#i really do have a lot to say on convex

[jestroer]

Convex?

Ohhhhhh, that's a good one! I am honestly obsessed with Convex, those two live in my brain rent free as they say. I don't really ship them romantically, as funny as it is, i also do not view them as purely platonic, but a secret third thing.

It would be funny to end here but no i want to ramble cause i actually think about this one a lot. Convex have immaculate dynamic. For me personally they are in some kinda relationship that is different from platonic but it's not romantic either. Its kind of something like an open aromantic relationship you get what I'm saying? Like they are attracted to each other and they are very close and they kiss or whatever but its not romantic nor is it platonic. I was honestly thinking on this topic so much but all i do is rotate this thought in my mind really. Like. They have something going on but literally no one but them knows what in gods name it is. It may just be a fae thing or it is just them being Convex it does not really matter. They are in some kinda relationship, it does not prevent them from being in other relationships but its still a thing and its not romantic and it is important. They are just a secret third thing guys i dont know. I love Convex.

[gallusrostromegalus]

How does trash pickup, Recycling centers, &/or Hazardous Material Disposal work for Soul Society in AEIWAM? Is there a Kido-based ritual to break things down into Reishi? Are there Tech Repair Shops?

Sewage in Soul Society works really well but very dangerously because those fucking idiots built the city directly on top of an active supervolcano.

Let me back up:

There isn't a good consensus on how big the Seireitei is (Yoruichi says it takes 10 days to walk 1/4th of the way around the circumference, but whether that's her speed, the average person's or how long a patrol group takes is unclear), Or any real maps of the place, but it's generally agreed that

the city is LARGE. Yoruichi says it would take her and the kids ten days to walk to the next gate 1/4th of the way around the city. Maybe that's 8 hours average human walking speed minus 'trying to herd a bunch of teenagers' but that's still a long trip!

Even before the Seki-Seki stone wall was put up, the city was pretty much circular.

Unlike pretty much every real city, there's no river running through it. Where are they getting their water?

There is a Small but substantial and TOTALLY ISOLATED mountain in the middle of the city made of apparently hard-to-mine rock. A Lonely Mountain, one might even say.

The only visible natural sources of water I've seen evidence of are hot springs in both the Yoruichi/Urahara Super Secret Training Ground/Love Nest and the first division grounds.

Soul Society is run by jackasses and if there's a stupid way to do things, that's the way they're doing them.

In fact, the Soul Society as a whole is almost suspiciously Amestris-shaped, but instead of nefarious alchemy, it's negligent civil engineering

...all this leads me to believe that Seireitei is built DIRECTLY ON TOP OF the caldera of an enormous supervolcano. The city gets it's water from the aquifer of rainwater that's collected in the underground cracks and fissures of the Caldera, and the seki-seki stone wall is set up around the really convenient geographic barrier made by the rim of the caldera.

"Hey!" I hear some of you nerds objecting "Aren't calderas usually concave? Seireitei is convex, if anything!"

You're right! Most Calderas are concave! But they will absolutely fill in with sand and dirt over the true floor of the caldera over time and develop Mounts like the thing at the central part of the city and start to rise WHEN THEY'RE ON THE VERGE OF A CATASTROPHIC ERUPTION.

So yeah! The Gotei-13 has an almost infinite supply of hot water, and probably less than a century to figure out what to do before The Big Kaboom.

Anyway, back at sewage:

There's been a city where the Seireitei is since time immemorial, and even though it's done the istanbul-not-constantinopple shuffle a few times, very little of the actual infrastructure has changed. Empires rise and fall but the desire paths stay the same.

This is especially true in Seireitei, because unlike very nearly every major IRL Municipality, it doesn't have a river running through it, something that usually necessitates Sewer updates By Force. But compared to a river which is constantly moving around in it's bed, a volcanic aquifer doesn't move much until it moves a whole fucking lot real fast, so the undercity of the Seireitei has really had time to... Develop isn't quite the right word.

"Ferment" is closer.

Above-ground waste management is the provenance of the actual local city government- yes, there is a Mayor of the Seireitei that the Gotei-13 has to pay property taxes to. Yamamoto maintains a lot of goodwill with the Mayor by dint of sentencing ill-behaved shinigami to shore up the municipal labor pool, and by knowing the mayor's family for the last millennium. So you'll see Shinigami doing things like trash collection and street-sweeping, but they're just there on probation.

-But nobody wanted to deal with the undercity. It's got a soul of it's own. Washington DC, which is less than 500 years old as a city and on top of a swamp, has an undercity that goes down over half a mile. Imagine how deep the sunken buildings, abandoned secret tunnels, and sewer system of a city that's millenia old, not sitting on actual mud and constantly subjected to high levels of magical background radiation might develop.

An Appetite, for one thing.

The 11th likes to talk a big game, but the reason the 4th is in charge of sewer maintenance is because the only people with the guts for it were people who got degrees rummaging in the guts of living people. Sewer maintenance really is a lot like abdominal surgery, if you were able to walk around inside the patient.

It was Retsu Unohana's idea, actually. Chigiri was a battle medic and aged rapidly for a shinigami. She was old when the court guard finally went from "Yamamoto and his gang of assholes" to "A for-real governing body". Her successor, Kirinji was more interested in traumatic injury recovery than preventative medicine, for obvious reasons- his triage was constantly full of combat casualties and early kido experiment victims Blood Loss was still his #1 Killer.

But Retsu had been reincarnated in and spent her youth in South 80, in the utterly undeveloped conditions there, and held deep, personal grudges with Dysentery and Cholera. For all his talk of healing waters, Kirinji had no sense of the importance of water sanitation, and it was a continuous point of contention between them for her apprenticeship.

"FINE!" He shouted one day after a particularly nasty row. "IF IT'S SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT TO YOU, YOU HANDLE IT! FORM NOW ON, YOU'RE IN CHARGE OF SEWAGE, SLUDGE QUEEN!"

She made her first descent the next morning.

She did not return for six weeks, and Kirinji almost thought he'd resloved that particular problem when she reappeared from the depths, a changed woman. That long in the darkness, alongside the buried secrets and skeletons of the city, with the horrors that did not dare brave the sunlight- it would change anyone, and most would come up looking at least mildly haunted.

Retsu Unohana is not most.

She looks radiant, almost like The Kenpachi again, covered in the horrors of the underground as she used to be covered in blood. She thrives on a challenge, and excels at the art of purification, and now, she has been given the single greatest challenge of purification in history. There is something beautiful and terrible in her eyes as she explains that it does down at least five miles, look at this, she thinks it's from the neolithic era, and there are incredible boneyards of thousands of skeletons, and fungi the likes of which she's never seen before- She is ecstatic- a creature kept in captivity, finally released into it's natural habitat.

It's hardly a surprise, if you consider Minazuki. Stingrays are benthic creatures, right at the bottom of the river, deep in the muck and decay.

It's been a little over eight hundred years into her tenure as a medic, and she has tamed much of the beast. The upper levels are well-mapped and have been made clean and well-lit, enough that even the civilian sanitation forces of the city can regularly enter and work in them without any particular unease. Infant and preventable disease mortality has dropped astronomically. Nobody's had cholera since the 1800's . While they have other jobs, all members of the 4th division are required to take at least one tour in the depths of the undercity.

Horrors still lurk in the depths.

They're pretty sure they lost Tokagero Kenpachi chasing one of those, shortly before Unohana became captain, and she's been reluctant to let other divisions assist since then. The Fourth Division's Fourth Seat, rumored to be the unluckiest post in the entire Gotei-13, is permanently stationed underground, and she loves it that way.

It's only recently that the 11th has been allowed to come along on descents, after Zaraki vanished for two days and then emerged victorious from a manhole in the 5th division with a tentacled horror she'd been tracking for decades that lived at least three miles down. He apologized- he had meant to come up in the 4th to present it's corpse to her directly, but well, you know what his sense of direction is like. Anyway, I saw it scuttling around in the rain aquifers and we don't need it tracking literal shit into the water supply so I went after is and d'ya think maybe I can take the lads down sometime? They' get lazy between deployments and you have a triage up here to manage.

Charmed, she agreed.

---

Hm. I just re-read that ask and it's actually about dry waste managment.

Sorry. I got very excited about the sewers.

I am now about to get worse about trash.

I don't think they have plastic in soul society- given how bug-themed the 12th division is, I'm pretty sure the casing on Rukia's soul pager is made of Chitin, and if you break it, it bleeds. Also it makes people with shellfish allergies break out in hives.

Since pretty much all the waste in Soul Society is either recyclable or organic matter, I think those trash pits Yumichika and Ganju were fooling around with are really more like Kido-enhanced composting centers. All waste goes into them and the bottom of the pit is pulled out in a tray, like with a vermiculture tower, if the worms were eighteen and a half feet long and hungry enough to swallow anything that falls in the pit, because Mayuri is incapable of making anything that is not at least slightly awful.

