem event, if i recall correctly, so aiden's still more than a little out of it, and the dissonance of everything that happened there only made him even More out of it.

aaaaand i Think that's It? i don't believe i've had him be involved in any major plot stuff since then (aside from the temporary vampire event that was for halloween), so he's finally gotten to have the break that he oh so DESPERATELY needs and deserves... for now! i would like to involve him with more things again in the future (i never did get to write out a storyline where he briefly looses himself to the fatalis instincts---even just using the elemental abilities tend to have that effect on him, so using too MUCH would be Bad---and has to be brought back down from them...), so who knows! maybe he'll end up Going Through It a little bit more, as a Treat<3 the amount of suffering i put my faves through is proportional to how much i like them☺

now then! for my thoughts on aiden as a character; i love him. he's a sweet, caring and well-intentioned person, and i see a lot of myself in him (namely with the Incredibly Obvious adhd). it makes me happy to see a character like him (again, adhd) not treated like the butt of a joke, and instead be shown to actually be incredibly competent and important to the commission. i really hope we see him again in another game in the future, even if it's just as a cameo (he and the field team leader WERE planning to take that vacation to the old world so aiden could introduce ftl to julius........) and nothing else. of all the wonderful characters mh has to offer, i think aiden is by far my favourite i am so incredibly normal about him (this is by far the longest ramble post i have ever made LMAO) and he is just. absolutely Wonderful. my darling beloved my son my everything etc etc. i hope that if he does come back in a future game, if he's Not Just a cameo, we get to do another hunt properly with him; fatalis was obviously the testing grounds for the npc followers in sunbreak, so i'd love to get to do a proper hunt with him now that that's A Thing, if they choose to keep it going forward (and i don't see why they wouldn't, given the positive reception it got). i think that the duality of him being so bubbly, positive and outgoing even despite everything he's been through is interesting, and i find the concept of exploring that trauma to be fascinating because, let's be real, poor guy has definitely been through some shit. NORMALLY if my faves don't have a backstory i come up with one for them but i didn't even Have To give him a traumatic backstory capcom did that for me LMFAO

anyways. thank u for the ask nonnie i am SO incredibly sorry for the length of this post the tism took the wheel, i know i went on a few tangents that weren't that related but ahdkdhfjd i just have A Lot of lore for my au and aiden's been involved in a fair bit of it

[perpetualxfire]

[ scarlet ]  what is one thing you wish you could do?

[ ruby ]  give one random fun fact about yourself.

[Colorful Interview for the Mun]

(You got a couple of picks from my favorite spectrum of light here~! I'm gonna go ahead and chuck this under a read more since I'm apparently feeling SUPER chatty today.)

[ Scarlet ]  

What is one thing you wish you could do?

(I assume you mean from an RP perspective, yeah? Usually when this question is asked to an RP blog it's to gauge interest in plots. Even then that's kind of a tough question to answer! I'm trying to figure it out myself. In the past, I've liked to RP when my character is just going through it, because that helped me through my shit. I actually only recently put together... Well. I kind of knew, but not the depth of it- part of the reason I have such this tight bond with this particular fictional character is because she and I have a very similar kind of trauma from perfectionism and a desire to prove oneself and receive a kind of validation that's missing in our lives, and watching those avenues to do so get shut down. It's why I hate when people reduce her character to being 'competitive' - like.. you're right, but that's also incredibly reductive-)

(I digress, though; that's not the question. My point was that I used to use her as an avenue for my own feelings of frustration and desire for validation, but that didn't really... Stick for long. I used her as a less positive coping mechanism for a long time, writing pain for the sake of pain, because I felt a deep self loathing and wanted to write the pain to externalize it; I was all for injury plots, and admittedly still LOVE hurt/comfort plots (but it has to have both elements anymore - at the time I wasn't so worried about the comfort part). These tools don't really do much for me anymore, though, so as an RPer...)

(I wish I could get closure. I wish that I could single-handedly rebuild the community - it seemed hell bent on self-imploding for a loooong time. I wish I could write more combat! Writing combat is what got me into writing Carolina in the first place, but it's... I would argue it's ten times harder to find somebody you as a mun have chemistry with to write combat than it is for most other situations. It can't just be characters; even wildly imbalanced fights can become interesting if the muns have that chemistry and communication for it. That's part of what bugs me about the Carolina vs Meta deathbattle, actually - it had a lot of potential to be interesting and, like I feel with most deathbattle episodes, ended up being severely reductive to both characters for the sake of making a point, rather than getting into the nitty gritty of the situation. Why are they fighting? What's at stake? There's always something at stake, even in a friendly spar - be it a sense of validation from a teacher, a desire to get through a tough conversation, tackling an emotional block... While that might not be as true in real life sparring, I've found in writing there's always something in a compelling scene-)

(I kind of want to convince Sam to reboot our little venture into his covenant plotline he had; since one of the critical members of that RP isn't really around to continue it, I wouldn't mind restarting, inviting more people, organizing in a discord group...)

