stultifera navis rerun AKA thinking about Iberia hours again because a lot of the Iberians have such fascinating relationships with the concept of home but specifically Thorns and Lumen are eating at my brain. like where do you call home when the place that is your home Just Fucking Hates You? Elysium's rewinding breeze specifically makes a point to hammers home how differently Iberia treats its Liberi and its Aegir
(which is especially interesting since this comes right after a conversation where Purestream commented on how despite Leizi being a high ranking government official, there are still some experiences that are universal for all Yanese people - because the experience of what Iberia itself is like isnt universal for all Iberians)
But all that being said, Thorns also straight up states that Aegir is not his home, and yeah, how could it be? How could a place you've never been to, never truly known, ever be your home? How could it ever feel like a home?
so where do you go when the place that you are from hates your people and the place your people are from is completely unfamiliar and alien to you? Thorns' answer at the end of the conversation with Aya is: my home is where i chose it to be. my home is where there are people I care about and people who care about me
in the complete opposite direction, Lumen's oprec asks: why do you still stay in a place that wants you gone? because the people of Gran Faro like Jordi well enough but when push comes to shove, they will want the only Aegir in town gone
and yet, when Rald the messenger offers him a chance to leave Jordi turns him down and when he's forced to escape Gran Faro after the people there literally try to send him to his death (or worse) at the hands of the Inquisitors he keeps trying to go back because like everyone in stultifera navis, Jordi is clinging to his own dreams of a golden age
but the shape of that dream is unique to every character and for Jordi, his dreams are deeply, inseparably bound to the Eye of Iberia, the legacy his parents left behind
and it's this dream of becoming someone great, of bringing about that golden age that his parents devoted their lives to help create that ties Jordi to this nothing town because despite everything, despite the mistrust of the townsfolk and the hostility of the Inquisition and the danger from the ocean, he simply cannot leave it behind
(or, because i personally dislike the official translation,)
"I just see this place as my home"
so yeah. not sure what overall point i was trying to make here i'm just. deeply in love with these stories about chosing what is and isn't your home, of saying you will not call a place your home because it has given you no reason to or saying you consider a place your home even though it has given you every reason not to. deeply unwell about them <3
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[ID: Five and real person! Delores drawn as centaurs. Both of them are old; Five is commission era. As such, he's wearing a suit and tie, has a neat mustache, and short hair. His horse body is light grayish white. Delores is wearing a nonsensical evening gown, and her centaur body is a large red draft horse with light feathers. They are hugging each other tightly; Delores has to bend down to reach. End ID.]
old married couple <3
i dont have any canon basis for making Delores a draft horse but it brings me joy and there was no chance I was ever going to do anything else. she deserves to be Tall. Also, am contributing one more old Delores to the world, an even rarer creature than old Five.
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Art block so here are some aurora nebbins sketches
Royal Blue Mastiff: Breed Profile
After a few hundred years of breeding (and a small helping of gene splicing technology), the humans of the Royal Blue Mastiff's planet of origin created the perfect hunting compainion for those who sailed the perilous oceans.
Originally the dogs were to bred to track, catch, and harvest the many edible crustacean-like species found along the shores of the ocean. As the breed developed, hunters began to use them to catch larger game, including giant sea turtles.
In build it is comparable to earth Pinnepeds, with a muscular, torpedo shaped body and flat, paddle-like forelimbs that aid in swimming. Its long, flexible tail offers balance and acts as a rudder in the water.
Originally this breed lacked its characteristic quills, but due to the leviathan sized predators on their home planet, gene splicing was used to add them as a defense mechanism. Made from modified hairs, the quills are flexible and can be flattened against the body while swimming and hunting, and stiffened if threatened.
The RBM can hold its breath for an impressive 60 minutes, and has the strongest bite force of any of the AKC (Americadian Kennel Club) recognized dog breeds. Due to being bred to work almost exclusively in water, these dogs can reach lenths of over 20 feet and weigh over a tonne. Care must be taken to watch for deteriation of the joints in terrestrial or high gravity situations.
Royal Blue Mastiffs possess specialized teeth and claws for gripping, crushing, and prying open the shells of its prey. Their large eyes and long whiskers aid hunting in dark and deep waters, and their thick, water resistant fur helps keep them warm.
As the breed became more popular amoung hobbyists, a hairless variety was developed. While hairless RBM's are accepted in the AKC, it is not recommended to allow your Hairless RBM spend extended periods of time in extreme enviorments. The hairless variety also tends to be jowlier, and more prone to excessive drooling. They often need specialized skin care, such as sun screen or moisturizer, to keep them healthy. Poor dentition is also commonly linked to this gene. Speak to your veterinarian about your pet's individual needs.
