#rock lore

[same-picture-of-a-rock-every-day]

The Rock has been octopi-ed, my goodness.

Courtesy of @icanttypo , who may or may not know the Rocks true identity.

[kinokoshoujoart]

the AnWL guide by dengeki arrived in the mail today and i’m losing my mind so have some Just Rock rough translation stuff

this guide is more thorough and like. official? with cute comics and even an interview with wada… (i translated the rock one asap but gustafa and marlin have ones too! and a bunch of cute pony!!! yayyyy!)

i wanna sit down and translate and format more sections in full when i have time, but for now i’ll just share a few rock snippets then get back to Drawring because i will explode if i don’t!

spoilers for uh… rock mystery solving…?

starting with the point blank shotgun blast to the face because the guide fell open to this page and i was immediately KOd by it!!

i guess that’s not the biggest surprise but i’m more surprised that they just outright said it in his little bio… i think this is the closest to canon closure we’ll get on this mystery

loserboy

the interview with yasuhiro wada is extremely interesting. he breaks down the personalities of the bachelors and their dynamics with the rivals. i want to post it but i’m especially anxious about making a mistake in anything mr. wada says so i want to consult with someone who knows japanese past a sufficient-to-play-farming-game-level first

but i’m confident in these so here

—Rock, Marlin, and Gustafa are the candidates for marriage, but why were these three chosen?

Wada-san: They were picked from among the men in Forgotten Valley by a kind of process of elimination (laugh)

officially just a silly guy

[cora-illus]

Some Ninth House facepaint lore/design headcanons I drew up while working on my last piece :]

[redmarqar]

Hey guys!! I was wondering, how did your band form in the first place?

oh, we've finally got to this question. well... take a look.

[soaps-mohawk]

Okay but imagine it.

Reader just biting the guys affectionately.

Like she's just sitting on the couch and gets this urge and just leans over and sinks her teeth into Johnny's shoulder. It takes him by surprise, but of course, he has to bite her back every time.

Gaz would be taken aback. "Did you just bite me?" *reader innocently blinking* "yes." He'd get used to the reader's affectionate little nibbles here and there. Might teasingly bite her back one or twice.

Price is shocked. Thinks maybe they're in a fight or something. Reader kisses the slight mark it leaves behind on his skin and he realizes what's happening. Definitely just let's it happen. Definitely doesn't turn him on or anything.

She tries it once with Ghost. They're taking a break from training, and she just can't help it and sinks her teeth into his forearm. He lets out a low warning growl and she backs off. He definitely didn't like it. Not in the slightest. 😏

[living-dead-guyy]

✨ the little alien dudes return ✨

here’s one showing off his newly-carved artwork. he is very proud. the image depicts the symbol of the sun with extending rays over an egg sac- it symbolises fertility and such

and I also sketched a bit to show how the tool is made

[enden-agolor]

ok so like

what if i told you my bf and i made another admin au about jesse being an admin and being cast out of society and he becomes this sad, lonely, brutish, and mute forest deity and also what if i told you lukas shows up in the forest one day and they meet each other and lukas basically changes jesse’s life

what i’m saying is they catch feelings for each other

better explanation:

im just gonna use my discord screenshots from me explaining to others the beginning

[comradekatara]

sorry if you've posted something like this before and i just can't find it, but how & when do you think suki &/ toph learn the full story of what happened to sokka in the north pole?

this is a great question because sokka is truly such a repressed little freak and so his friends (and girlfriend) will probably never learn the full story unless they explicitly dig for it. like, let’s think about what we know:

katara was there in the spirit oasis when yue became the moon spirit. she saw aang go koizilla mode, she saw yue sacrifice herself, she saw yue become the moon and kiss sokka. i doubt she knows about what exactly was going on between yue and sokka before that moment, but after that, she has a pretty clear picture of the nature of their relationship. the only other person who witnessed it in full is iroh.

aang turned into koizilla before yue became the moon. he probably vaguely knows that she’s the moon spirit, but i don’t think he really registers it, or understands why it matters to sokka. he seems downright confused the few times sokka talks about her, so presumably katara never told him about their relationship.

zuko knows that sokka’s first girlfriend turned into the moon. technically, he was also there that night, but i don’t think he was paying attention to anything other than capturing aang and beating zhao’s ass. so he actually has more information than aang does, because he’s actually aware that sokka considered her his girlfriend (although i would contest that claim, if anything sokka was yue’s mistress), so that’s like. something.

suki knows that “something happened at the north pole” and he failed to protect someone he cared about. she does immediately connect the dots and realize that a girl he liked died and he failed to save her. but she doesn’t know that she was the princess or that she became the moon spirit until watching that play on ember island. at which point sokka gets really mad that she dares to tease him about it, and she gets mad that he’s refusing to talk about it (or she playfully pretends to be jealous? unclear). either way sokka clearly thinks he’s opened up enough and has no need to further discuss it with her.

toph just straight up has no clue about any of that. if katara wouldn’t tell aang, she certainly wouldn’t tell toph, and sokka obviously isn’t telling anyone. although perhaps at some point zuko is like “yeah, sokka’s ex girlfriend the moon, everyone knows about her” and toph, aang, and suki are just like WHAT. why did he tell this to YOU of all people 😭😭

[iamnotalemon]

Chapter 4 of Kikuri’s manga got me really excited to see where the story goes. I remember seeing comments about Kikuri and how BTR made light of her potentially tragic story as an alcoholic.

