#sphinx answer

[ranticore]

a pair of werewolves set out to remove a manticore from their territory. the manticore represents a massive threat to them and their cubs if left to its own devices, but a direct confrontation will cause it to flee.

a bit of barking and growling is enough to frighten one away, but that's not the hard part. finding one is the major challenge. a manticore will only emerge to hunt once a month and will make an easy meal of a werewolf cub, but actually discovering the identity and location of the killer is quite difficult. the manticore is 90% arboreal, and werewolves aren't climbers. it takes a string of repeated attacks before a manticore is suspected and then, they must find it and hunt it out from the canopy overhead. because it can usually see them coming it's a simple matter to climb higher or temporarily relocate.

werewolves are very thorough with their pest control, and established territories often have no other monster inhabitants other than those which cooperate with the local pack. therefore humans often choose to settle relatively close to where a werewolf pack is known to reside, for the additional peace of mind

[itsmedemibones]

*tosses sphinx Submas into the world* go, be free my babies~

--

My body is like a machine that takes AUs and turns them into unused AUs while I make even more AUs.

[lsdoiphin]

Sphinxes are crafty the same way that coyotes or bears are crafty. Their cleverness shouldn't be underestimated, yes, but they're not going to win any battles of wits against something like a corvid or a parrot.

[yuriartillery]

Upon a hill now came to view Four lovely maidens 'neath the blue Then turning thus they spoke to you: Spake the first "Though I might lie, the rest speak true" Sighed the second "Fiction and fact comes in twos" Spat the third "The second gave a worthless clue" Swooned the fourth "First unlike, I'd not lie to you" Now of these maidens, which speak true?

[queewp]

So what's Ford's motivation of research in your Monster Falls au? Is he fascinated by humans and wants to study them without bias? Does he want to publish a paler that would make monsters consider coming out of hiding? Are they even from the same dimension??? What would this au's version of Weirdmageddon look like?

HEHE SO- Ford's motivation:

Ford’s motive for research is similar to the original–he wants to document the weird and the unknown. Even as monsters, I can imagine there’s ALOT that has yet to be discovered–I can imagine Ford is also just rlly into that stuff in gen! He ofc still has the journals, tho they are ofc gonna differ slightly in content cuz some of the stuff in the Journals would already be ‘normal’ occurrences/creatures in his everyday life

Is he fascinated by humans and wants to study them without bias?

Yes and no. He is indeed fascinated with humans, but he’s smart enough to not barge into human settlements. The only reason Ford ended up trusting Bill is because Bill, surprisingly, nursed him back to health when Ford stepped into a trap (which may or may not have been a trap Bill had set up lol). Ford decided that humans couldn’t be THAT bad if Bill had helped him (he was incredibly wrong). Thus, he started feeling comfortable enough to ask questions, draw humans, write them down in his journals, etc. So yeah but also, it wasn't his initial plan--he is indeed incredibly fascinated in them, but part of it was also because the human he was researching was also Bill Does he want to publish a paper that would make monsters consider coming out of hiding?

Kind of!! Not exactly a paper, but he wanted monsters and humans to work together instead of being fearful of each other. He saw how Bill and himself worked and he thought; 'why were we so afraid of humans?' Ford and Bill, instead of working on the portal, were trying to figure out a way for humans to find / cross the barrier protecting Gravity Falls.

Are they even from the same dimension???

Yes!! In my version, Gravity Falls is a town of monsters w/ a barrier protecting them from humans. It's impossible for human to find the town on their own (if a human tries finding it, even with directions, they'll end up walking in circles and never finding it), and they’re also unable to cross it even if they DO find it. They found this out when Ford insisted that he come to Gravity Falls, so that they could go further into their research (Bill at this time, offered to help, and has been helping Ford with his journals and research); with Ford’s guidance, Bill ‘found’ Gravity Falls. However, it quickly became apparent that while Ford could step through this barrier, Bill could not. The next part of the research is like I had said before, trying to make Gravity Falls accessible to humans.

What would this au's version of Weirdmageddon look like?

HEHE basically a free for all hunting ground!! I’d imagine that Bill’s Henchmaniacs are also humans, and also monster hunters :3 They get free rein of a town FULL of the thing they hunt, what else do u think they're gonna do? /silly

I'm still tweaking a lot of the smaller things (and... a lot of other plot points) but that's basically around what I have :D Ty for asking this, this was so fun to answer <33 if anyone else has more questions, or ideas, defo send an ask >:D

[teecupangel]

Hi! I really enjoy your Desmond gets turned into random creatures, and I was wondering if you've done a sphinx? I have a sphinx Desmond, and a very loose plot idea. Instead of dying from the apple, it turns him into a sphinx, and now he's stuck in a lion's body, disoriented, in pain, probably a lot of dissociation because everything is just so wrong. And he isn't exactly small, so Shaun, Bill and Becks have to hide this giant creature and it's a struggle because he can't really move properly and he's heavy so they take way longer than they'd like to get him out of the temple before abstergo gets there.

