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ghostxraven · 3 years

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hi love im deep in ur art blog for reasons and im SO in love with the fact that ur ghoul has his OWN nickname tattooed on him in party's writing they are SO 🥺 was wondering if you wanted to talk a bit more abt ghouls tattoos??? theyre just SO gorgeous and intricately laid out

HI i LOVE u i am KISSING u i would love love love to talk about ghoul’s tattoos 🥺❤️

^ yeah ghoul & party have each other’s handwriting tattooed!! for party it’s one of the only tattoos they have & it’s right over their heart (im sure ive mentioned this fact before but idk if ive explicitly noted that it says ‘sunshine’) and ghoul didn’t have the space to put his right over his heart because poison’s kj symbol is there so his is on his upper arm (they ARE soooooooo 🥺 i love them)

ghoul’s tattoos are a healthy mix of sentimental ink and things he just thought were beautiful. when he met the rest of the four he didn’t have THAT many tattoos because 1. he was 14 2. he’d only been in the zones for a little under a year and a half at that point but the ones he DID have (aka his oldest tattoos) were his knuckle tattoos (‘freed’ and ‘fuck’ what can i say he was 13), the big raven on his upper shoulder and neck (he started believing in the witch very early compared to other cityborns but yeah that tattoo was both a way of symbolizing his devotion to the witch and a way of marking himself as a killjoy/shedding his past in the city in the way that he considered clearest), the fangs on his hand, two bats on his leg, the zombie bite on the other side of his neck (i could get a little more into this but BASICALLY ghoul being an ex-crow trainee + a cityborn + being the only surviving member of his first crew had a problem with feeling inhuman and a lot of survivor’s guilt and so he really. idk he connected a lot with zombies & frankenstein’s monster and ghosts & the like when he was a runner for dr. d post-his crew’s deaths. he got better about Seeing Himself as a Person especially once kobra + the other two showed up but the fascination remained) (also not tattoo-related but that’s when he chose his name. before that he’d been called ‘sandpup’ by his old crew & he never had a chance to tell them before they passed but he really loved that they used that as a name for him especially with how much he didn’t want to associate himself with the city) (ghoul had A Lot of issues but the difference there is that he worked thru them a lot earlier than the rest of the four) and “I FORGIVE U” on the back of his neck (in remembrance of said former crew).

umm along with that kind of fascination with the undead/feeling that kind of connection are the frankenstein stitches on his wrists (tho thats more of a common hc) and he has this pretty big tattoo of abstracted bones following his vertebrae down his throat and chest that he’s gotten expanded/fixed/touched up over the years. ik i do a lot of b&w doodles but i feel like i’ve been kind of inconsistent about coloring (most of his tattoos are color). pretty sure ive mostly drawn them in green (???) but in my head they’re like a faded light blue using natural skin tone as highlights.

his more sentimental tattoos…let me see if i can outline them here. this might not be exhaustive but i will do my best to list what ive figured out at least thus far:

the two little bats on his right thigh are for his grandmother and little sister. his sister (juliet adele fujikawa, b. april 2009 d. december 2014) was killed in a car crash shortly before he left the city, and likewise, his grandmother (charlotte fujikawa [藤川千尋] b. june 1936 d. december 2014) was “moved to retirement housing” at about the same time. that was pretty much the last straw & ghoul left battery city within the week

there’s his crewmates’ symbols on his chest (in order from his right to left: kobra, jet, party) (gotten when their crew had been together for a while. dating this one is based on a couple things: 1. ghoul had been with them for long enough that he felt secure 2. poison and ghoul were friends by this point, or else he wouldn’t have included their symbol and 3. poison’s is over his heart so you can read into that as you will)

text from the graffiti bible on his right calf, as protection for his crew & as a reminder of one of his former friends who was a droid that believed very strongly in destroya’s return

his raygun on his chest (he was pretty proud of the design! this was when he was ~15 or 16) that he had poison’s added to post-sing post-engagement pre-commitment ceremony (so. september 2023) (yes i have my handwritten timeline + my own drawings + my fics out in front of me rn cross-referencing sldkdksksbx!)

one of the girl’s childhood drawings (one she drew of him & her & the stuffed animal he made for her when she was a baby all having a tea party together) from when she’s about 5 or so on his right hip (december 2022 or so)

shooting stars on his upper right shoulder, partially because they’re pretty and blend well with his other tattoos and partially because they’re a reminder of a lot of things, including but not limited to his first night out in the zones seeing the stars for the first time, stories his grandma used to tell him, and right when he’d first joined the fab four and him & kobra sat on the roof during a meteor shower

besides the other one i already mentioned ^ he has more of poison’s handwriting on his left inner forearm — this is also one ive mentioned before but once they’ve been in a relationship for a while they get into the habit of leaving little love notes around for each other! there’s nothing particularly special specifically about the one he got tattooed, besides the fact that it reminded him of poison and they love each other. the text in full (which i don’t think ive ever put anywhere, though im pretty sure ive put fragments of it in fics and art) is as follows:

Good Morning baby <3! I needed new paints, went on a run. Kobra has the Girl @ the Crash Track, Jet’s at the station. call me when you wake up! I love you, be back soon. XO Party <3

he also has the anniversaries of when they started dating and their commitment ceremony (03•03•21 and 10•26•23 respectively) on the inside of his right wrist ^ !

he’s got a snake wrapping around his left leg that kobra picked out and a hand of cards with the ace of spades face up that jet picked out (and these ofc are because they remind him of his crewmates!!)

he has the phoenix witch tattooed on his ribs, left side, styled vaguely after catholic saints (since that imagery can still be found in the inner zones & especially where ‘joys who still practice that religion gather!)

there’s a version of the eye from the mailbox on his right shoulder, and this one is also a sort of symbol of protection/good luck, to show devotion to the witch and to help protect himself and his crew

the constellation libra on his left forearm! this one was done a little while after he started running transmissions and supplies for dr. d! he liked the connection that astrology — whether he believed in the practice or not is up for debate — gave people to the stars, and the feeling that he had a place in the universe, predestined or not

after charlie is born, he gets a portrait of her (~age 4) with her name and birthday underneath done on his left thigh! (~2036)

and on his lower back, he has a fairly simple tattoo of two crows on a wire with their beaks pressed together (aughhhhhh romance) that he gets done as an anniversary surprise for their 10-year (so. 2033)!