The compost is then shaken out for any spare glass or metal that made it into the compost and that's sent off to the 12th division forges to be recycled. it's baked to kill any dangerous pathogens and Giant Garbage Worm Eggs so they don't breach containment, and measured for nitrogen, phosphorus and other important plant nutrient content. Based on it's composition, it's then shipped out to farmers in the upper districts of the rukongai because "Free, A+ grade fertilizer if y'all don't start revolutions, pay your taxes and give us first dibs on crops" is an amazing incentive for rural farmers to not start backing the local warlords.

It was 12th division founder Uhin Zenjohji who came up wth the scheme- he remembered the lengths upper-district farmers were willing to go through to make sure their land remained fertile, what kind of demand Nitrogen was in, and the ravages of phosphorous runnoff, so he could kill two birds with one clod of shit by supplying farmers with 'free' fertilizer that kept them loyal to the court and was tailored to that area's nutritional needs and watershed capacity.

The fact that it kept a lot of swamp and waterway areas pristine so he could indulge his birdwatching hobby was a nice benefit too :).

NORMALLY, those pits are covered, clearly marked, and usually the site of a major traffic jam because that's the local collection point, but when Ichigo and friends arrived, Aizen had whipped everyone into believing they were being invaded by an elite force of super-assassins and not like. 4 high schoolers and a furry. All the street signs and markings came down, civilians shuttered themselves inside, and generally made the Seireitei as difficult to navigate as possible.

I wonder how much Zaraki's rotten sense of direction was exacerbated by that.

ANYWAY! That's my thoughts on trash! Deep undercity horrors and giant compost worms over an active volcano!

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Ohohoho. Here to ask about the silly apocalypse AU :]

Cub and Scar? Info on them and the little creatures they are? What nonsense they're getting into? Maybe their supposed teamup with Grian and Mumbo? Also, how did Mumbo react when he say Scar again? I need Convex crumbs /silly.

OK SO <3 my finger is currently bandaged so typing is a bastard but I am here to talk about convex because I love them...

Scar and Cub were either strangers or coworkers (idk yet) when the apocalypse happens and Scar's house turns itself into a wormhole. Cub finds Scar and is like 'hey we should jump into that lol' and Scar is equally as insane as Cub so he agrees.

In the wormhole their genetic information gets scrambled and they Become Creatures. I don't have solid designs for them really but they are very vex-coded. Sharp teeth and claws and maybe little wings or blue scales or something.

They then just sort of travel around. Cub is a scientist and is genuinely interested in Why this is all happening so he spends a lot of time collecting genetic material (blood, flesh, etc) from dead bodies they find and analysing it. Scar follows him around because he has nothing better to do and he's got a weird gay thing going on with Cub.

Anyway when Grian and Mumbo find them, Mumbo is so so so happy that Scar isn't dead. He didn't even see himself as Scar's friend but he was really upset when he thought Scar had died. He's just happy that someone he knew is alive.

Scar and Grian get along very well. Scar can communicate with Grian using Weird Noises and it's so much smoother than Grian and Mumbo's stilted conversations. Grian is really happy to meet someone who is also kind of in-between worlds. Where Grian struggles to meet the standard for both Outsider and Human because he struggles to keep a consistent human shape, Scar also sits in that vague middle space, not quite one thing or another.

(Mumbo is Not jealous. He's Not. He's Happy For Grian.)

Heh.

[tieronecrush]

the lakes

joel miller x reader

rating: M

word count: 1.9k

summary:

take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die / i don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you / those windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry / i'm setting off, but not without my muse

warnings: nudity, skinny dipping, talk about grief, death, family tension, self-doubt, self-deprecation, idk man it’s just sad

a/n: my first song for the folklore anthology!! can’t wait to share others & read all the other great works from my pals <3

The sounds of birds chirping surround you in echoes across the valley, mountainous hills convexing in front of you and dotted with evergreens. Underneath you is sun-warmed sand, interspersed with smoothed rocks from rushing water shaping them over hundreds or thousands of years. The fresh, gentle waves of the lake lick against your bare feet, knees bent up as you sit at the shore, eyes trained ahead on the glassy surface reflecting the late summer sky above. Joel is sitting next to you in the same position, his hands joined together in a circle and forearms resting on his kneecaps.

It’d been a quiet hike to the spot you discovered while on patrol. Lately, Joel has been his own worst enemy — closed off to you, stewing in his thoughts about his strained relationship with Ellie and continuing to adjust to life in Jackson, a world so slow and still that he can’t seem to find a place he fits in after moving for so long. His inertia hasn’t caught up to his lifestyle change; he is constantly picking up patrol shifts, and volunteering to oversee new construction and renovations across the town, but even through his go go go, he can’t find a place to land.

This place was the perfect spot to take him; to abate the anxious energy that vibrates throughout him every day with the halcyon elements of nature. Animals that live their lives with no concept of time, a lesson in living in the present, trees that have been around for hundreds of years, solid and strong like the man himself, and the lake. The lake that provides for everything growing around it, that reflects beauty in sunrises and sunsets, that finds itself full no matter any barriers built in its feeding river, replenished by other means from rain to groundwater.

The silence between the two of you breaks for the first time in hours.

“You know what I first thought of you when I met you?” you question him, eyes trained forward on the view. Joel offers a soft grunt in response, hinting for you to continue.

“I thought: Wow, this guy is an asshole,” he scoffs with the hint of a smirk, shaking his head while your own grin plays at your lips, “But then, I got to know you. Forced proximity really tells you a lot about a person. And I very quickly learned how much you care. This world should have jaded you, should have broken you to the bone with what you have been through, but yet, you still find means to nurture. You protect, and you provide. You love so deeply, so incredibly much. Every day I wake up next to you, I thank the lucky stars that I have Joel Miller in my corner. By my side. Watching my back.”

“I know you are feeling something, thinking about something in that head of yours all the time. And I want you to know that I love you as deeply, that I care as much for you as you do for everyone in your life. You can share with me, whatever you feel like sharing.”

Joel is quiet, squinting in the sun as he tosses a round pebble from the sand between his legs into the shallow waters. The ripple appears and dissipates before he speaks.

“That sounded like a eulogy, darlin’.”

You scoff now, that same type of soft smirk that he held minutes before pulling the corners of your mouth up.

“Is that all you took from all of what I said?”

“No, ‘course not. Just, I don’t know, felt like I was listening to what you would say about me after I’m gone.” At that you turn towards him, hand wrapping around his nearest forearm and squeezing with even, steady pressure that says ‘We are not talking about that, I can’t talk about that.’

“I do wanna share with you, I just—I don’t know how. I’ve kept all this inside, locked down in my chest. Anger, temper, violence, even, as armor to keep me alive. Don’t ever think I’ve been very nurturing since, well, since…” His throat chokes up, head drops to stare at the ground. Another squeeze to his arm, this time to say ‘It’s okay. I know. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.’

Something that he said sticks out in your head, a means to attempt to combat his walls going up again now that they have crumbled slightly. You stand, glancing around out of habit before you pull your shirt over your head, your jeans following with your undergarments in their wake. Joel looks up, expression puzzled as he watches your naked form wade into the water. You hiss as the still-icy water engulfs you from the shoulders down, treading and turning back to your man on the shore. A gentle smile covers your face, beckoning him in with one nod of your head.

He follows suit with stripping down, clothes mixing in a pile with yours as they do on the floor of your bedroom. His own pained expression from the cold lake makes you giggle quietly, a scolding stare aimed your way. He paddles over to you smoothly, the water hitting his chest where he can continue to touch with his feet at the bottom. Your arms slither around his neck, wet fingers carding through the hair at the back of his head. The leverage against him is used to tug you closer, his large palms settling at your waist under the surface while the two of you bathe in the fresh Adam’s ale of these cliffside pools. Two pairs of eyes communicate without words, the soundtrack of the birds and rustling trees occupying the dead air until you speak again, hushed despite the fact that you are the only humans for miles.

“You can take your armor off around me.”

Joel’s eyes flutter closed, a long sigh exhaled as his hands grip your curves tighter. When his burnt chestnut and amber irises are revealed again, he speaks in the same reserved volume that you had.

“I don’t belong there. In Jackson.”

Silence gently urges him to carry on.

“What I’ve done, to strangers, to myself, to Tess, to you, to Tommy, to Ellie…I don’t deserve any chance at life. With what I have taken from others, I don’t deserve to be given anything. Kindness, respect, care, love. From anyone.”