I think the artifact also affected his mind in a way that, he has the sixth sense, knowledge I think? So he can access an insane amount of isu knowledge, but he can't quite control it, and it causes him massive migraines when he tries to dig for it.

On the other side, sometimes he'll just correct things people say randomly, without even thinking about it, then he just pauses and frowns like "how do i know this?"

you can do time travel with him and interactions with ancestors and such, i just wanna know your take on a sphinx Desmond :3

Oooohhh, I love your sphinx Desmond so much. I’m kinda imagining that he doesn’t really like riddles. Tried them more than once but he just gets a headache and wished people would stop being cryptic.

So he absolutely hate the curse inflicted upon him:

Whenever anyone asks him a question he himself does not know but he ‘knows’ via Isu bs, he’s forced to ask a riddle that must be answered correctly before he could access the answer.

He can try and force it, of course, but he’ll get a growing headache the more time he spent trying to understand it. So yeah, it’s honestly better if people just answer his riddle.

And Desmond’s ‘criteria’ for correct answers isn’t just one specific answer.

To be more exact, Desmond’s affinity to someone makes it ‘easier’ for them to give bullshit answer.

For example:

Rauf definitely needs to answer correctly the riddle given to him but Desmond would be able to give him a riddle that wasn’t that difficult.

Malik gets super difficult riddles because Desmond totally believe there is not a single riddle Malik cannot solve.

But someone like Altaïr?

Desmond could ask something like “what is better when broken?”

And Altaïr could answer with some shit like “a Templar’s neck”

They’d stare at each other for a moment before Desmond a cat-like shrug and go “Yeah, sounds about right.”

While Desmond is explaining the topic that caused his riddle trait to trigger, everybody else is just staring at Altaïr because the favoritism is so blatant it’s ridiculous.

Unorganized Notes:

It took a while before Desmond could get used to his new body. The first few days were the worst. His human experience did not mesh well with his sphinx instincts but it got better the more he realized that, yes, this is his new body now and he has to accept that.

Once he got used to his body, he liked to take naps where there’s warm sunlight or in freshly dried laundry.

When he stretches (like a cat), his wings flutter and shake slightly.

When someone annoys him but he doesn't feel the desire to maul them, he sits on them.

[mxwhore]

What does sphinx mart love about Jon?

his... 'unique' anatomy. tipjar • patreon

[withered-tears]

pre-pretty lady..

[violent138]

*boops your nose*

*nose falls off* I can't believe you've done this.

[colourfulplague]

Wanted to try designing a spec bio sphinx

[stormyoceans]

https://x.com/oohs00/status/1878682321697808847

a few riddles to cheer you up😄

WELL. THAT WAS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED SFSJKDGFKGSKFJSFJKDGSFKSFJKSHFLG

this is like when you're reading a fic and trying to figure out in what kind of position they are doing it except the visuals are not helping at all here like WHAT AM I EVEN LOOKING AT. WHAT IS GOING ON. i mean don't get me wrong whatever works for them we do not kinkshame in this house but also. WHAT

i've literally been looking at this for way too long just turning my phone left and right and flipping upside down and holding it up close and moving it far away and squinting at the screen trying to figure out what the hell are they doing but even my best guess (double edged dildo?) doesn't seem quite right ;;;;;;;;;

although ngl im more concerned about their poor knees and back like PLEASE GO BACK ON THAT BED YOU ARE MAKING MY OLD BONES ACHE JUST LOOKING AT YOU

[lsdoiphin]

Hares, as you may already know if you've been following my better half @broncoburro or @forevergoldgame (if you're following neither, you're missing huge amounts of context for the setting!), are nothing like the hares of the real world. They are massive leporids from Northern Vestur and one of the few meurian animals remaining after a historic event known as the Great Hunt where humans wiped out most of the planet's remaining meurian species in order to harvest their meur for relics about 350~ish years ago. They are obligate carnivores and known to hunt humans when the opportunity arises.

The baku is a large, lumbering omnivore with a similar ecological niche somewhere between a panda and a regular bear. They're a rare species, endemic to a single far-flung region of the world, having only just barely escaped extinction. See, while the Great Hunt was headed and funded by the Tri-Kingdom, its reach spanned the entire known world - but the further from Vestur it travelled, the less discriminatory the hunts became. The local peoples who were paid to hunt on the Tri-Kingdom's behalf had little idea of what meur was and what meurian animals were actually useful, leading to mass to mass culling of "useless" meur-touched animals like the baku, whose unusual sleep-inducing abilities cannot be wielded by humans. Regardless of their uselessness, the damage had been done to the species, and only the mundane offshoot survives - though rumors persist about meurian baku.