his non-sentimental tattoos are largely based off of images from books, either from dr. d’s collection when he was working as a runner for him or from cherri’s after he joined up with the fab four, or else they’re naturally occurring in the zones!! this includes but is not limited to: california golden poppies on the back of his left shoulder, strawberries around his left bicep (he doesn’t ever have a strawberry until he’s like 35, this one is absolutely based off of a particularly pretty illustration), a thundercloud with lightning on his left elbow, a moon on his right inner bicep, a ring of thorns around his right forearm right under the elbow, a dagger on his inner left calf, and a sun, small bat, cross, rose, ribbon (with the word ‘faith’ in script), and wing on his right forearm and hand, all picked from flash sheets

so yeah! that’s about everything i have to say about ghoul’s tattoos atm but ty ty ty sm for letting me ramble abt them i think about his tattoos so much 😔❤️

#danger days #fun ghoul #ttlotfk #killjoys california #headcanons #killjoys #funpoison #hcs #pi's personal #jordan tag ⚠️#query on top #i LOVE U SM !!!!! 💕❤️💕❤️💕❤️#sorry you got an essay & also that it took me all day to get this out i have SO many thoughts #& i really hope i didn’t miss anything but i MIGHT have because tumblr deleted half of what i typed when i tried to save a draft SO.

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laurelnose · 3 years

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Very New to your blog and the posts are probably way old but I saw you do Witcher Biology (??) rants sometimes and Id love to hear your take, if you have one, on what monsters (namely "naturally occurring" ones like draconids and insectoids) contribute to the ecosystem if anything and whether or not they should be hunted into extinction. I was discussing it w/ a friend last night after dealing with Iocaste, the last silver basilisk, and now its smthn I'm Invested in

re monster ecosystems: I just figure theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans but because theyve got no natural predators aside from eachother and arent hunted by anything but witchers , monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ? Ive little knowledge on the subject as a whole but the whole thing intrigues me

hi & extremely belated welcome, anon! my apologies for the length of time you’ve been waiting for this answer; I had to think carefully about how I wanted to respond to this ask, because: there’s a lot going on here. also, because I am a disaster, I ended up posting it to ao3 first while I was avoiding tumblr for a spell and then completely forgot to come back. oops. i’m sorry!! This one’s about 5000 words long, which is a lot for tumblr, so reading on AO3 may be preferable.

The two main thrusts of your first ask (how do monsters interact with the ecosystem and should they be eradicated from the Continent) are questions of invasion ecology, the study of non-native/invasive species and their effects on the environment. Monsters, having arrived on the Continent about 1200 years ago during the Conjunction of Spheres from entirely alien dimensions, are indeed technically non-native species!

However, invasion ecology is…somewhat controversial, to say the least—there are a lot of invasive species, who have a lot of different & complex impacts, and a lot of different ideas about what we might do about any of this, and it’s basically all arguing all the time, so I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to approach the topic. Not to mention that for reasons I couldn’t initially put my finger on, it seemed wrong to apply theories of invasion ecology to the Witcher monsters. We’ll get into it! There are also a couple of common misconceptions/oversimplifications of how ecology works in your second ask which I want to unpack. Hopefully I pulled this together into something that makes sense, and feel free to ask me for clarification!

Some important background facts:

Species have always been moving to and “invading” new places on their own; humans and globalization have accelerated this process into a Big Problem, as the sheer number of invasive species being introduced all over the globe strains ecosystems already under pressure, but “native ranges” are always shifting, sometimes more dramatically than you might expect. If you go far enough back in time, all species are “non-native”.

Because of this, the very definition of “invasive species” is hotly contested. This is why you’ll hear dozens of terms like introduced species, injurious species, naturalized species, non-native species, etc.; these all have slightly different connotations, but all refer to a species that did not originate in a particular location.

An introduced species is usually classified as “invasive” as opposed to “non-native” or “naturalized” if its presence significantly alters the ecosystem it invades; some people define this more narrowly as a species that causes harm to an ecosystem. “Harm” can take a lot of different forms, as every non-native species interacts differently with the ecosystem they were introduced to.

Aside from various potential impacts to human economic activity, most forms of ecological harm by introduced species involve the decline of native species, by a variety of mechanisms; invaders might eat natives, outcompete them for food, interbreed with them, carry novel pathogens, etc. Invasive species are primarily a threat to biodiversity.

Now, here’s my Hot Take:

The Conjunction of Spheres is analogous to real-life ecological cataclysms such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and thus monsters are not invasive species.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event saw the extinction of 75% of all species on Earth after the Chicxulub asteroid hit, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The Earth has had several disasters like this, of varying severity—the Great Oxidation Event killed almost literally everything on Earth except for the cyanobacteria who caused it. These cataclysmic extinction events completely upended existing ecosystems, altering habitats beyond recognition and leaving swathes of niches emptied of life that the survivors could evolve to exploit.

The most recent Conjunction of Spheres on the Continent is supposed to have thrown everyone living on the planet at the time into chaos and darkness; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the interpenetration of multiple spheres caused mass extinction of species living in the pre-Conjunction environment, similar to Chicxulub or the GOE!

But Socks, you might say, evolution works on a massive timescale! It took millions of years to fill the niches left open by Chicxulub, but it’s only been 1200 years since the Conjunction of Spheres! And you are absolutely right*, but the Conjunction of Spheres canonically came pre-loaded with new species. We actually have no proof that any of the animals we see originated on the Continent: if humans are a post-Conjunction phenomenon, why not also dogs? Why not bears? Who’s to say any of those were actually there before-hand? (The elves, I guess, but as they have not, actually, said so, there’s no proof!!)

* FTR, 1200 years is a shockingly short period of time to go from cataclysm that plunged the world into darkness and chaos to functioning medieval-era society considering how long it actually took humanity to build 13 century Europe (horses had been domesticated for at least 3000 years by that time), even if we’re not assuming that most of the ecosystem was destroyed, so, my timeline concerns here are minimal, lmfao. TIMELINE WHAT TIMELINE.

…and actually now that I think about it the three options for the origin of dogs are a) elves or dwarves domesticated them, b) humans brought dogs with them during the Conjunction, or c) dogs have existed for less than 1200 years, and I refuse to accept that dogs are practically a new invention in the witcherverse, wtf.

Anyways: we really have no idea which species are truly “native” to the Continent, or what the physical environment was like prior to the Conjunction. While monsters are not native to the Continent, monsters are also not invasive—there cannot be decline of pre-Conjunction biodiversity or harm to the pre-Conjunction ecosystem because there is no pre-Conjunction ecosystem anymore.

should monsters be hunted to extinction?