“I’ve been selfish this whole twenty years. I almost left Tommy alone. I dragged us up north to Boston. I got Tess into smuggling. I kept Ellie at a distance for so long because I couldn’t bear to feel that kind of responsibility, that familial tie. And then I chose for her, in that hospital. I couldn’t lose another kid.”

“It—it feels like I should be over the past, over what I have done now that I have a chance at a fresh start, or as close to a fresh start as I could possibly have here in Jackson. I have a shot to build a life with you, to work for Ellie’s forgiveness, to be an uncle to Maria and Tommy’s baby. But what has been chasing me — what has been over — it feels like it’s burrowed under my skin. And all I can feel when I start to forget is these—these heartstopping waves of hurt.”

“And I don’t know how to move on. I don’t know how to forget when my body, my mind, my soul won’t let me.”

Across his cheeks, salty tears have carved rivers, the dampness still in his eyes shining in the midday sunlight. The water sounds as if it’s rushing in your ear, your pulse racing as you attempt to process his confession. His head has bowed in a prayer position, awaiting your means to reconciliation or absolution.

Hands settled on his broad shoulders, another communicative squeeze, this one to say ‘I don’t know either. But I know how to try.’

“You let your people heal you,” Joel’s eyes meet yours, drops cascading from the damp bits of hair hanging over his forehead, attention completely and utterly on you, “Time can’t fix everything. The past can hold us in its grip even with all the time in the world. But people can help you forget. They can help to lessen the pain in your body until it’s merely a pinch. Their love can pull you up when you fall. Their care can nurture your soul to grow resilient again. Their reassurance can teach your mind to hear those sordid thoughts you have but pay them no attention.”

“I want to do this for you, Joel. I want to help you. To care for you. To love you, completely. Your people want to do it for you. And if you can learn from experience, you can do it for Ellie…” Your hands move from his shoulder, skating across his glistening skin and wrapping around the sides of his neck, thumbs resting against his jaw.

“You made choices you had to. Including for Ellie. She was — she is a child. Your kid, if not by blood. She may not understand now, but I know she will find a means to forgive you, or at least understand you.”

“Maybe when she’s older, if she has a kid of her own, she’ll understand.”

Joel’s mouth quips to one side with a faint smile, tears drying on his cheeks as he thinks of the image.

“Reckon we’d be pretty fun, well, sorta grandparents.”

“I think so, too,” you speak with a grin stretched and thumbs brushing back and forth at his jaw, “I can’t wait to grow old with you. To sit on the porch and watch you still yell across the street to your brother for full conversations instead of the two getting off of your asses —”

“Watch it, darlin’,” he warns playfully.

“Hey, it’s true. I listen to it nearly every day. Now, back to what I was imagining, cowboy.”

He nods for you to continue, a full-blown smile on his face.

“We’ll have Ellie over weekly dinners, and whoever else makes up her family. You’ll play me guitar and sing whenever I ask ‘cause you love me so much. I’ll help to heal you, and we will be happy together. We will take our second chance. And you will enjoy your time with your family. And me, hopefully.”

“Definitely with you. My beautiful girl,” his own hand leaves the water, wetting your hair as he brushes it out of your face with tender eyes, “You’re like—like a red rose that’s grown out of my ice-frozen ground. I am so lucky to have you. That you chose me, and continue to choose me every damn day. My grief sometimes feels insurmountable; like I am going to be stuck here forever with no way out of that feeling. But if I get stuck here, with you in my arms and all my people around me, I’d be fine if I simply grow old and wither away back into the earth.”

“I love you, darlin’. So much it might just end in tragedy, that my heart might just explode from lookin’ at you one day. But I do love you.”

A gentle kiss is shared between the two of you, the bitter water combined with your torrid love stirring up a tornado of tingling nerves.

You pull away, only enough to get the words out that you have told him, Joel, your man, every day and will continue to tell him every day you have him, “I love you.”

taglist: @wannab-urs @atinylittlepain @bearsbeetsbeskar @serenaxpedro @casa-boiardi @rav3n-pascal22 @dinsdjrn @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @johnwatsn @amanitacowboy @leeeesahhh @isitmelookin4u @javiscigarette @mrsyixingunicorn10 @sugarspiceanthrax @orphanbird95 @space-cowboy-like-me @tuquoquebrute @rsquared31 @morning-star-joy @canseethebrushstrokes @atremises @sstarboy777 @undrthelights @butiknewyoudlinger @dayrdreaming @disassociation-daydreams @joelsversion @ginger-swag-rapunzel @mydailyhyperfixations @diamndx @mingiast @kdogreads @blxsphemy7 @marchai @littlevenicebitch69 @ghostofbrock @iwrotethissky @ladynightingale @jksprincess10 @swiftispunk @pr0ximamidnight @beskarandblasters

[braxiatel]

Goodtimeswithscar is a sexyman and I will prove it to you

If you are still on the fence I encourage you to look at the sexypedia - a wikipedia dedicated to tumblr sexymen - and checking out their tropes page. Scar meets 35/62 on a list where recent winner of the tumblr sexyman poll Cecil Palmer of WTNW fame only has 8 listed on his character page!

35!

Scar is Textbook, and if you need proof I have gone through all the tropes and explained why they apply to him!

VOTE SCAR!

4th Wall Blurring: This one is arguable due to the nature of the medium but I’ll include it

Animal Theming: See: animal hybrid headcanons and designs. Cat Scar, panda Scar, hyena Scar, avian Scar - they’re everywhere!

Angst: That cactus ring… magic mountain. need I say more? This boy has angst. 

Bait: *gestures at the shirtless skins*

Capitalist: she sells sea shells on the sea shore but the value of these shells will fall due to the laws of supply and demand no one wants to buy shells cause there’s loads on the sand step one you must create a sense of scarcity 

Chaoslord: HotGuy! [snipes you for no good reason]

Criminal: shells will sell much better if the people think they’re rare you see bear with me take as many shells as you can find and hide them on an island stockpile them high until they’re rarer than the price of diamond

Con Artist: step two gotta make the people think that they want them really fucking want them hit ‘em like Bronson influencers product placement if you haven’t got a shell then you’re just a fucking waste man

Dealmaker: three it’s monopoly invest inside some property start a corporation make a logo do it properly shells must sell that will be your new philosophy swallow all your morals they’re a poor man’s quality

Distinctive Voice: I do not need to make any arguments here. Have you heard him???

Quotable Catchphrase(s): well hello there, scarred for life, “a-ma-zing”, etc.

Distinctive Laugh: I think I autism stole Scar’s laughter (whoops) so I’m giving him this one too, but also that gigle is just very good and we all know it, right?

Dominating: from the trope description: “Characters who assert their power over others. Could be through manipulation, magic, smugness, or force of personality.” Yes. 

Duality: Convex did not put their whole entire vexussies into that possession storyline for us to forget about it. 

Egotistical: This one is arguable and a question of characterisation, but I think that we can all agree that on some levels, yes. 

Eldritch: From the trope description: “Since the typical sexyman is a tall mostly human looking pale twink, in a vast majority of the cases the eldritch is a heavy implication lying just under the surface.” Hello? Vex Scar?? 

Gay: See subsection: 

LGBTQ+ Coded: That cactus ring. Mumbo “eye candy” Jumbo. The season 7 mayoral race. Concorp. His jolly rancher arc. This man has so many boyfriends. 

Girlboss: listen I think a lot of characters who aren’t traditional girlbosses get called so, but with Scar I think it’s accurate okay. Did Scar utilize girl power effectively when he and Cub were blatant war profetiers during the season 6 civil war? yes. Absolutely. Girlboss. 

Glowing Neon: vex blue anyone?

Hot-headed: Don’t let his calm exterior fool you. Remember. Scar when someone steals his horse: *sets their whole entire house on fire*. 

Intelligence: yes but also see subsection

Smartdumb: Okay listen. Scar is Smart. Scar is very smart. And I specifically have to make sure you know I am talking character only here because cc!Scar seems to me to be a Very intelligent person with a wide field of knowledge. But uhm. c!Scar dies so much and so often in ways that are completely unavoidable. He does silly things without thinking of the consequences. I have seen enough people calling him a himbo (beloathed term) enough times that I do not need to argue this point. He is smart but also babygirl Why are you like this.

Johnlocked: “When two characters are shipped extensively by fans despite the pairing not necessarily being canon (or even present) in the original work.” it started out with a cactus ring how did it end up like this, it was only a cactus ring, it was only a cactus ring

Knifemurder: Hotguy! [snipes you a second time] 

Magnificent Bastard: This Is The Whole Point. Scar oozes charisma even when he is the villain and that’s why he is so beloved. He is smart, he is stylish, he is charming, even while he is killng you. This is the point. 

Marked Canon/Fanon Divergence: “Sexymen with a large gap between how they are in the original work (Canon) and how they are commonly portrayed in fanworks (Fanon)” see : the fake crystals vs Scar actually having magic, the abs being painted on vs shirtless Scar everywhere, etc.