(I've always loved being a part of a group (see my forum rp background) and while tumblr doesn't make that easy per say, I'd love to give a three or even four way thread another shot. For the plot! The DRAMA! The action!)

[ Ruby ]  

Give one random fun fact about yourself.

(fdasfsadfs Just one? Ha. Let's see... I'm a little over a year away from earning a hard fought degree in Mathematics. Not sure what I want to do with it yet, but at least it should open a few doors, and I desperately want some open doors in my life, aha. I feel like Math isn't a commonly heard favorite subject or sought out degree in peoples who unite over a shared love of creation like the RP community, but I'm here, feeling my little bit of impostor syndrome amongst all the lovely people I've met who are majoring in literature or history or the arts... I can be creative too I promise!!!)

[magicbench]

what inspired you to write fujiwara and CoF? :)

[Sorry for the following wall of text, please bear with me lol] For Fujiwara, at first I actually didn't plan to make it a story this long...The project actually has a "first version", a really short game named "Fujiwara High School Festival" if I remember well the name and that I did for a visual novel's challenge called Nanoreno where you have to make something to start from fnish in 1 month. At the time I did it only to prove myself that I'd be able to do something on my own and be proud of it and the game only featured Ikki and Yuta who were simply called Delinquent-kun and Prince-sama. As you can see I didn't put much thoughts into giving them proper names xD And though they had "cliché" personalities, they didn't have a backstory at all either. Basically, the MC (who didn't have a name either) was a last year midle school student going to prospect a certain -but random- high school during its school festival's day, bumping either into Delinquent-kun or Prince-sama and doing a tour of the festival. Minami did already exist though ! And there was a super mega random classmate guy wearing a ghost costume too. That's pretty it.

But...the more I wrote about them, the more I got attached and in the end when I released this tiny project I realized it wasn't enough for me and started to give Delinquent-kun and Prince-sama names, friends, families, brainstorming why there personalities were like that, etc etc. More characters were added, Ikki would have childhood friends called Toshio and Ryu, Yuta would have a secret, and a smart rival (for studies and popularity) called Haru and who also have a secret. And this mister-random-ghost-guy ? Let's call him Kenji and be one of Minami's good friends ! Aaaand after that...I decided "Oh well...at this point I just want to write them all main and backstories. Let's make them LIs too !" I also tried and changed a lot the art style until I finally settled on what is the one in the current game ~ And there was finally born the Fujiwara Bittersweet that we know today, with Aya and the 6 sad boys x)

Now, for Colors of Fate, it was also after I did a Nanoreno on my own. Unfortunately you can't play it anymore (or was it Fujiwara V.1 ?) as the website where I uploaded it is down ^^" But maybe I'll share it on my Discord server someday since I still have the project's code O/ The only notable thing which change with CoF V.1 is that the prologue is way shorter than the demo's current version and that it has a end somehow, where you see the characters grown up after the incident. There was only one love interest at the time and the idea of adding more came after that, when I decided to make it a longer project. But...as you probably realized, this time I am not the one taking care of either the art of the writing and the reason is really simple : I thought that my style wouldn't fit a CoF's longer project at all and I didn't like my art for this kind of story either. I wanted something with a more flowery and poetic writing which I was totally unable to do myself, one of the main reason being that english isn't my native language and that wasn't confident in my capacities about conveying this kind of feeling in my writing x) Cirro did and I'm so glad she accepted to be CoF's writer ! The same goes for Aria's (sprite artist) and Kat's (backgrounds artist) art, I just fell in love with their work and couldn't in any way do such a good job as they did ! And with all the other members (music, code, proofreading/editing) I have no doubts that Colors of Fate will become a really beautiful project (I mean...the demo already is !) and that people will love our little Melia's story ! ❤ Also...for those who aren't aware, we decided to add the duke Aiden in addition to the other LIs. If you don't fear a fabulous "sadistic trash man", then you'll probably enjoy the experience with him too ;')

----- Phew, wow that was a lot of words ! Your eyes are doing okay ? ;-; In any case, I hope I was able to answer your question properly...don't hesitate to not read all of this in a one go xD