So, the thing is, I think we should try to eradicate invasive species from non-native ranges if we can; the biggest problem with that is feasibility, not morality. It’s much more difficult than one might think to eradicate an invasive species once it’s established, and we have to be very careful that the methods we choose don’t have other impacts, but invasive species are a huge threat to the biodiversity of Earth! If monsters are invasive species, then the answer is yes, they should be eradicated from the places they are not native to.

(Notably, on Earth this kind of eradication is not the same thing as extinction; it would be a local extinction, or extirpation, where the species is totally wiped out in the places it invaded but still exists in its native range. This does get way more complicated if the invasive is already extinct in its native range.)

However, I have just outlined a possibility that would make it plausible for monsters not to be invasive species. Let me also outline why I prefer this interpretation. Here is a book conversation between the sorcerer Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt:

“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it. … Every species has its own natural enemies, every one is the natural enemy of other species. That also includes humans. The extermination of the natural enemies of humans, which you dedicate yourself to, and which one can begin to observe, threatens the degeneration of the race.”

“Do you know what, sorcerer?” Geralt said, annoyed. “One day, take yourself to a mother whose child has been devoured by a basilisk, and tell her she ought to be glad, because thanks to that the human race has escaped degeneration. See what she says to you.”

–The Bounds of Reason, ch. 6

This is a, uh, incredibly unsubtle reference to a debate that has been ongoing for decades; Geralt’s stance here is one of the key arguments in opposition to wolf and bear reintroduction. What do we do about large predators that may pose a threat to humans? How do we balance preservation of the ecosystem with the safety of people who have to coexist with these predators?

I can’t fully agree with Geralt, because large predators are integral to the ecosystem, which I value for its own sake and because humans depend on healthy ecosystems. But I can’t fully agree with Dorregaray either, because Geralt is right: human life is valuable and worthy of protecting. This is an issue that India has been running into in the past ten years; as their tiger conservation efforts yield fruit, people become more likely to encounter tigers, and thus more likely to have a bad encounter with a tiger. It’s become a political struggle as rural people who have to actually live with the possibility of a tiger attack come into conflict with urban conservationists who just really want to preserve tigers (& in some incidents, some of those conservationists have been Western, which is a whole additional level of fuckery). The fact is, there isn’t a good answer to this yet! We certainly should not drive tigers, wolves, or any other large predator to extinction, but we also have to figure out a way to keep people safe. It’s something humanity still has to wrestle with.

Under this framing, which CDPR reinforced when they chose to have the Count di Salvaress defend Iocaste as an endangered species while making significant provisions to minimize the damage she could do to human life, there’s far too much baggage attached for me to say yes, monsters should be hunted into extinction. If you’re going to make monsters analogous to wolves, of course I do not think we should get rid of monsters entirely!

And frankly, Geralt doesn’t think so either, despite his hardline stance about monsters that eat humans. Sapkowski isn’t exactly an anti-conservationist; though Dorregaray is shown as out of touch in this passage, at another point the narrative sides with him calling Philippa out on exterminating a species of ermine for her fur collar, and it’s consistently put forth that Geralt’s best quality is that he doesn’t want to perform violence for the sake of it or destroy things without cause, and one of the representations of that is that he refuses to kill endangered species even at cost to himself:

“What should I say about you, who rejects a lucrative proposition every other day? You won’t kill hirikkas, because they’re an endangered species, or mecopterans, because they’re harmless, or night spirits, because they’re sweet, or dragons, because your code forbids it.”

–Eternal Flame, ch. 2

If monsters and other post-Conjunction creatures are invasive species, the nuance in this conversation is flattened, and Geralt’s refusal to kill mecopterans and hirikkas becomes a flaw rather than a virtue. Boring! I also think that one of the strongest themes in the witcherverse is the idea of all monsters being human ills; wraiths are manifestations of hatred, necrophages multiply because of human bloodshed, cursed ones are created out of malice, mages like Alzur and Idarran of Ulivo go out of their way to straight-up create monsters from scratch*, etc. Iocaste attacks humans and takes livestock because the traditional prey of the silver basilisk, roe deer, has been extirpated by human destruction of their habitat. The aeschna in Blood of Elves attacks humans because humans have altered and polluted the flow of the Pontar, hunting the aeschna’s previous food (seals) to extinction. The true monster is the actions of humans. Monsters that appeared unbidden from another dimension into a previously functional ecosystem to invade and cause problems undermines this theme; monsters that are integrated into the ecosystem and subject to the same social and ecological forces as other animals supports it.

* Idarran’s “idr” monsters from Season of Storms absolutely should be eradicated. Did the world not have enough man-eating arthropods, Idarran? Did you really have to mutate horrible new ones and release them in populated areas?? Mages are a scourge, lmfao

Additionally, one of the biggest reasons I felt like I couldn’t actually apply invasion ecology to monsters was that, whether you accept my Conjunction theory as sufficient biological justification for this or not, monsters just don’t really behave like invasive species. It’s hard to explain this because the setting is pretty brief about its ecological details, but aside from the fact that the narrative frames them like just part of the ecosystem of the world, there are never any details like “that type of flower doesn’t exist anymore because giant centipede tunneling destroyed the soil they needed to grow in.” When monsters are the aggressors, their victims are always humans, not the environment or other animals, and again monsters are themselves often treated as victims of human actions.

So I say monsters aren’t invasive species!

Which means that monsters are, regardless of their strange origins, now a part of the Continent’s ecosystem just as much as bears and wolves.

So let’s talk monster ecology.

what do monsters contribute to the ecosystem, if anything?

So, the phrase “contributing to the ecosystem” is actually super loaded, and I want to unpack that before we go anywhere else. Ecosystems are made up of organisms, and organisms interact with and impact ecosystems, but they don’t necessarily contribute to ecosystems! The implication of “contribute” is that it is possible for an organism to not contribute, and it follows from there that some organisms are not useful. This is functionally nonsensical, and also dangerous.

Conservationists talk a lot about “intrinsic value,” which in this context is the idea that we should want to keep species around just because their existence is valuable! Biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. This is important, firstly because I do believe that all species are intrinsically valuable, but also: ecosystems are so enormously complicated that we do not know the full extent of any species or individual organism’s impact, and we can’t predict what the consequences of removing any given species might be. Treating all species as intrinsically valuable is hedging our bets. All organisms affect the ecosystem, because it’s impossible for them not to, and while some species definitely have outsize impact, none of them are “not contributing,” and frankly even if some of them weren’t, it would be the absolute height of human arrogance for us to decide we could tell which ones were useless when we barely even know what most species eat. Mosquitoes are the base of the entire goddamn food chain, and you still get assholes claiming they don’t “contribute anything.” Of course, most people don’t really mean all of these implications when they use the phrase, but I don’t find it useful to talk about what species “contribute,” and avoid using that language if I can!