Monster Features: vex scar vex scar vex scar

Nonhuman: like the vex thing is literally canon it’s not fanon those cons sure did vex 

Pale Twink: We could have done many things with this collection of blocks people, and yet my dash is full of shirtless twinks/twunks every day ending with a y. Curious. 

Perpetual Smiler: Okay listen this is partially the nature of the medium but also 1) that is a distinctive smile and 2) have you see the fanworks? 

Power: This man tried to sell fake magic crystals and we all just decided he can do magic. He was an elf once and now fae/elf Scar headcanons are everywhere. 

Scars: I- I’m not explaining myself here. yes??? 

Tall: I can think of one, maybe two portrayals of Scar that have made him short. 

Theme Song: four expand, expand, expand clear forest make land fresh blood on hands five why just shells why limit yourself she sells seashells sell oil as well six guns sell stocks sell diamonds sell rocks sell water to a fish sell the time to a clock seven press on the gas take your foot off the brakes then run to be the president of the united states eight big smile mate big wave that's great now the truth is overrated tell lies out the gate nine polarise the people controversy is the game it don't matter if they hate you if they all say your name ten the world is yours step out on a stage to a round of applause uou're a liar a cheat a devil a whore and you sell seashells on the seashore

Unkempt: so those rugged life series Scars, huh? 

Villain: Scar has been the villain several times and has a Long list of crimes to his name

Technically Antagonist: see 3rd life

Villain Protagonist: unreliable narrator Scar my beloved. I love how he just *does terrible things edited to make him look like he’s just a silly little guy having some harmless fun*

Well-Dressed: Hmmm I wonder why waggon/tycoon Scar routinely wins every Scar skin poll. Also he has enough outfits to include these sub categories too: 

Suitguy: “Characters who typically wear formalwear, specifically suits. Often includes waistcoats, top hats, bowties, and pinstripes. Other neckwear may also be worn.” Again. The tycoon skin really lives rent free in all out minds, huh?

Long Coat/Cape/Robe/Etc: bathrobe wizard Scar my beloved but also do you know how many thirst trap last life Scars I’ve seen?? 

White Twink Humanization: He is made out of blocks in canon. We did not need to make him like this and yet we did. 

White Hair: last life Scar beloved by many <3

VOTE SCAR!

[shdo-xplosion]

INTRO: BEGIN TRANSMISSION

warnings: general warnings on the MASTERLIST! this chapter contains elements of fear, language barriers, and choking (not in a fun way) 1.4k

notes: this is just the beginning ( •⌄• ू )✧ plzplz tell me what you think!!!

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

Securing your helmet, you glance at Shinsou through the convex lense and laugh. “A little late to be asking that, don’t you think?”

“Just giving you the chance to hide under your blankies until this is all over,” he smirks.

“You mean hang out in the ship for the next two years? Think I’d die of boredom.”

When you’d first joined the crew you probably would have been able to entertain yourself for that long, exploring all the nooks and crannies of Hermes, but after years of learning all its secrets most of the mystery is gone.

“Just remember I gave you an out.”

“No outs allowed,” Kendou pipes up, voice distorted by her helmet speaker. “We’ve been preparing for this for years. We’re all ready.” She flexes both of her bionic hands, a subtle indication that she’s just as nervous as the rest of you.

The main door of the ship slides open in front of you, and Kendou leads the way out of the familiar territory and onto the shuttle platform, seven other crew mates following.

You’re all a very long way from home—light years away. The people you’ve left behind have all aged many years while you slept through the journey. Your entire home planet has changed drastically. And it’s only going to keep changing, keep degenerating. It’s why you’re here now.

Nobody knows exactly how to say this world’s name, but they sent a simple message that included something of an alphabet. Shinsou, your language expert, translated as best he could.

“The closest I can get as far as pronunciation is Destro, but they don’t really have vowels, so it’s more like dsst-ruh,” he tried to explain.

“Sounds a lot like ‘destroy’,” you had pointed out, trying to laugh off your unease.

Monoma snickered while throwing an arm around your shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you if anything spooky happens.”

It’s hard to get that out of your head as you make your way down the catwalk. Don’t look down, don’t look down, you repeat to yourself. The landing port and platform seem to be surrounded by nothing, a single lit up construct in the darkness. Though the station is in view, it looks very small.

Every step closer makes your stomach crawl higher in your throat, and by the time you make it to the massive doors that will grant you entry, you feel like throwing up.

“It’ll be fine,” Kendou’s voice sounds through her speaker. “We’re doing this for all of humanity.”

“You sound very brave,” Monoma snorts.

Shinsou, unwilling to wait apparently, steps forward and pounds on the door, unfazed when a large sphere drops out of nowhere, red light pointed in his face.

“Probably a camera,” he says.

“Or some kind of laser that’s about to melt your face off.”

“Helpful, Monoma. Very helpful,” you comment sarcastically.

Shinsou slowly holds up a gloved hand for the supposed camera to see, then speaks clearly: “Planet Earth. Humans.”

You don’t know what good it will do since they don’t speak your language, but whoever or whatever is on the other side of the doors must understand enough to know that you are not invaders but visitors.

The grind of the doors opening echoes in the abyss, a bone-chilling sound. You rest your hand on the gun at your hip, eyes widening as you’re finally able to see what lies ahead.

A handful of strangers are waiting for you, and you try to take in as much as you can in a short amount of time. Humanoid in stature aside from size, the same number of limbs, even their faces look similar to yours. But their eyes are different—sharp, the sclera (or what you assume to be), filled in red rather than white. What could be hair looks coarse and glitters in the light. There are markings on their cheeks and noses, different colors, and their skin, ranging in human hues, is smattered with scales.

Shinsou has his tablet ready, projecting a hologram of their alphabet so that he can point to the different letters that spell out ‘hello’ followed by ‘peace’.

The alien at the front of the group nods, grunts, then raises a hand and points at the device to spell something else out. Shinsou’s tablet collects each letter and translates them so that he can look at the rest of you and relay, “decontamination. I guess that’s the first thing we need to do.”

After a few more typed exchanges, the possible leader turns and motions your crew to follow his.

They’re taller than all of you, averaging anywhere between 7 and 8 feet, but the similarities are a little baffling to you. You suppose if their planet is anything like earth, the shared traits make sense. Maybe they’re taller because this world is richer in oxygen. Maybe their longer fingers have more webbing in between because they spend more time in water. Maybe the serrated teeth one of them flashes at you are for tearing apart tougher meat.

Or for ripping the throats from their prey.

You force a smile at the one looking down at you, hoping it isn’t an aggressive gesture. The way it puffs its chest out and shows more of its teeth makes you think it might be trying to smile back.

Despite your crew outnumbering theirs by three, you can’t help but feel watched, like there are many many more eyes on you that you can’t see. It makes your skin prickle, and you keep your hand close to your gun.

Another, smaller set of metal doors opens, and once inside the creature in charge points toward a room that looks to be made of glass. You can see through the walls, spot dozens of fixtures that resemble sprinkler spickets. Decontamination.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” you ask Kendou. “We don’t know what they’re going to use on us. What if it’s acid or something?”

Her jaw is set, eyes trained on the room you’re being led to.

“It won’t be. If they wanted to hurt us, they wouldn’t have offered their help,” she reasons.

You’re not so sure about that.

“Suits off,” Shinsou says, holding up his tablet as if anyone else can read it. “There’s enough oxygen that we’ll be able to breathe.” He takes his helmet off to demonstrate, and you’re relieved when his head doesn’t explode on the spot. “It’s sort of like breathing at a high-altitude, though, so be ready for that.”

You have to fight every one of your instincts in order to strip yourself of your suit and helmet—your protection. It’s your life support when you’re traveling the stars. You feel completely vulnerable without it.

In nothing but underclothes, the 8 of you walk into the strange chamber. All you can think is that these might be the last few breaths that you ever take. This could all be a trap, no large step for mankind.

The door closes, and you stare through it, catching the red eyes of the alien who had been walking next to you. You think you see his mouth begin to pull up on one side just as a substance begins spraying from the spickets all around you.

It isn’t liquid nor is it gas—more like some kind of powder that coats your mouth and makes you cough. If it was hard to breathe before, it’s getting impossible now, this stuff clogging your throat and the throats of those around you.

The room is filled with violent hacking. Monoma vomits next to you, his watery eyes caked with whatever this is.

You wave a hand in front of your face in an attempt to dispel some of the flakes floating around you, searching for Kendou, for Shinsou, for an escape as you realize with terror that your gut instinct has been right. You never should have walked into this place, never should have taken one step off Hermes. This was a fruitless mission. This was arrogance, humans thinking you deserved to be helped.