Those interested in adding a RBM into their family should consider this breeds large size and drive. Early training is a must, as RBM are incredibly tenacious and can be difficult to control due to their size and energy level. Royal Blue Mastiffs were bred to swim for miles at a time in pursuit of quarry; you must have an outlit for your RBM's instincts. An understimulated RBM may become aggressive or destructive. Lots of excersize, training, and enrichment are reccomended.
Currently the breed only recognizes blue coat colors and their variations; "Red" Royal Blue Mastiffs were bred during early developement of the breed, but since have become a separate breed (due to push back from the breed club and fanciers), the "Royal Red Mastiff".
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An idea I’d been working on for a second was that Morpho Knight isn’t the only grim reaper of the Kirby universe, and more just fills the specific niche of taking the souls of warriors. It came from reading the novel where Meta Knight falls into hell, which explained that he came just for the purpose of taking the souls of strong warriors, (something that was then canonized in KatFL). Which is fun cause it opens up the idea of like a little pantheon of reaper butterfly characters for specific niches.
Which I will talk about a lot now.
So building off that I thought about Morpho’s actions and how it seems he specifically shows up when a character has long overstayed their mortal welcome and needs to be taken away, or needs to have a “final battle”. Given the nature of how Soul Bosses work and how Forgo himself was in that state before Morpho came and got him, I figured the idea was that in the Kirby universe character’s souls can linger on and get lost when they’re still filled with too much emotion and a will to fight on. Thus needing to be tracked down and forcefully taken away by a reaper. It’s easy to imagine this happening with warriors, who are likely to die in fights still full of energy and vengeance, but also power seeking maniacs drunk off power are commonly turned into soul bosses within the games.
Another part of it I thought of though is how much “judgement” is emphasized in Morpho’s descriptions, so obviously that’s an important part of why reapers would exist beyond souls just wandering off. Warriors are probably very tricky to judge because their job includes spreading death and destruction, and you have to weigh that against the good they brought as well as intended to bring with it. And back to the theme of those power hungry maniacs, while some of them were clearly vain like Sectonia, you have Haltmann who started just with the wish to bring back his daughter before he went down a path of corruption.
And Morpho’s origins had always been hard to think about for me, the most obvious idea at first was that it was the same species as Galacta, Kirby, and Meta, but his appearance couldv’e just been because of absorbing Galacta. But then KatFL comes around and he’s still an orb with wings which is in line with our description of their species. As well as the fact that Forgo manages to get “Chaos” powers it previously never showed off only after escaping Morpho... I think it made a strong case for Morpho being soul matter, the way Kirby is heart matter and Zero is dark matter. It’s power’s seemed in line with the idea of how Kirby and Zero represented their specific elements.
(Also as an aside, I wondered if Elfilis would be dream matter, but if Kirby, Zero, and Morpho are our bases for this species... it would not make sense. Plus like I said, it only got the “Chaos” powers related to Astral Void after interacting with Morpho. So no in my opinion.)
Headcanon Starts Here:
ANYWAYS, thankss to KatFL I’m very sure Morpho, and subsequently his reaper pals, are all a form of Astral Void. But unlike Kirby (Heart Matter) or Zero (Dark Matter), they’re weird trans-dimensional shadow orbs. Which is how they can teleport, turn into butterflies, and break the rules of space-time in order to judge souls across the universe. A butterfly of a certain type comes to everybody who dies, but these bad boys only really make true appearances when things are special. The butterflies work kinda as just pieces of them spread across time and space, and they can appear from them at will as long as they have enough power.
There’s probably far more I could hypothetically make (it would be fun to make a whole rainbow of them), but these are the ideas I have now based on the qualifications of being needed to wrangle troublesome souls and/or those souls needing careful consideration. They also have roles in the actual underworld, which is probably where they consciously spend most of their time as their butterflies go about bringing souls to them.
All the reapers regard eachother warmly, as being an eternity old makes it hard to keep grudges, and they see eachother sort of as friends or coworkers. Unlike Heart Matter and a lot of other creatures in the universe, they don’t have a burning need for deep attachment and they spend lots of time completely solitary from eachother. They sometimes have small rivalries and running gags though. A big one is how Morpho had been looking forward to claiming Galacta Knight’s soul for most of the warrior’s life in order to punish his hubris, but once he got sealed outside of space-time that became rather impossible - much to Morpho’s despair and the others’ amusement.