What I assume you mean by “what do monsters contribute” is a combination of “what roles might monsters play in the ecosystem” and “are monsters actively harmful to the ecosystem, i.e. do they cause loss of biodiversity?”

And this is difficult to answer! As I’ve said, I don’t think monsters are invasive species, and thus don’t harm the ecosystem, though we know that monsters can be harmful to humans. However, when it comes to the role they do play in the ecosystem, there isn’t enough in canon for me to do more than wildly speculate! Also, there are so so many of them, and the role of a hirikka is going to be wildly different from that of a draconid.

Just offhandedly, most of the big predatory monsters can be assumed to fill the same roles as Earth’s big predators, one of the big ones being overpopulation of prey species, which has ramifications throughout the ecosystem. Some of them are canonically ecosystem engineers, or animals that physically alter their environment (think beavers); for instance, shaelmaar and nekker tunneling. Additionally, the big insectoid colonies can’t be relying solely on naturally-occurring caves for their homes; they’ve gotta be constructing some stuff themselves. These tunnels can be repurposed as habitat for other organisms, from giant centipedes to sewant mushrooms. Necrophages, like corpse-eaters in our world, likely limit the spread of diseases from decomposing flesh (and really wouldn’t be as much of an issue if everyone would stop, you know, doing war and mass murder, lmfao). Arachasae use tree trunks and organic plant material to conceal themselves, which is likely contributing to plant reproduction in a few different ways—but the arachasae decorating essay is a different topic that I swear I will finish one day oh my god—

…anyways, feel free to ask about any specific monsters or niches if you’re curious, but if I tried to go into detail with every single potential niche/ecosystem service all of the monsters we know of might fill, we would be here all day!

Let’s talk about a couple specific things you brought up in your second ask.

> theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans

I mean…maybe! That is, yeah, they’ve definitely settled into niches by now, but feeding is way more complicated and interesting than that.

For instance: orcas can eat basically whatever the fuck they want—orcas are fully capable of bringing down everything from fish to seals to gray whales to great white sharks. But they don’t. In the Pacific Northwest, the resident orca pods almost exclusively eat salmon, while the transient pods largely feed on seals. Orcas are kind of an extreme example, but this is something called resource partitioning and it’s a big part of how animals limit competition with one another and what enables lots of predators to coexist in one place!

We see a big fuck-off dragon thing and we assume that it’ll eat anything it can fit in its mouth, and definitely some predators work like that. But just because an animal is technically capable of eating something and deriving nutrition from it doesn’t mean that it will. Silver basilisks made roe deer the staple of their diet before the destruction of beech forests meant they had to turn to humans—which is a pretty specific dietary restriction when there should be multiple species of deer running around, not to mention everything else a draconid could be killing! And given how many types of draconid there are…I have to assume there’s some kind of resource partitioning going on to prevent them all from conflicting with each other! For instance, if basilisks prefer roe deer, maybe forktails prefer wild goats, while wyverns are mostly kleptoparasitic (stealing other predators’ kills).

And of course, not all monsters eat humans at all; harpies steal from and attack humans, so they’re a dangerous nuisance, but they don’t seem to eat them. And in the books Geralt mentions plenty of monsters which are totally harmless.

So yes, there are lots of things monsters could be eating, but it would strongly depend, and there’s a lot of interesting places one can take monster diets! Netflix decided their strigas only eat specific organs, leaving the rest of the body untouche, & I love that for her. More monsters that need a particular kind of nutrition that leads them to take only specific body parts from some kills!

> because theyve got no natural predators aside from each other and arent hunted by anything but witchers, monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ?

Absolutely—invasive species whose populations rapidly increase once they’re away from their natural predators cause the decline of native species, often by eating natives directly or competing with natives for resources. And in fact, even native species who become overpopulated can seriously damage the ecosystem (see: white-tailed deer in the United States, whose overpopulation has such negative ecological effects that some people argue we should classify them as invasive, even though they have definitely been here this whole time).

However, even if we grant that monsters are invasive, it’s a little more complicated than that for a few reasons!

Despite the apparent preponderance of them in the witcher games, most monsters are supposed to be strongly on the decline, like witchers themselves. Geralt’s profession is falling out of necessity; human development of the Continent is going to be the biggest suppressing factor in monster populations in the future. Monster overpopulation is just canonically not a problem in this universe! But even in the scenario where the Inevitable March Of Civilization isn’t threatening monster populations, there are a lot of factors that could and would limit monster populations.

(TL;DR for this next part: yeah I definitely think they’ve figured out their own little circle of life—the term you’re looking for is ecosystem equilibrium, btw!—& I’m going to take the next 1.2k to talk about how.)

For starters, predation is only one among many limiting factors that affect populations & prevent them from ballooning out of control:

food availability: If there’s not enough food, there’s not enough food! It also matters how adaptable the animal’s diet is—silver basilisks moved from deer to humans, but if the eucalyptus went extinct koalas would not switch to eating cycads.

illness and parasites: Some people argue these are more important than direct predation for limiting populations, and I am often inclined to agree. Basically, if a population becomes very dense, illness and parasites spread more quickly, creating a natural limiter on how many animals can live in any one place. The greater susceptibility of some individuals to illness or parasites also winnows down populations. Non-native species often escape a good portion of their native diseases by moving to a new range—however, given how fast bacteria and viruses evolve, 1,200 years is a pretty decent amount of time for new diseases to arise. Also, just going to drop a link to my treatise on monster parasites here. It’s gross, mind the warning at the start of the post.

mate availability: If only a certain percentage of the population is actually able to reproduce, that’ll eventually bring the total number down. RIP Iocaste’s boyfriend 😔

territory/shelter availability: Animals need a certain amount of space and certain types of spaces to survive, and space isn’t infinite! It again depends on how adaptable an animal is; rats find ways to thrive nearly everywhere, but pandas can only live where there’s bamboo. If there’s not enough space to hide from predators, reproduce safely, store food, and avoid adverse weather, the population again limits itself naturally.

natural disasters: Wildfires, drought, flooding, tsunamis, storms, etc. pick off significant portions of wildlife populations. Disasters are sporadic rather than directly linked to population like most of the other factors but these periodic blows to population and the other impacts of fire or flooding are often integral to the ecosystem (see especially: fire regimes and fire ecology.)

Now let’s talk predation & monsters! (Genuinely, I think predation is one of the most interesting things in ecology; people tend to simplify it down to things eat other things, which—yeah, but there’s so much more going on there!)