Your vision is almost non-existent, and it feels like every inch of you is caked with whatever poison is pouring down on you. You bang on the wall with a desperation you’ve never felt before, screaming pleas you know the creatures don’t understand.

We’re dying. I’m dying. We came all this way to be killed.

The smiling alien watches you as you grow more and more light-headed. Whatever you’re inhaling burns your lungs, your mouth, the very inside of your skull.

The last thing you see before blacking out is the smiling alien’s split tongue running over its lips, a hungry beast waiting for its next meal.

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

2023©️shidou-x. please do not plagiarize or repost my work to any other platforms.

[thedreadvampy]

I think the thing about relationships between people who've experienced a lot of trauma is

idk. I think of it as concave and convex. There's a whole bunch of hand motions I do to explain it IRL.

but it's like. convex people's response to their experiences is to need a lot of positive support and reinforcement. often it's like, people who've been neglected or left without support so much that they've come to a place where they know they won't get what they need unless they push for it. they have lacked, and really need, someone to offer them comfort and reassurance and structure and support. their emotional and physical needs are often very dominant and very fragile. the thing they struggle with most is containing themselves.

concave people are most comfortable taking on responsibility for others. they don't really feel comfortable or able to prioritise themselves, and get most of their positive reinforcement from Feeling Useful. there may have been times where they've felt or been made to feel like a burden or like they're taking up too much space; they may be carrying a lot of guilt about having had a lot of support needs in the past. the thing that they struggle with most is making space for themselves.

and we're all different people in different relationships. we have definitely all at some time been both. being one way in one relationship is often a reaction to having been the other in other relationships.

buuuuut. my observation of my own life is that this way of thinking helps me categorise a lot of types of relationship issues:

| | : This is relationship equilibrium. Everyone is getting what they need. I don't think this relationship exists, because relationships are dynamic and stuff changes, but as an ideal baseline - you're close enough to support each other, but both retain your own space. neither of you are getting pushed into unhealthy patterns.

)( : this is going to be a very chaotic and exhausting relationship. Both of you feel simultaneously undersupported and like you're taking on all your partner's shit. However, if you are able to work through conflict, it can help you grow a lot - you're both pushing each other out of your space and into alignment, figuring out how to balance your needs with other people's. But it's a process that involves a lot of overwhelming pressure.

( ) : alienated and cold. both of you are trying to be there for the other one; neither of you know how to let someone be there for you, so you end up shutting each other out while also yearning desperately to get closer. like this one )(, it can be super helpful - you're both trying to pull each other closer, and over time you do. but it's a process that involves a lot of hard, uncomfortable work and stretching.

(( : This is, for my money, the Least Helpful Kind Of Relationship for healing. it's also the easiest to get into. concave people want to pull loved ones in towards them. convex people want to push out towards loved ones. they're two relationship approaches which dovetail exceptionally well. and once you're in it, there's no room to move towards | |, because the convex is filling up all the space the concave could move into, and the concave increasingly is the only thing supporting the convex, who's a long way out on a limb now. Relationships that start out ( | or |( are pushed towards this too - if they seriously reach for closeness, | starts bowing past the centre line, and ( has way further to go than is fair for them to have to do alone.

like I say, we're different people in different relationships. And in particular, what I often notice is that social groups (and it's most noticeable in polycules just bc there's more of a linear relationship chain than in friendships) sort of look like this

|(((((((((...

where one person being the concave of a (( relationship means they're bulging out into another relationship, pushing the other party in that relationship into a more convex shape in their other relationships, etc. (and vice versa - someone getting more concave in a relationship prompts their partner to follow in order to stay close)

anyway, in a lot of cases, this (( kind of mutually destructive codependence is a nasty trap we all set ourselves. where a )( or () will move more towards equilibrium over time, (( moves further from it. the concave has less and less space or confidence to self-advocate or to ask for support or space, and takes on more and more responsibility for the other's wellbeing; the convex becomes more and more reliant on the relationship, and feels less and less able to survive without that support. the change also tends to happen so gradually and incrementally that neither of them notices that they're way further out of balance. you get to a place where one person takes everything on and never talks about their feelings or allows any vulnerability, and the other has no control over their own life, doesn't know what's going on with their partner, and feels like a burden all the time. it reinforces and entrenches every maladaptive coping mechanism and shitty feeling about yourself.

What's required to make this fixable is that somebody's got to actually make things really immediately, critically uncomfortable all around.

if the convex person withdraws, that's going to be so painful and alienating for the concave, whose only model for seeking closeness is to ask people to come to them. someone pulling away - or not following when they try to pull them even further in - is a terrifying rejection that they may not have a model for how to solve. if they can ride that out, though, they've got space to learn how to go towards the other person, instead of trying to pull them closer.

if the concave person stops bending to the convex's pushing, then the convex will come very abruptly and unexpectedly up against a hard surface they were expecting to be soft. They're going to feel hurt, betrayed, pushed away, rejected - they might feel like it's a confirmation that they're awful/a burden/too much, which may drive them to seek more comfort and feel even worse if rejected. but if they can ride that out, they can learn to start moving away and giving the concave space to follow.

like I really do believe it is possible to have a good, healing relationship that starts out )). But it's hard, uncomfortable, gruelling work. It's super worth it but it's HARD. it's somewhat easier to make changes if you start out at )( or ( ) - it's still difficult and painful, but there, the path of least resistance is to get better, whereas if you're dovetailed together it's way, way easier to get worse.

doing that work isn't just good for one of you though. it's good for both of you. the less your Shit dovetails together, the more you're giving each other the space and impetus to change.

(you also don't like. get to choose this. you can't be on dating apps like 'seeking person who pulls people close rather than leaning into them for cold, lonely, but ultimately useful mutually unfulfilled relationship'. anyway these are emergent properties. we take different roles in different relationships at different times. I think I've found thinking of it this way at most useful in retrospect.)

[bluiex]

Love the idea of the heroes asking Convex how they knew Gri was pregnant. I feel like Scar would be smug cause, here they are the villains, and they knew while the heroes that Cuteguy worked with daily didn't Though I feel like Cub would very much like it if Scar Did not overshare, cause sometimes he's prone to do that. But Cub is proud that Scar in fact says something along the lines of wouldn't they like to know Going off of someone else's idea of that, it's Scar's kid from a one-night stand. So it was pretty easy for the vex in Scar and Cub to clock onto that Grian was pregnant. And then didn't take much longer for them to figure out its Scar's Grian trying really hard to not fall for these two. They are the villains, after all! But we know how that goes, esp with how sweet on him, they are. All his needs are met and then some, they never talk down to him like some heroes may do. And he's surprised they genuinely care even before it's found out it's Scar's kid I like to think Scar and Cub are together. And then Grian finally caves and joins the polycule, even if not Cub and Scar are both excited for a kid. And Grian would never be so cruel to keep the kid from Scar even if they are hero and villain It's a bit of a confusing mess for Grian for a while. But he's seeing a whole different side to them now, and it's making him question a Lot of things It would be interesting to have Pearl as his sibling too. Coming to visit convex to make Sure they are treating Grian right. And Grian is like, oh, thank god Pearl is here to take me. Once everything checks out, she breaks the news to Gri that in fact, she is not. When Gri ask her WHY she'd leave him here. She levels him with a glare and says the same thing as others. He won't take a break, and if these two can get him to do that. Then that's a huge win, which makes Gri pout because he just wants to be out there again he's so fidgety After Pearl leaves, Scar comments to Cub how Pearl was actually scary. Cub hums an agreement, cause you do not harm her family. And she sure did make sure to threaten convex away from Grian. Cause if they hurt him, they'd have to deal with her, and they really don't want that It'd be even funnier if she's not even a hero but Convex takes the threat to heart cause Pearl leveled them with a look that they KNEW she meant business -@spacecatdet

OOOO yeah!! Pearl sibling!! She'd totally be so intimidating toward Scar an Cub though-- she'd definitely freak them straight and make sure Grian is well taken care of

[verdantglow]

ooooh okokokok

Grimdark griann and horror terror watcher/listeners sounds SO SICK

Also i hope you know i genuinely laughed when you said he mightve fished it up. And then i was like "Do Trolls fish? Would that be considered an act of aggression against the top two castes?" and then i decided it would be really fucking funny if Griann was fishing and then Scar swam over, and either purposefully or not, got caught on Grianns line, so our beloved candy blood man fishes up his beloved moirail. I imagine it has happened on multiple occasions.

I am so excited you said that because i personally love Cub and Convex so much, they mean so much to me. Also Iskall!! I love that man!!! And Doc would be such a fun addition to the cast (I personally imagine him as an indigo blood because.... well. sometimes he reminds me of Equius. And despite my hatred for Equius i say this in the most affectionate way if that makes sense) (I dont hate Doc hes such a silly guy)

Dont feel too much pressure about the ships! I can't speak on behalf of anyone else but i know i personally am happy to wait to see them whenever youre ready to put them out, although i AM excited to see who.