The reapers are also completely sexless, and regard themselves as genderless. They just pick up whatever mannerisms or characteristics they feel suits their niche, like Morpho adopting warrior-like traits that could be read as masculine, and Shepard adopting caring and nurturing traits that can be read as feminine. They mostly refer to eachother by name or maybe as “it”, but adopt the pronouns of any peoples or mythologies who regard them as well. To a patriarchal culture the King reaper would be thought of as a man inherently, but to cultures like the Ripple Star fairies who are matriarchal they’d refer to it as a ‘she’.
Most cultures across the Kirby universe pick up on the connection between the butterflies and death, but interpret them in different ways. Some base their versions of them on accounts of their true forms, and some make up characteristics from scratch. The ancient Halcandrans were very familiar with accounts of Morpho and the Artisan as a culture who valued both valor and ingenuity. The fairies of Ripple Star are most familiar with the Shepard as a species of children, and the King who comes to take their queen. Some cultures like the Jamba whom are very absorbed in their own beliefs actually attribute others, such as Astral Void, to ferrying the dead. Which surprisingly holds a tiny nugget of truth as the reapers are spawn of it.
And speaking of Astral Void, the reapers do tend to pay extra close attention to their fellow voidspawn cousins. Morpho watched Galacta very carefully from a young age, knowing that he would be a truly great warrior but blinded by ego. He did try to scare the guy into not developing a god-complex, but Galacta was stubborn and only saw death’s warnings as challenges. Ever since then he’s watched Meta and Kirby very carefully, and is actually a big fan of Kirby due to him quickly becoming such a humble, merciful boy. Zero created a similar problem for King, and it waited very very patiently for his unimaginably long reign as the god-king of dark matter to be ended by everyone’s favorite pink ball of peace.
They’re not able to communicate directly with other beings, only with their souls, which isn’t very easy to reach in life. Even when appearing as Morpho did in KSA and KatFL, it wasn’t able to talk to others, but it could finally talk to Galacta’s soul in it’s head. The only way they can make appearances like Morpho did to the living and healthy is by using a dead or dying soul, and to those in that state already they can appear like that when casting judgement. They can also control souls of the dead as ghosts to do their bidding and send messages too. But that’s fun stuff for my HC writing. I’ve rambled on long enough.
TL;DR - Morpho is the Knight of Hades, and I thought up a King, Shepard, and Artisan of Hades who have their own niches of souls to guide and judge. They’re genderless, solitary, hyper-dimensional shadow people who are interpreted across the cosmos as different pantheons of death gods. They’re cool with eachother and even look out for their fleshling void-kin, but don’t interact with mortals outside of death matters. Morpho is an exception with it’s shenanigans cause Gala and Forgo cause hard times.
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Overseer Myriad Crane
[he/they/it]
I've been working on my stories/projects a bit lately and I got carried away thinking about Myriad's last name while drawing so, here goes a little... promotional poster? presentation card? I rarely draw them with their mechanic uniform so this was a nice chance to do that
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Listen--
I don't follow/unfollow/block people according to fandom pressure and behavior control. I curate my experience for me. I don't have to agree with every blogger's opinions just to follow their blog. I just have to like enough of their content and opinions that a bad one or disagreement here and there don't spoil my experience.
And sure, it's nice to have followers that enjoy the experience of my blog. It's nice to be appreciated for my writing and the outward portrayal of my personality and aesthetic. But also, my blog is first and foremost for me. And my dash is ONLY for me.
So, for example, when it comes to accounts that are hyper-critical about a character or an actor, the biggest deciding factors are going to be: if they're harrassing the real life person, if their criticism/opinion puts me off, and if they have other posts I'm into.
My bff of 30+ years HATES Sasuke with a fiery passion, yet that doesn't stop me loving her or beta reading her fanfiction where horrible things happen to a character I love or indulging her hate when she needs to go off. I loved Sakura AND shipped SasuNaru in a fandom that often hates the girls for the sake of their yaoi ship. I spent years being a Kikyou AND Kagome defender, in a fandom notorious back in the forum days for its rabid fans (RIFs), where they are pitted against each other in awful ways for ship wars. I ship McLennon and like Yoko. Believe me when I say that some perfectly understandable post-prequelgate feelings about Jensen are not enough to shame me away from following an account.
The things that are instant block material are: being a terf (not from accusations alone; i have to see it myself), purity culture, and harassment. Otherwise it's all about the nuance of what I'm fine with seeing on my dash and scrolling past.
And I need a little salt in my diet. 🤷♀️
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