First, I wouldn’t underestimate the effects of monsters eating other monsters! Even if it’s rare for a draconid to snatch up a nekker and carry it off, the threat of a draconid doing so can have dramatic impacts; researchers found that just playing the sound of dog barks on a beach stopped raccoons from foraging for crabs for over a month after the barking stopped, leading to an increase in crab populations, even though no raccoons ever encountered a dog. This is called the ecosystem of fear (which as a term is metal as hell) and it theorizes that just the fear of predators can lead to chronic stress for prey animals, decreasing reproduction and making them more susceptible to disease. Maybe draconids in Toussaint eat only a few dozen nekkers a year, but that might cause thousands of nekkers to have fewer offspring or fall to disease. When it comes to ecosystems the direct effect is usually only a small part of the story!

Second, when we talk about a species not having natural predators, we’re usually talking about an animal that would have a predator back in its home range—lionfish, for instance, have plenty of predators in their natural range (the Indo-Pacific), but no natural predators in their invasive range (the Caribbean), so invasive lionfish, suddenly freed of a limiting factor, can run amok. However, a great white shark has, aside from orcas (who do not actually eat white sharks, they’re just assholes sometimes) and occasionally other white sharks, more or less no natural predators anywhere once it reaches maturity, and that’s fine! Lack of predation of great white sharks did not cause their populations to explode and consume the ocean. White sharks are limited by other factors.

So: it is possible that wherever draconids originated (and it’s entirely possible that “draconids” came from multiple different places, tbh) there was something bigger that preyed on them, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they were also apex predators in their previous dimension (I mean…look at them), and that adult draconids were never really preyed on by anything else! It isn’t necessarily an issue for there not to be predators of certain monsters on the Continent.

(Though, of course, we also shouldn’t forget that most apex predators are prey when they’re young—baby white sharks are snack-sized for a lot of fishes, and bear cubs and wolf pups are similarly vulnerable. Based on the size of the eggs you see in TW3 draconid nests, a basilisk is hatched around the size of a little dog, which is the perfect size for small, ballsy predators such as wolverines to sneak into a nest and snap them up—predators such as more wolverines or raptors like eagles and hawks might also come directly for the eggs.)

When it comes to smaller monsters such as nekkers, who likely weren’t apex predators in their original dimensions and would thus be subject to that lack of natural predators—there are usually specific reasons why prey species manage to avoid predation in their introduced range. Lionfish confound Caribbean predators because lionfish are covered with huge poisonous spines that Caribbean predators don’t know how to deal with.

Drowners, on the other hand, are basically just man-shaped fish; they don’t have any adaptations or defenses that would really stump a bear or a wolf. Again, bigger monsters are still probably checking the populations of smaller monsters no matter what, but there’s really no reason a bear couldn’t figure out how to eat a drowner! Unless a monster has a unique defense (e.g. scurver spines), is actively distasteful to eat (rotfiends, probably), or is just difficult to take down (nekkers in packs), most of the non-monster predators* on the Continent will have incorporated various monsters into their diet by now, or suppressed monster populations indirectly with the threat of predation or by competing with them for food. It has been over a thousand years, which is nothing evolutionarily but is still a decent period of time for mammals, who pass hunting techniques down to their babies, to figure out how to eat ghouls—especially if we’re considering that the Continent’s mammals may also be a result of the Conjunction and would thus have to have been just as adaptable as the monsters to establish themselves. And I’ve also actually talked before about how wolves specifically might be preying on necrophages!

* For reference, the non-monster predators are, considering the Continent is more or less Europe, most likely lynxes, brown bears/polar bears (in Skellige), wolverines, foxes, badgers, and a variety of large birds of prey.

So—yes, if monsters were truly overpopulating, then that would damage the ecosystem. However, canon tells us they are definitely not doing that, and there are also many factors that would prevent that from happening!

(Though I will say that some of the reasons white-tailed deer are overpopulated are that we got rid of cougars and wolves and human development creates a lot of extra habitat of the type that deer like. Given that we know many of draconids are for sure in significant danger of going extinct, and the trajectory that Europe’s wolf and bear populations followed in real life, it is possible that the Continent will have to contend with an overpopulation of some of the smaller monsters at some point as they continue to try to eradicate the larger predators, both monster and non-monsters—you think the drowner problem is bad now, wait until the bears are gone and city development has tripled the number of sewers. Yet another of those humans-make-monster-problems-worse things I am fond of in the Witcherverse!)

…whew. that was a lot of words. In conclusion: ecology is really cool & there’s a bunch of ways monsters can fit into it!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #and a bit of #witcher book blogging #asks #anonymous

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legumelupin · 3 years

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i dont think i will ever argue with someone about whether or not wolfstar is canon. idk how to put it but if you don’t think it’s canon, fine whatever i’m not going to force you to think it is or even debate with you about it. but that just means you probably not queer/can’t read queer-coding which again, is fine, but is incredibly straight of you and at this point i just don’t know if we’ll have similar opinions for the rest of series and i’m not interested in arguing about things. you don’t have to explicitly ship wolfstar to acknowledge sirius and remus’s queercoding but by not acknowledging the way they were written, it’s kind of like ignoring key aspects of their characters.

i have a friend irl who is very Straight and is a ‘gryffindor’ (she’s a ravenclaw who wants her main character moment and i dont blame her but please, you can be the main character and not be gryffindor (this is not important to this small rant)). but i brought up wolfstar to her and she said ‘haha yeah! ive seen theories about that but i just love remus and tonks. but it’s interesting!’

....

........

.................

okay goodbye. we can be friends but ur on thin ice and now you make me nervous. remus lupin is so obviously written as gay/bi and tonks so obviously as queer in some type of way that anyone who doesn’t see how forced remodora is makes me nervous. not saying you can’t or shouldn’t ship it but the author saw she wrote one obviously gay character and another who was definitely queer, probably non-binary and almost certainly a lesbian and tried to pair them together and in doing so took a very interesting and different character and made her.....plain? it just doesn’t make sense in a lot of ways and literally just feels Not Right. yes, there was a war happening at the time and everything and wartime marriages and not knowing if you’ll live to the next day and what have you but i personally don’t feel like that applies to this specific case.

bc remodora is so heteronormative in a way and forced and it doesn’t make sense. there are a lot of ways it can be written to make sense, i’m sure but even harry was shocked in the books at tonks and remus’s relationship. and i don’t chalk that up to his obviliousness. he was right in being confused because there was little to no chemistry.

anyway, straights just need to, in the words of kakashi hatake from naruto, see underneath the underneath. because there is no way that remus lupin wasn’t gay and that wolfstar wasn’t a thing at the very least during their time at and immediately after hogwarts.

this was just a little personal rant about straight people ✨ not aimed at anyone specifically here at all i just see a lot of hp tiktok and people who take remus to be straight.

and any baby gay/queer who just discover wolfstar, this isn’t about you either. this is specifically about straight people who can’t read queercoding and take canon at face value without criticizing it at all (which is obviously a much larger conversation).