I think word of mouth spreading also works really well, although I am genuinely so interested in how exactly it got up to Scar in the first place. As in like what is the lineage from Griann to Scar. I feel like I'd need to know the other blood castes of the cast, and also how closely you're sticking to troll society canon in the way that generally high and low bloods dont mesh too often.

Also, if you have decided it. Im very interested in learning who/what everyones lusus is? If you even just have a combination of animals for a few.

I'm assuming you welcome fanart, but if we slightly change designs/make our own designs (for trolls whose designs haven't made their appearance yet), is that ok?

Oh man, I think Griann definitely has to fish now & yes, he 110% fishes Scar up on multiple occasions. Actually, fuck it, that might be how they meet. In fact… while they knew each other to the extent of being vaguely recognized usernames on the VLARP forums earlier, they actually met in person when Scar got tangled up in one of Griann’s (illegal) fishing nets. Griann had been preparing himself for a fight or flight kinda situation when he noticed a violet blood in his nets, but that proved rather unnecessary. Scar, while he gave Griann some crap about how his nets ought to be more visible, was much more interested in chatting than actually in any way making Griann pay for the slight. This became A Thing, Scar occasionally getting caught up in the nets, though it was never really clear how often this was an accident or not. When Griann was looking for people for 3rd Life, he happened to mention it to Scar, who demanded he be allowed to play. Now, at this point, Scar was really just ‘that odd violet blood who can’t avoid nets & talks a lot & thank fuck doesn’t want me culled’ to Griann. However, when Griann recognized his username from around the community, he figured he’d give Scar a chance.

(There is definitely some angst in here somewhere about how Griann didn’t see Scar for multiple perigees after 3rd Life & how despite their moirallegence during the game, Griann came to doubt whether Scar still wanted anything to do with him after the blood bath in the cactus ring…)

Interesting to think of Doc as an indigo blood! Though I am tempted to make him a low blood with no psychic powers…. Hm… I’ll have to give this more thought… (Okay adding this last minute before posting, but gold blood Doc whose lusus is a swarm of bees that help run all his tech. You know. The Hivemind.)

Okay, so lusii. Here’s who I’ve got figured out from my list:

- Scar: some sort of mercat? Like a purrbeast, but aquatic. A murrbeast if you will.

- Lizzie: Gl’bgloyb, ‘cause she’s every fuchsia’s lusus

- Jimmie: canary. It just has to a canary. Tiny fragile bird that Jimmie’s constantly desperately trying to keep alive.

- Tangoh: a warden. Don’t ask me how wardens got on Alternia, but they are definitely a thing there in this AU. Other trolls (especially low bloods who don’t know him) are terrified of Pancakes, but Tangoh mostly regards him with fond exasperation as he needs a lot of looking after.

- Wrehnn: dog/woofbeast, think German Shepard

- Gem: A deer, but if deer were terrifying predators. It looks like a deer for the most part & people tend to underestimate Gem when she shows up on a skittery prey animal. That is, until her lusus opens her mouth & they see the impossible number of teeth she has.

- Bedubs: a horse of some kind, for sure. Maybe a unicorn, who are seen as fearsome beasts on Alternia. After all, what’s more hardcore than having a single, sharp horn for goring on your forehead?

- Pearle: owl-wolf. Like a wolf that’s got giant eyes & owl wings.

- Mummbo: giant moth

- Eethos: arctic fox with moose antlers

- Skizzl: Irish Wolfhound

- Martyn: snow creeper named Colin

- Joel: honey badger named Jeremy

- Cleaoh: Snow leopard

- Bigbee: a frog the size of a pit bull

- Impuls: ground pangolin. Can’t explain this really, but both my fiancé & I came to this independently. So uh I guess Impuls(e) is pangolin coded??? (Something about burrowing, something about being cute as fuck but razor sharp, something about looking like they want to ask you to a middle school dance.)

- Scohtt: sea otter

- Griann: chicken. Might even actually be a Minecraft chicken, not sure how committed to that bit I am.

Whoops totally just got absorbed in this & figured out all the lusii lol. But this was so much fun, my fiancé & I have been researching animals & YouTubers for the last like hour or so & now my search history is all stuff like “weird big cat” & “animals that are cute & friendly but also could definitely kill you.”

I’m sticking to the separation between castes pretty loosely, mostly because (spoiler) a lot of the out of game plot revolves around rebellion against The Condesce. So it would make sense that trolls who want to overthrow the status quo would be less bound by social norms. Every group pretty much has at least a blue blood or higher in it, & at least one low blood. Not necessarily because I planned that, it’s just sorta how things shook out.

For fanart, yes, omg I welcome it so much! If you want to tweak designs a bit or make up a design, that’s cool. (Though also, if you want in AU references for anyone, I’m always happy to throw together a rough reference sheet! Might take me a day or so, depending on spoon levels, but I’d be delighted to have a reason to draw any of the many trolls I haven’t yet!)

[vexcraft]

thank you for your fics because you have somehow managed to put down into words what i think about convex and what they could be. i am shaking your hand. i WANT to desperately write stuff about the convex that exists in my head but i don't know how to do it while preserving their dynamic but you Somehow Manage It and that's amazing. Especially in love with 'to break what was meant to be beautiful' and '(deadly) peace of mind'. Yes I'm aware that the latter is two years old however I have just now gotten into hermitcraft and convex Immediately Infected Me. ANYWAYS all of this to say. how do you do it?

ahh thank you so much!!! this ask made me so happy :D i'm so glad to hear you enjoy my idea of them and that it matches your idea too!! i just think they're very neat... about their dynamic - i've actually thought about maybe making a post with some character notes and things i've noticed and taken into consideration while writing convex, but i'm not sure it would be interesting and/or helpful. if people would like that i could definitely try to find some time for that :D

i have great news for you because there is actually a second part to 'to break what was meant to be beautiful' in the works! well, not exactly in the works, i wrote like 2.2k words five months ago and haven't been able to return to it due to being busy but! i will!! i want to finish it. i have most of the fic planned out in my head. it will be about having whatever little comfort they've managed to find ripped away and not only having to deal with the fact that they're monsters but they've also been found out as monsters and things are getting worse. there's also a hypothetical "what if things went really really wrong" kinda alternate ending thing i'm not sure i'll ever get around writing but it exists in my head. that other fic you liked? funnily enough was written partly as a joke bc a friend kept saying convex was dead because there hadn't been any content in a bit and i was like "y'know what? *kills them*" but then it ended up being quite heartbreaking in the end :P

how do i do it? i'm not really sure either! i think there's something very special in having such a deep understanding of each other that it makes it possible for them to make it through the worst horrors imaginable. it's not some "meant to be"/soulmate stuff either, they just work together so well. i definitely encourage you to at least try writing something, it does get a lot easier after a bit :D

also welcome to convex hell! if you're interested in a very interesting and very minecrafty approach to the whole vex deal thing and the struggles that come with it i'd recommend this fic by the lovely kie! and for some trust and identity struggles maybe this one of my own works, even though it's quite old and felt a little awkward to reread now :D

[mcyt-yuri-week]

just want to ask

is the genderbend prompt for canonical mlm ships to be genderbended to wlw? or for sapphic ships to be genderbended the other way?

or either? some third option? am i overthinking this?

(off topic but i love this idea so much!! sapphic ships need a lot more love, especially in the mcyt community!)

Have you seen the art out there that's convex yuri? In which Scar and Cub [hermitcraft] are genderbent into lesbians? That was the idea behind the prompt, as it seems to be the most prominent use of the word yuri in this fandom that I've seen

Now, of course, I would never ever say no to the opposite, if one so chooses!!! If you'd like to do that, it's more art to sapphic ships, despite them not being sapphic at that moment.

In any case! As my response usually is, you're free to do whatever you like! There is an original idea behind the prompts and behind the blog, but I am no one's boss. You can draw this however you interpret it!

[Thank you very much! I think so as well, so I really hope this week helps, even if it's just a bit!]