Sphinxes are scavengers that can be found across the deserts and savannas of the mainland. Unlike their meurian cousin, the manticore, they never evolved meurian flame breath, and their 'stinger' is no more than a vestigial sickle buried beneath the fur of their flowing tails. Instead, they specialized further into human mimicry, using their ability to copy human speech to hunt domesticated animals, naive children, and drunkards.

Now you might be thinking: "why would a teenage girl want to own any of these as pets? None of these sound like animals that should be pets." Well, first off: you'd be hard pressed to find a young girl that doesn't want a wolf or a tiger as a pet, that's just how they are, c'mon.

Second, there are three primary reasons Rhea thinks this is a more realistic idea than it is:

Exotic "pet" owners among the upper class: While exotic pet ownership isn't big in Vestur as a whole, it has a notable presence among the Southern upper class, both noble and common. Rhea is the duchess of the Southern Kingdom so she is well aware of every instance of somebody paying excessive amounts of guilder to import something they shouldn't and stick it in their courtyard. As I've mentioned before, this is a sin Ancha is guilty of, having gotten swept up in a past "teacup baku" craze/scam some 4 decades ago. Unlike her peers, however, she kept her baku, Fig, even after he outgrew his alleged "adult size" of 1'9" at the withers. Others culled theirs once they became large enough to cause mass property damage. Ancha knows Fig is a massive, terrifying wild animal and does not recommend anyone repeat her mistake, but being raised in captivity he cannot be returned to the wild and so she's committed to caring for him for as long of his estimated 70~ish year lifespan that she's here for.

Haretouched Northerners: The "haretouched" is a strange phenomenon that exists in the North. Now, we haven't posted a formal explanation of what exactly being haretouched means yet - I'll save that explanation for Dan to write at a later date. In the meantime, to very briefly summarize what it means: occasionally, a hare will bond with a specific human. Those who have bonded to a hare are said to be "haretouched" - or more bluntly, cursed. The haretouched are treated as pariahs by broader society, though they are begrudgingly tolerated in the North itself and destigmatized by Northern nomad clans. While Northern nobility has done its best to keep the haretouched out of their bloodlines (save for the Lord of the Nomads, who is seldom acknolwedged, much less counted), occasionally a fluke will occur regardless and you end up with someone like Quincy or Lamonte. Rhea, of course, is just a Southern bystander who thinks the idea of having a murder-bunny for a friend would kick ass.

Captive beasts performing in circuses: Self-explanatory. Sphinxes especially are a popular choice for exploitative entertainment because of their mimicry abilities, and are often trained to have "conversations" or "sing."

[pearly-sims]

I was rereading chapter 2 and I've got a question

Did we ever find out who threw this can?

[jbbartram-illu]

Do you think you'll make sphinxs again? I loved them so much and missed the last chance to buy them. Would you do a commission?

back to answering questions, see? pls clap :)

Sphinxes are definitely always a possibility! In fact I made a few in my last batch of 2023 who are hanging around in my studio until I feel up to another shop update (see them below). I do want to get back to making some more sgraffito ones, tho - I really like how those tuned out!

In terms of commissions, I'm still working out how to balance taking them & also keeping most of my pottery time for noodling away at what I want to do (since, despite the fact they're firmly a part of my professional art practice at this point, I still want to keep ceramics a more casual/fun/experimental thing). What I'm saying is: I'm still figuring it out, but pls stay tuned!!

(& if anyone has offered commissions [in any kind of art], I'm open to suggestions re: how you managed it!)

[combjelli]

I know I already did phoenix Rodimus but what about sphinx Rodimus (Deadlock doesn't get to be fully painted 💛)

Little close up of sad deadlock in his hood >:)

[teecupangel]

Hi!!! So, I read your post about Desmond as a t-rex, and paleontology is a huge passion of mine, so I made some art! I really strive for accuracy, so this is different from what your wrote about Desmond. This version is based on ambush predator t-rex, who has padded feet to make their steps almost silent, and who can't roar but makes a low frequency bellow that we wouldn't be able to hear, but feel as it vibrates everything around for miles. Anyway, basically Desmond stalking an unfortunate templar in the night fog (you can decide which assassin is riding him lol)

Oh my god. I love this.

Yeeesss, this kind of T-Rex would absolutely suit Desmond.

Because of the whole hunting aspect of his new form, I'm kinda imagining the Assassin riding him is Ratonhnhaké:ton.

Like... imagine being a colonist and having to deal with an unknown 'monster' that everyone has never seen before.

Before long, someone's gonna call the land a curse or they're being hunted down because they don't belong there XD