THIS IS NOT A REMODORA HATE POST!!!! i have said it once on this blog i will say it a thousand more times: i do not care who you ship. i will not bother you about who you ship (with the obvious exceptions of pedophilia but that’s a whole other conversation). but in this case, remodora stans continue on strong i love you for shipping this ship, it’s just not my personal boat.

#sirius black #remus lupin #harry potter #wolfstar #tiktok #the marauders #i just really needed to get this out there #like you dont have to ship wolfstar explicitly honestly #you just have to be able to read a story critically and see that the author did write queer characters even on accident #that’s showbiz baby!!!#tw queer #also i know there are people who don’t like the word queer and that’s totally valid but that is literally how i describe both my gender #and sexuality #and it’s becoming sort of a reclaimed word and an umbrella term #very valid if it makes you uncomfy but people who are in the lgbt community #will use it regardless probably but i will tag any post from now on with queer in it as a tw

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thejudgingtrash · 4 years

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would you class percy as a morally grey character? i’m really interested to hear your input

Anon 2: Would u class percy as an Morally Gray character?

Hey there! Let me write that essay for you about morally gray Percy ^^

It’s not about whether Percy is a morally gray character or not, it’s about he has to be otherwise the story doesn’t make any sense. At least for me it wouldn’t.

Ashley (@gr33kg0ds) said in the tags of my dark!Percy post something along the line of people diminishing Percy’s character because they need him to be pure and fluffy and I wholeheartedly agree with that!

Just because Percy’s twelve doesn’t mean he’s pure and didn’t do unproblematic things. I’ll mostly refer to The Lightning Thief because that book is the Magnus Opus for Riordan and perfectly stands for Percy as a morally gray character from the very beginning of the saga. (Also the only book I’ve recently re-read)

As much as I love fanon with all the amazing artworks, debates, memes and jokes, analysis, cool edits and wonderful fanfics, projecting your version of Percy doesn’t make the image in your head real. Percy in canon is not the fun and fluffy boy you imagine him to be or which social media sites (Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and yes, also Tumblr) tend to make him to be. He’s a scrawny little sarcastic twerp that was the unpopular kid. He isn’t that cringy dude Tony Lopez doing that fucking weird TikTok dance (side note: I don’t even know who this person is and I don't care, I saw the video and immediately wanted to delete every social media app on my phone, so thanks Tony?), kissing his Yeezys goodnight, vibing to our lord and gay icon Taylord “T. Swizzle” Swift song and flexing them iPhone 11 Max Pros. Percy literally said that going to Burger King with his mother once in a while would be considered a luxury. He’s a poor bastard in literal sense.

Part of the problem with the distinction of Percy’s character and his motives stem from the fact that Percy is a sneaky unreliable narrator and we as the audience (especially if you’re younger) don’t question most of his behavior if you even question some (pretty sure that most of us only picked up weird stuff as adults). Everything seems plausible to you. But does it mean that his behavior is necessarily good? Something that would paint his character as good?

Like I’ve said, let’s take a look at TLT. The very beginning of everything and the wonderful line that gets quoted everywhere: “Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood”.

The very first line that quoted everywhere or used as in moodboard and edits but its meaning and significance get brushed off for the most part. It immediately sets the tone and the atmosphere for the book and for Percy as a character. A(n in my opinion) morally gray character. The very first thing we hear from Percy is that he doesn’t want to be in this world. He’s an involuntary participant who has been (upon further reading) blackmailed and forced into this world and is only cooperating to get his mother back and said in regards to his father (who also stands for the Greek pantheon) ”well yeah, would be nice to know about my dad but I’ve survived without him the past twelve years so I don’t know, he wouldn’t be missed necessarily I guess?“ That pretty much tells you, it foreshadows, that we will be dealing with someone with grit, someone that fights back, someone that went through shit, someone that isn’t a goody two-shoed character. Does it mean he’s a terrible (in the sense of evil or bad) character from the get go? Not really, but it tells you in nuances that he won’t be the white shining knight you might expect from a fairy tale.

There is so much that little Perseus Jackson has to offer you directly in the first book. So much that paints him as a morally gray character. From the illegal candy stash all the way to tricking Procrustes into his own trap. He knows right from wrong and isn’t innocent by any means. He wants you to think he’s innocent. Yes, he hunts monsters and the book also tells you that some adults (Gabe) can also be monsters, but Percy’s personality is so interesting and full of facets which I love! He’s misleading you on purpose. Deflects, plays events down. He lies in front of you to others but you don’t really doubt it. Instead of questioning it, you understand it.

What distinguishes Percy from other male protagonists in that notion that the author doesn’t try to paint him as particularly good (the reader connects the dots, in reality) is pretty much that. Percy is neither inherently good or bad. He’s in the middle. He does lots of questionable things and his personality adds to it. Something that immediately comes to my mind is his lack of fear of consequences. He thinks in the short term and not in the long term. Of course, he’s caring about those that are close and important to him (Grover, Annabeth and his mother of course. And well. The world not getting destroyed by his weird father and fucking crazy uncle would be a plus). But Percy isn’t really a strategist (yet). Look at the Medusa head thingy. Annabeth and Grover warn him, that he’s gonna get his ass beat and he doesn’t care. That these gods could squish him in the end didn’t matter to him.

The Olympian gods are painted as these unpenetrable huge mighty force and some fuzzy annoyed twelve year old dipshit sends them the severed head of a monster - but not any monster, the monster his father had a role in creating (well, Athena for the most part, but you know what I mean). (Also, I know this kinda reckless behavior gets sorta rewarded but at first, everyone was like ‘NO, NO, NO!’ before Percy was glorious with his attempt). Percy essentially tells these ancient forces that drive the way of his new cosmos how shit‘s gonna work from now on.

Percy isn’t fear riddled and doesn’t think about the possible outcome. He manipulates, he lies, he persuades and all of this as soon as he hits twelve. But probably earlier. Pretty sure he had to become a believable lier in order to trick (survive being around) Gabe. Perseus is angry, he’s agitated. Had Riordan written Percy as a soft spoken, frightened, goody two-shoed kid, almost nothing in TLT and the follow-ups would have made sense. He’s the outcast, but slowly blossoms into the strength and muscles of the group. Of the entire camp. Someone that outsmarts opponents and wins battles. But he didn’t do that by playing nice and being a bootlicker.