This little shot of her at the beginning of the chapter being in a good mood to see Kessoku Band play regardless of the weather shows just how excited she is to see Bocchi play and be successful.

Then of course the rest of the Chapter is Kikuri crashing at the Ijichi household with a couple moments from Seika talking about how she was such a different person before being in a band ie before becoming an alcoholic. Which it’s also just wonderful to see Seika actually complimenting and even defending her considering how outwardly annoyed she is with her in BTR.

Finally, this little bit of sleepy drunk talk from Kikuri kind of confirms the huge implication with her attachment to Bocchi which is even hinted at in BTR:

She sees her young, sober self in Bocchi. She wants Bocchi to succeed through her own skill and perseverance; whereas Kikuri feels that the only way she’s capable of being at her best is when she’s drunk. Kikuri doesn’t live a good life. She’s broke, she’s a constant annoyance to her closest relationships, and depends almost entirely upon the fleeting kindness of strangers who only know and love her because of her flamboyant drunken performances.

Kikuri is stuck in more than just the “Happiness Spiral” she mentions in BTR. She’s stuck in a cycle of alcoholism where she can’t perform without alcohol and without her performance she can’t survive. She wishes she had a second chance where she hadn’t gotten stuck in the cycle, she wishes she was in Bocchi’s place again.

I’m very much looking forward to see more serious subjects being tackled in Kikuri’s manga, as BTR seems to stick very heavy to its 4 Koma comedic nature. I still love BTR, but hopefully this manga will give more depth to some of the source material.

[wyrmwright]

In the Teachers' Lounge ⛰️🌟🩸

[same-picture-of-a-rock-every-day]

That rock deserves a solid boop.

The Rock has been thoroughly bapped, my goodness.

[darthcontusion]

this doesn't matter but Steve can't have been the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs because he was launched and crashed 365 mil years ago, right? The timeline roughly lines up with when the Tiktaalik existed, and the meteor that killed the dinosaurs landed only 66 mil years ago. Instead, Steve would have caused the late devonian mass extinction event that lines up with the time he was launched from the clown planet.

So what I'm saying

is that a second clown has hit the planet

[thevalleyisjolly]

There’s something really fascinating about the different ways in which the Hungry One is understood and conceptualized in Calorum.  In the Bulbosi Church, it’s characterized as an apocalyptic Satan-figure, the cause of suffering in the world and the thing that will one day come to devour everything just because that’s what it does.  Where things really get interesting is in the different sects within and around the Church.  Adherants of the Ramsian Doctrine, for example, believe that it is necessary for the Hungry One to devour the world so that the Bulb can triumph over it - and they believe that the Hungry One will not devour the world so long as it contains “junk food.”  In a similar manner, the Prophidian Heresy and the FDA believe that the Hungry One will not devour the world if it is full of waste -only the FDA consider waste to be general rot and decay rather than the Candians specifically, misanthropy vs xenophobia GO- and that this is therefore the key to preventing the destruction of the world. 

Within the FDA and the Prophidian Heresy, there’s also an intriguing link between body and soul that contradicts mainstream Bulb theology.  Whereas most of the Church believes in a rigid delineation between body and soul, that after death, the body returns to the ground and the soul (if it is not damned) goes to the Bulb, the FDA’s plan of filling the world with rot and decay so that the Hungry One will not devour it suggests, quite radically, that the body just as much if not more so than the soul is what the Hungry One devours.  Mainstream Bulbians believe the stomach of the Hungry One is Hell for damned souls who do not go to the Bulb - the FDA seems to believe that the state of the material is just as important to the Hungry One as the metaphysical and that large enough volumes of rotting decay (which could also be the moral decay that comes with actions in war, but in this case the FDA themselves have the most rotten souls of all) can keep this Devil-figure from consuming anything, regardless of the state of the soul.

On a different level, with Karna, we find the idea that the Hungry One is not just a powerful over-arching entity but rather something which people can relate to and personally interact with.  When Karna kills Sir Drunon and the woman, she takes part of their bodies and burns them “in offering” to the Hungry One.  As the audience, we know that Karna is mechanically a warlock of the Hungry One, with the specific subclass of The Great Old One.  Combined with the offering, the characterization of the Hungry One is as an active, powerful being who, to some degree, can engage with people personally.  Not necessarily in a reciprocal way -you can burn an offering as a sign of respect or acknowledgement without any expectation of receiving something in return- but people like Karna can and do engage with it on an individual and personal level.  Given the fact that when she kills, a new rotten spot appears on her body, it suggests that her relationship to the Hungry One does, in some part, go both ways, that there is something on the other side receiving her votives and responding to them.