[mcyt]

In no particular order, what are your favorite pairings/pairings you are partial to in hc/lifesmp?

well obviously im really crazy about scarian but also i think about gridubs and gritho a good bit. and i don't really have any coherent thoughts about them, in my mind its just like one clip on repeat or me mashing two barbie dolls faces together while stuck in a thick fog. also scar/grian/bdubs. and sometimes etho there also. i think about 3l skizzren sometimes though that is more because of what my friends have to say about it ..... and a little bit about skizz/scar for the same reason. once in a blue moon my demons overtake me and i go insane about grumbo (im sure if you look at my archive there are many giant blocks in a sea of other things where its just all grumbo art). there's also some i think about that don't really make sense because im just crazy like. dl pearl / dl scar / 3l ren. oh but i do really like ll scar/ren. and i like ll scar and pearl as friends. that is mainly because of ao3 but i think scar/ren is fun outside of that anyways. Oh i really like clethubs and any combo of those 3. AND SHIPWRECKED (scar/grian/joel/etho) i was so crazyabout shipwrecked for a bit. and any combo of those 4 i also like . Really big fan of ll ren and lizzie. and convex . and i like gridaph a little bit. and i like ll scar/lizzie wbich also doesn't make much sense im just insane. i like lots of things ithink and you can really tell who my favourites are. going off of this list

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

asking about your convex serial killer au

you've activated my trap card!!!

convexian serial killer au is constantly rotating in my mind and I am going to explain it because I neeeeed more people to ask me questions about it. It's another au I have been constructing with @angeart my enabler and friend. And it makes me insane <3

CW: obviously I will be talking about murder, but also torture, some gore, kidnapping, manipulation, and cannibalism. And also there's a lot of throwing up. Sorry.

Also this au is notably darker and more immoral than my usual stuff. They kill people and have fun doing it!! And I don't really punish them for it! Be warned! Explanation begins below the cut :)

So, Scar and Cub are serial killers who have been moving from city to city for a while now. They currently live in a houseshare situation with Grian, sharing his spare bedroom and helping him pay rent. Now, Grian is a pretty normal guy, he doesn't know about the murders which take place in his own house.

Generally, Scar and Cub will kidnap their victims, bring them to the house, tie them up and kill them. Scar likes taunting and messing with the victims while Cub has a fascination with anatomy and dissection. Cub is the one who cleans up and covers their tracks, too.

Obviously, if they just murdered people in Grian's kitchen, Grian would notice, but they specifically chose to live with Grian because Grian's job (architect) means he's away from home in other cities for days on end. So they kill people while he's away and clean up before he gets back. It's a comfortable arrangement.

Until, of course, one day Grian comes home earlier than he said he would, and finds Scar and Cub in the middle of a kill. He's frozen to the spot as he watches Cub quickly slit the victim's throat. Scar approaches him, trying to shift his focus, but Grian is basically in shock.

Cub and Scar don't want to kill Grian for several reasons. 1. they think he's cute. 2. rent is cheap. 3. they're in a good location right now and don't want to move. So, while Grian is still kind of buffering, panicking internally but to terrified to do anything externally, Scar guides him to his room and mumbles somewhat comforting things to Grian until he passes out.

The next morning, Grian is convinced it was a dream. The kitchen is spotless. Scar makes him breakfast. He still feels like he's in shock. Cub confirms that it was not, in fact, a dream, by bringing it up, and Grian throws up in the sink.

So, you'd think Grian would call the police or something, right? Wrong! He's a freak! Okay, okay, that's a little mean. He's still in shock and somewhat disbelieving that his sweet, polite, (attractive), kind housemates could possibly hurt anyone. And... if he's being honest, seeing the light leave the victim's eyes yesterday kind of gave him a rush of adrenaline- a thrill he hasn't felt before.

As I say, he's a freak.

Grian is careful, cautious as Scar and Cub explain why they don't want him dead, so long as he doesn't try to report them. They can keep killing while Grian is away, so he never has to see it again. He can pretend it isn't happening!

But Grian doesn't want to pretend it isn't happening. He wants to be there. He wants to see it. When he tells Scar and Cub as much, their sharp smiles almost make him change his mind.

Things start... rocky. Grian is not built to witness graphic murder, especially when the victim is begging and pleading with him to help. The victims tend to be tied to a chair- one Grian keeps in the attic, because it doesn't fit the style of his kitchen. Grian, on the other hand, takes to sitting some distance away on a kitchen stool, by the sink, watching his housemates work.

For the first few times, Grian can't really watch at all. He's sick at least once each time, usually more. But... eventually, he can stand it.

He feels like something changed in his brain when he saw that first victim die. He knows he shouldn't be enjoying the gory display. He shouldn't enjoy the feeling of power he gets when the victims beg him to save them, and he refuses. But he does enjoy it. Just watching is enough for him.

Not to mention his housemates look really rather good covered in blood. More than a few times, he has dreams about them hurting him- about being one of their victims. It scares him, sure. This whole thing scares him. But it doesn't scare him as much as it should. And his rapidly beating heart is for more than just adrenaline.

Grian eventually starts acting as bait, luring in victims and taking them to a secondary location where Scar and Cub are waiting. As an avian, he's small (actually, small even for an avian) and unassuming, so most people trust him. At least compared to his human housemates, who have maybe a fifty percent success rate in luring people out.

Another thing Grian finds himself enjoying is pretending to be a victim, too. Making a big show of pleading with Scar and Cub to "not make him watch", leading the real victim to believe he's on their side.

He never is, obviously. It just makes things more satisfying when they realise.

Eventually, Grian starts sleeping in the same bed as Scar and Cub. He's particularly close with Scar, but Cub isn't the most outwardly affectionate person. Scar tells Grian one time that meeting someone Cub doesn't want to kill is rare enough on its own, let alone someone he actively likes. Their relationship doesn't really have a label, but they are partners.

Scar likes to ramble about what he would do if Grian was one of their victims- and one time Scar covers Grian in blood and viscera just to see what it looks like. The feeling of flesh and blood between his feathers makes Grian feel nauseous, but Scar running his hands through his wings makes up for it. It's gross. He showers like three times afterwards. But he loves it.

Anyway, they get on with life. There's also a turn to cannibalism later in the story. When they have their first avian victim, Scar goes on about how avians taste the best, and, well, Grian *has* to try, right?

He gets a little bit addicted. Don't worry about it.

Though you can ask me about that, if you want to hear. Also, other friends of Grian get involved in this in various ways: Mumbo, Jimmy, and Pearl. I'm sooo ready to rant about this au at any time so PLEASE if anyone reading this wants to hear more ASK MEEE.

That's all for now tho >:) hope you enjoyed

[hullbreachgame]

First Update!

Hello! I'm Duncan, and this is where I'm going to be posting updates for my personal, hopefully-to-be-completed-one-day game project!

The quick sales pitch: Heat Signature with a dash of Hardspace: Shipbreaker.

The less-quick sales pitch: A game where you play a highly disposable (and incredibly indebted) fixer who solves a big problem that a lot of individuals and companies have in the time of FTL travel; sometimes you would very much like something, but unfortunately it is on someone else's ship. In fact, it is often not just on someone else's ship, but in fact behind large amounts of personnel who may hold some strong objections to removing it from their ship. Or, they may in fact be the asset that needs retrieving and may not be particularly interested in coming quietly. Your goal? Completing the objectives set forth in your contract, employing whichever methods suit your particular tastes as well as the contract's stipulations-- some might want you to use a more delicate touch, while others want to send a message. Do what you can to earn as much as you can and maybe even pay off your debt-- or just try and enjoy the relative impunity you operate under.

Things are very much in the planning and testing phase right now. So, without further ado, let's get into one of the big things being worked on right now: Destruction.

------------------------CLANG - what was that?!-------------------------

The game is being developed in Godot 4, which is a fantastic engine for people who are a bit less experienced in the development space. It does have a few major downsides though, and one of the huge ones is a lack of assets and libraries. This makes it a little bit harder to get things moving and also means that there is the need to kind of develop quite a few things completely from scratch.

One thing that people who have messed with things like Godot and Unity in the past would probably understand is that you really want your collision objects to be convex. Basically, nice and solid, no holes or dips. You can stick a line in anywhere and it will only ever exit in one spot. In fact, you cannot even have rigidbodies with concave collisions in Godot. This is because it's really hard to calculate concave collisions, and really expensive on a computational level. This translates to: please have mercy on my framerate.

This generally isn't a huge problem, and there's plenty of ways to get around this, like just using static bodies, manipulating collision masks (which I actually will be using for a few neat things!), or you make sure that your concave objects, like a tunnel, or a doorway, are composed of convex polygons. A square room, for example, isn't just one big cube typically, it's six squares representing each face, 6 distinct collision objects.

It might be useful, then, to have some ways to break a concave shape into convex ones. And you'd be right! In fact, you'd be so right, that you'd assume it was a problem we've completely solved. And you would not be correct unfortunately! It's a topic that has a truly gargantuan amount of research poured into it. Google "Convex Decomposition" if you want to learn more about the subject-- it is genuinely very interesting-- there are people far more qualified than me to talk about it.

I have some plans in mind to solve the problem in a way that is performant for my needs, and I will also be (hopefully, providing it doesn't end up being utterly impractical) releasing these tools on their own within Godot so that other people can use them for free as well!