TLT would’ve been a perfect standalone book that would have emphasized that Percy is an involuntary person sive) if you skip Kronos, leave a little bit foreshadowing with the prophecy out, tweak the talks with the gods and Annabeth’s first meeting and skip Luke and the scorpion at the end. The ending would’ve been “and so Percy had a first awesome summer vacation and found a group of friends for life” or so (aka PJO movie 1 in less shitty and more cohesive).

The morally gray character shrinks a little bit in the SOM because there lie straighter dangers ahead which dive more into the bigger picture and Percy grows more into the character who takes care of friends and but he does come back with TTC, and definitely BOTL and the St. Helens explosion.

Consequences of Percy’s interactions had people partially dying. There is doubt, there is guilt. But the show must go on. There are battles that have to be won. There is no big giving up, no big overturn for the bad guys.

Also... isn’t it interesting that we start with Percy saying ”look, I don’t want to be in this world“ in TLT and it ends with TLO where he says ”for once I didn’t look back“? The full circle? The way that accepting his fate took five books? To change Percy from being an involuntary participant to becoming voluntary? He didn’t want to be a half-blood, he didn’t want to be the kid in the prophecy, but he actively chose to be in the end. He went from a darker shade of gray to a mayhaps lighter, if you want to say so.

To conclude, I repeat myself again: it’s not about whether Percy is a morally gray character or not, it’s that he has to be.

Thanks for asking me about some meta stuff I really do like diving into these things here and there. Tumblr’s sorta glitchy, I do get notifications but I really don’t see asks, so I’m sorry if my response is mad late ^^

#mel answers #pjo #Percy Jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #the lightning thief #rick riordan #the last olympian

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wclfgurl · 4 years

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& . ✧ › MEETING ARYA !

✦ ▓ AND WHO GOES THERE? oh, it’s just [ ARYA STARK ]. some say [ HER ] resemblance to [ MADISON BAILEY ] is almost uncanny, but the [ TWENTY-THREE ] year old has been in the capital for [ TWO YEARS ]. many suspect that they are the notorious [ CORPORAL ] of the [ STARK ] family: perhaps that has made them [ DISCOURTEOUS ] && [ IMPUDENT ] of late, when they used to be so [ BRAZEN ] && [ ASTUTE ]. during the daylight hours, [ ARYA ] can be found working as a [ UNI STUDENT ], but when night falls over king’s landing, they are best remembered listening to [ RUN BOY RUN BY WOODKID ]. may the gods be with them in these dark streets. ( attina. 24. cst. she/her. )

hey there demons, it’s me. ya boi ! i’m attina and i’m here to create chaos. please slap a like on this if you want to plot and i’ll come at you. there are a bunch of wanted connections listed at the end so if any of them seem to scream at you, please feel free to yell at me ! my discord is ty lee#5523 so feel free to use that for plotting if you wish ! full disclosure, i don’t remember shite about game of thrones and never finished the season finale nor read the books but i’m here to vibe anyways !

& . ✧ › I. THE BASICS !

full name › arya stark.

nickname(s) › arry, no-name, dead girl, horseface, wolf girl.

age › twenty-three ( 23 ).

d.o.b. › december 12, 1997.

gender › cis-female.

pronouns › she/her.

allegiance › the starks.

occupation › university student ( undetermined degree ).

current location › king’s landing.

& . ✧ › II. THE BIOGRAPHY !

your mother was once so excited when a little girl joined the family once more. thrilled to have another to dress in all pink, teach the ways of a lady, and become one more little her. too bad the child would have other plans. you were never meant to be the prim and proper lady that your mother expected. not when running around wolves was far more exciting. you didn’t have time for the lessons your mother tried to bestrode onto you, disinterested in spending hours with some yarn. you rather use the needle for something that your mother strongly disapproves of. that’s what really gets you going; doing things your mother states to be vile.

the years growing up weren’t without bruises and stains. you have scars filled with stories that you tell with a wide grin on your face. proof that you are the one still standing and whatever --- or whoever --- gave them to you succumbed to your victory. you have spent plenty of time in the principals office for fights that you never started but certainly ended. you don’t mind the bruised knuckles the battles gave you. it was completely worth the look on their faces when you took them down.

when you were a teenager, rebellion was in your blood. you did what it took to defy the law. breaking and entering abandoned buildings were a good after school activity for you, running from the police was just a nice jog in the middle of the night. you kept a kill list for everyone that has done you wrong --- most of the names on there were for petty reasons but not billy. you still fucking hate billy. you still have that kill list, though more prominent names are on there now. ones that have harmed your family in one way or another. that’s one thing you don’t fuck around with and that’s family.

it doesn’t matter how much you felt like an outsider with your siblings; they are still your blood. your loyalty lies with your family and if anyone messes with them, they are immediately pissing you off. the only one allowed to mess with your siblings, including sansa, is you and you’re not afraid to make that known. you will fight tooth and nail for any member of your family, including those loyal to your family. that is, until you prove to be a traitor. that’s one way to get their name written on your list.

despite the loyalty you have for the starks, it didn’t stop you from disappearing two years ago. you told a few people but really, you just had a desire to see a part of the world. just for a year. call it a break from university if you will. studying abroad, if that helps your mother sleep at night. you came back as per agreement with your father and yet, you still wish to be gone. there was so much more that you haven’t seen and the classes that you’re taking are just dull in comparison. is it too much to wish for a different path for yourself?

but that’s something you never dare say. instead you keep your hit list close to your heart in case an opportunity presents itself and you continue doing what you want when you want it. that includes any duties you’re given. you do as you please, speak your mind to whomever, and post tiktoks for the hell of it.

& . ✧ › III. THE FACTS !

yeah that’s right, arya stark is a tiktoker. honestly fight me? she’s a gen x’er what do you expect? her tik toks are probably one way that her family realizes she was still alive during that year of traveling. is she a famous tiktoker or whatever you call them? hell yeah and you can quote me on that.

her weapon of choice is a small rapier nicknamed needle gifted to her by jon snow.

she has no idea what to study in uni and none of it really appeals to her? she finds it all boring. which is probably why she’s often skipping classes, turning assignments in late, or plain not doing a thing in that class. definitely an argument she has with her mother every day is about uni.

arya joined the organisation as a corporal as a request from her father, utilizing her skills, and a big f-- u to her mother. because honestly isn’t that what life is all about?

she has a siberian husky named nymeria ofc.

rebel for rebel’s sake; she’s definitely spray painted buildings before. probably has been arrested as a minor. it’s fine though. everythinG’S FINE.

personality wise; arya is loud and proud. she’s never one to stray from speaking her mind despite the turmoil it may cause. think the girl cares if she hurts your feelings?? probably not but maybe a little and only if you actually cared about what she thought. listen, it’s complicated and so is she. she doesn’t believe in happy ever afters but looks more realistically, and potentially more emotionally as she doesn’t mind keeping a grudge and doing things that would end a grudge in a not forgiving way (murdah is fun)! she thrives on making her ancestors ( mother & sister ) disappointed in her but also it hurts when they are? its fine, she’ll worry about those complicated emotions later.