Also fascinating to observe, when she kills Sir Drunon, she says “We are all eventual food in the maw of the Hungry One,” and immediately thereafter as she kills the woman he’s with, “I’m sorry, but we are all eventual waste.”  This presents another perspective on the relationship between the Hungry One and the concept of waste. In contrast to the FDA or the Ramsian Doctrine, which believe that the Hungry One won’t devour the world if it is full of waste or junk, Karna’s statements suggest that the process of dying inherently involves becoming waste - and that the Hungry One will still eat that waste nonetheless. 

Then there’s Cumulous and his specific monastic tradition (which is not actually one and the same as the Order of the Spinning Star because it’s stated that there are monks in the Order who draw power from the Bulb; overall, the Order seems to be more an organization of people dedicated to the same goal rather than a religious enclave of people with the same spiritual beliefs).  In ACOC, the first thing Cumulous ever says is, “The Hungry One must feed.”  It’s an interesting phrasing because there’s a very passive connotation - not “The Hungry One must consume” or “The Hungry One must eat,” but rather the use of the term “feed” suggests a little less agency and purpose.  It isn’t going out looking for something to eat, but rather it is feeding on whatever it is given.

Later, Cumulous explains to the party that he does not worship the Hungry One and that it is just a source of power to him.  He can tap into it, just like the Bulbosi miracle workers can tap into the Bulb, but it’s not something that has a real consciousness or its own will and he does not interact with it as if it does.  Combined with his monk subclass (Long Death), the characterization of the Hungry One is less a supernatural powerful figure but more a manifestation of inevitable death and entropy.  Very similarly to Karna’s perspective, it’s going to feed on everything eventually because everyone’s going to die one day.  It might be today, if you happen to be a cheese sailor trying to murder your lawful child duchess, but that’s neither here nor there.

And as Lapin realized in his last moments and as he later showed to Liam, this seems to be the closest understanding to the actual nature of the Hungry One which we have encountered so far in either campaign.  The Hungry One is just a cosmological ball (add that to the list of significant TTRPG orbs!) and while it certainly contains a lot of power, it doesn’t do anything with it other than eat what is delivered into its mouth.  The power and the destruction and the death associated with the Hungry One?  All of that has only been wielded or used by living people, for their own aims and agendas.

Anyways, all this to say that while I don’t think it likely to happen, my dream scenario is for a couple FDA members to flee the scene of whatever plan they had that some or all of the Scrumptious Scoundrels have managed to foil, and as they escape, they run straight into a group of Candian monks (aka what they were actually doing during the Ravening War).  The last thing they hear, after all their scheming to “save” the world, is “The Hungry One must feed.”  And it does.

[brennan-lee-mother]

I just found maybe the best lining up of events ever and perhaps even proof the Bulb is real:

I was rewatching the third episode of ACOC (as one does) where we have our first real interactions with Commander Grissini and at one point he says aloud the name Payment Day. For those not in the know, in Calorem it is believed that if one speaks the name of a weapon they are doomed to be slain by it. This is why all the Taste Buds' weapons have both a name and a title (e.g. Payment Day and The King's Sword, Flickerish and The Twizzling blade, Sour Scratch and The Puckering Bow, &c.), so that one might refer to a weapon without saying its name. I was immediately scandalised, of course. Doesn't Grissini know better? And to the king's face too! But then suddenly I had a thought. Could it be that the universe had lined up perfectly? That it found a way to bring the rules and magic of Calorem into our world to bring about the most beautiful of coincidences? That once again Brennan proved himself king of (accidental) foreshadowing? I race to investigate and lo and behold, in episode 17 "For Candia (part 2)", Commander Grissini is killed by King Amethar with The King's Sword, Payment Day.

All hail the Bulb

[celestite-caroline]

I'm not even gonna sugarcoat it

Rolling Thunder redesign

[kabutoden]

OUGH your buggy homestuck designs are SO CUTE!!!!!!!! That's such a fun concept and I LOVE the different molts and the explanation for mutants!!!!!!!!!! Bug lore bug lore bug lore!!!! I also adore the outfit you did for Terezi's third molt, I thought the boots were really creative and it just looked! So cool!!!!! <333333 would it be possible to see Vriska's various molts? ALSO. I NEED YOU TO KNOW. I AM GIVING YOU A VERY EXCITED DOUBLE THUMBS UP I ***LOVE*** ANOMALOCARIS I HAVE LIFE SIZED ANOMALOCARIS PLUSH AND HE IS MY FAVORITE EVER. trilobites very good too I have. So many trilobite fossils and I think that those two were a great choice for the sea dwellers!!!

thank you so much for sending in an ask im THRILLED WITH YOUR EXCITEMENT!! i love extinct arthopods too+i just LOVE BUG FACTS SO MUCH… i rlly should do a spidertroll lore post but until then here’s the molts you requested!! i actually really struggled in the past with human anatomy so im super proud of how these turned out shes so big and confident and cool!!! a thanks again for the ask :D