Actually writing out the code for it is... interesting, to say the least, as I am not gifted in the ways of geometry, and did not know too much about mesh generation until recently. However, I am currently working at implementing a very quick-and-dirty 'hole cutting' method right now.

Here is a gif that shows off the basic process for how it works:

Here's an explanation of how the general process will work:

Figure out your hole shape-- in this case, it's a square hole made by the rod punching through the prism. Get the points along the corners as well as your direction. In this case, we've got the 4 points on the face closest to the camera and pointed towards the left face.

Make a plane that is flush with the first 2 points and in the direction of the cut. Everything to one side gets snipped off of the first mesh and moved into another one (we don't actually separate them, but it is separated for easier visualization). Additionally, make a note of the first point in the hole and its intersection point-- in this case, bottom left point of the hole and about 3/4 of the way along the bottom of the prism.

Now-- repeat this step until you get to the last point of the hole; create a plane flush with the side, snip off everything on one side, and move to the next side. Connect everything up. Additionally, if this is the last repeat of this step, make a note of if you have intersected the two points from step 2. If so, you can drop the intersection point from step 2.

For the last points, just connect the previous point, the first point, and the intersection point from the previous point and the first intersection if it wasn't dropped.

After you've gotten all those pieces, you can just replace the original mesh with the 4 new ones. Tada! You have what looks like a hole through a mesh, but in reality it's 4 segments. If you're so inclined, you can also make the surface of the cut its own material-- maybe you want the 'inside' of a wall to look different.

Now, this solution isn't perfect. It cannot be multi-threaded in this fashion, since the sequential cuts depend on the prior cut to happen. I have a few other methods that could actually be done simultaneously, but this one is pretty easy to visualize and for the purposes of the game it should be completely functional. The astute among you may also realize that this will not work for concave holes without a few changes-- this is actually not the hardest fix, but it won't be relevant for the purposes of this type of destruction. It might be included in the library, though!

My next goal is to actually get this method implemented in Godot so that I can show it in action! This will also get me a bit more comfortable with mesh manipulation.

After that, we will be able to get to some really exciting stuff as well with some more... dynamic destruction. Cutting holes is all fine and dandy, but what about smashing them? Hopefully you'll see some more on that in the future!

[vexonvex]

Ok so this is the really rough draft of this au, it’s just a lot of undecided ideas and it’d be cool if u (or anyone who sees this) could help me decide or figure it out because.I’m not good with choices

The public wouldn’t know who heroes really are, so no one would know that (I think that Grian would be like CuteGuy or Poultry Man, or something else like in some fanfics he’s called Watcher?? Anyway I have no idea what his hero name is) Grian is a hero

What I was wondering is should at least Cub&Scar know that Grians a hero? Uh yeah if u have any ideas that’d be cool

Anyway the was the Vexlings would work goes as so:

The two “leaders” of the whole business is Scar and Cub, obviously. Then, like one level down from them so they have a lot of authority, is the Vexlings. The Vexlings idea is taken off reference of Felix aka Convex-Solos, so they’d like probably need their own names and they’d be their own characters which I don’t have (yet?? Possibly? Maybe?) Anyway — The Vexlings would do like, some of the ““dirty work””. These guys work as assassins, body guards, assists in the buisness (Convex)

Then, there’s be the affiliates. Right now, I’m thinking that some affiliates could be Pearl, Doc, and Mumbo. These guys aren’t working for/IN Convex, but they all do enjoy frequently getting together for like tea or whatever and discuss knowledge going on (Pearl and Doc are both Villains, Mumbo is involved with villainry but prefers to work in the shadows to help make gear for people, like armour and weapons and stuff, along with Doc who does that too)

Anyway, Grian as a hero was assigned/tasked to fight(keep an eye on) Scar&Cub (uhhb sadly. I. Do not know what their villain names should be…Jangler and Jingler maybe??? Maybe they should be HotGuy and CuteGuy???? Idk. if anyone has any ideas please give 😭😭) because in my au, some of the heroes are tasks to specifically watch certain villains, because of their skill set. So like, while Grian can obviously fight or go after multiple villains, but in a big fight with multiple bad guys, Grian would specifically go after Cub&Scar + if those 2 are just causing trouble in general, Grian will be tasked to catch them.

Side note: Vexlings doing some dubious villainry: the Vexlings tend to also do some evil things, and specifically, target Grian because he’s always messing up Scar&Cubs plans (also a really funny image to me of like 5 vexes all running after Grian like. that’s just super super funny to me I’m sorry)

Investigator Grian gets himself into. Situations, per say. So I think a good idea is a couple years ago Grian got scammed in some way, not sure how, but Convex got him. They got him good. so, he became an investigator to get prove that those guys are evil evil calitalists. even if he’s a he does what he needs to do, so often he breaks into their big building and attempts to get some sorta like important paper as proof. and, just saying, him breaking into places usually leads him into…some shenanigans with Cub&Scar

I think that’s everything yeah

So sorry for the super long rant but hey I got permission

-🪩

It's very interesting! Maybe to keep it somewhat cohesive you could only use the hero/villain names of season 6, so Poultry Man, Jingler and Jangler.

Then, about the Vexling part: those characters are ocs with set names and personalities, so I would suggest you ask their owners to tell you about them.

But yeah, it's good!

[buymagicmushroomsuk]

How Do I Pick Wild Mushrooms?

Whenever I go mushroom hunting, I get up early, as soon as the sun rises. I make coffee and some sandwiches to take with me at lunchtime. Mushroom foraging is normally a time consuming task and a couple of hours of outdoor activity in the fresh air makes me starve. I grab my tools organized the night before and move on. To avoid wasting valuable early morning time, I take my snacks with me and eat them on the go.

It's definitely pretty smart to start looking for mushrooms as soon as possible because early morning daylight helps you find edible mushrooms and the cooling environment helps you smell them. Other mushroom pickers probably won't interrupt you, and by lunch you'll be done leaving the entire afternoon to clean and prepare mushrooms. Read also buy magic mushrooms

So, I come to the particular selected forest and look at the trees and bushes. I head towards the pine and fir trees checking the surface which is covered by fine pine and fir needles. From time to time, here and there I see green moss. To begin with, I inspect those sites with moss, since there is more moisture than the mushrooms appreciate. I look for the convex (curved outward) shaped mushroom cap (most edible wild porous mushrooms have a convex cap shape). It will dye any kind of shade of brown, from a light yellowish brown to a dark brown. Among the pines, the typical wild mushrooms with a dark brown convex hat are more common.

After that, I walk in the direction of the oaks and bushes where I observe the convex bowler hat shape of the colors as explained above. That is, to some extent, a more challenging activity, mainly because in larch forests there are usually a lot of leaves on the surface and the mushroom heads are disguised just by having dyes from that foliage. So I have to take a hard look at the ground, turning the foliage over just in case I think there's a fungus covered there. Wild mushrooms with light or dark brown heads are much more common among oaks.

And then I move closer to birches and bushes, where porous mushrooms have a more light brown or reddish coating.

Wild mushrooms from the Boletus family are generally almost all edible and delicious. This is exactly why they tend to be so valuable to any wild mushroom hunter!

When I discover an edible wild mushroom, I cut it open with my pocket knife (it needs to be cut in order to avoid destroying the mushroom just behind it). I cut it as close to the ground as possible so as not to miss the delicate pulp of the mushroom and also to bare the root of the mushroom as little as possible in order to retain the spores in the long term.

There are several guidelines that I follow:

If I'm collecting wild mushrooms, I make sure I don't collect all the edible mushrooms outside of where I actually found them. I leave behind (I don't really even touch!) about 10% of the edible mushrooms to develop them further and ensure that those species can be protected in the wild.

I pick younger edible mushrooms (say 7-9 cm tall). Old mushrooms are usually not as firm and tight as they should be for shipping; they are not as tasty as the young and are not suitable for storage.

If I notice that worms are eating cut mushrooms and there is nothing I can use to cook with, I scatter pieces of mushroom hat inside the place so that the spores spread in a larger space ("Mushrooms recreate themselves through spores , which are usually produced in specialized structures or fruiting bodies, such as the head of a mushroom").

I do not pick mushrooms near streets and commercial areas as wild mushrooms absorb metals from the environment and possibly become toxic.

I do not pick wild mushrooms that I do not recognize or cannot fully recognize. Whenever in doubt, I take only one mushroom of an unknown type and detect it at home using different sources.

As soon as I get home I take care of cleaning, cooking and preserving the mushrooms the same day. It usually requires a lot of energy, but it needs to be done as freshly picked mushrooms cannot stay fresh overnight (even in cold water in the fridge!). That's an added motivation for getting up early to hunt for mushrooms.