& . ✧ › IV. THE CONNECTIONS !

what the fuck is up kyle › negative; their paths have crossed once or twice before and each meeting has never been a pleasant one. arya doesn’t try to hide their displeasure when face to face whether it’s public or private. there is a solid chance that they are on her hit list for a petty reason. i’m in my mum’s car. broom broom › positive; listen, arya isn’t heartless idk what made you think that. she has a heart, she just doesn’t know how to express emotions and rather vanish for a year than face people again. but listen, this character is someone who has seemed to break through her shell. whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate. wtf, is this allowed? is this allowed? › romantic; romance isn’t something that arya daydreams about but man, she fell and she fell hard. they were just meant to be a nice distraction but here she is, acting like something that she’s not. first loves are a scary thing and she would much rather just pretend that they are just for fun. i’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me › negative; political parties aren’t something that arya cares too much about, but she does give a damn if someone hates her family for whatever reason that is. it doesn’t matter that they are on opposite sides, what matters is your mom’s a ho. but in all seriousness, prepare for some stink eye and arya badmouthing them. zach stop! you’re gonna get in trouble › positive; listen. even arya needs someone that she might be a good influence towards. the one person who is like hmmmm, maybe not a good idea right now. however, they are still creating havoc together for the vine ( rip vine ) tiktok. stahp! i coulda dropped my croissant › romantic; distractions and fun times and maybe doing things that you’re mother doesn’t approve of, that’s the arya way! and this one really is just a booty call. it doesn’t matter what side they may support, that’s not what they are talking about, if they are even speaking, when they’re meeting up.

#vixere:intro #// iM SORRY THIS GOT SO LONG #i just have too many thoughts #and not enough thots #& . ✧ › POINTS ( 20 )

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audiogrizzly · 4 years

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Top 5 Games of 2019

It was a little tricky to construct a top 5 for this year, though there have been a couple of surprises. I wasn’t expecting the year to be a bit crap as we are no w on the cusp once more of a new generation. But 2012 wasn’t all that bad of a year (PS4 and Xbox One would release in 2013) and at the moment, everyone is doing alright. PS4 has sold through over 100 million systems, Nintendo are definitely on an “on” generation with Switch, Xbox has been able to get back into peoples good books with things like Game Pass (on both Console and PC, their PC side they seem to really be turning around), there’s even interesting things happening in the mobile space with Apple Arcade.

This won’t be the last year where my top 5 games are full of current gen titles, I am expecting the new systems to drop in around November, last time it was hard to find a top 5 specific to PS4 (as I listed each platform separately back then). It IS however, another list of mostly AAA tier games. If you want to know what smaller more “interesting” games I have been playing, check out my honourable mentions at the end.

Also, follow me on Melee. It’s this new image blogging service from Imgur which you can download now on the IOS App Store (its just on iPhone at the moment) and it has seemingly been built to help people share gaming related clips and images off of places like Twitter and Instagram (and err, here on Tumblr). I posted a couple of daft clips of me failing in Modern Warfare and Destiny 2 and it didn’t take long for them to amass a few likes and comments.

That sounded like a sponsored advert but ain’t nobody paying me for this. Let’s get into my top 5

5. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

I was about to select Gears 5 to be my number 5 until I saw sense and cast my memory back to when I started playing Jedi (all the way back in November. I was impressed by its intense action, impressive visuals and great characters. I especially enjoyed the 4 armed pilot who always complains. I did feel that towards the end I got sick of managing large groups of enemies so I dropped the difficulty to get through it, but I still haven’t achieved 100% of activities on all planets so I can still go back to it one day.

4. Borderlands 3

We all knew this was coming but not even I had any idea that we would have been actually playing it in 2019 way back at the start of the year. For me, I look at the game. I don’t care about weird magicians or their insane sounding legal woes, all I’m interested in is the work of a team who deserved better for their last title, but am still glad returned to what they do best, looting and shooting. I enjoyed rejoining these characters I have followed over the last 10 years, all the referenced to older games, cameos from characters from Tales From the Borderlands and The Pre Sequel and was sad to see some people go. I still have about a year of extra content to go through and I really appreciate the efforts they have made to make the game last longer than just one playthrough through in the Proving Grounds, Circle of Slaughter and Mayhem modes. Though I have always tended to stick to Borderlands games and create builds for each and every vault hunter, so I will be doing that.

3. Mortal Kombat 11

It’s been a while since I last put a fighting game into my end of year round up. And I HAVE fallen off MK11 a little bit, but this entry reminded me of how impressive it is for Nether Realms to pack their fighting games with some many things to do and keep people playing outside of just going into matchmaking and fighting others. The Vault this year is basically another little adventure full of exploration and puzzle solving and the Towers of Time give you plenty of challenge and direction of many months to come. You also have to give the developer credit for never backing down on the brutality of the game, they must have all got their heads together after DC Universe vs. and vowed never again to make watered down versions of Fatalities. It is a game that keeps getting better and better.

2. Call of Duty Modern Warfare

I was debating whether or not to include this years CoD. I always get the same type of enjoyment out of it each year, people complain that it never changes but I’m glad it sticks to a formula. Of course they are not identikit games, there are new maps, new modes, new ways of building your loadout and new touches, like how in this year you can snap to edges to stay in cover while you shoot, there’s the new special equipment system where you can drop ammo or reduce your footstep noise. Having doors you can either peek through or smash open adds another level of strategy, there have been times where I have been able to escape being under fire by closing a door, re-positioning and then wasting whoever just wanders in.

The campaign this year, good to see it back, but whatever, the co-op mode is Spec Ops again, like it was back in MW2 and 3 but on a much larger scale, I have yet to complete one of these btw. But as always, it’s the multiplayer that does it for me and Modern Warfare deserves credit for being what must be the first AAA game to feature cross platform play, not just launch with it. I know that games like Fortnite are popular, but I don’t see that as a AAA title, it doesn’t have the full package, it’s just a mode and it started off small. Call of Duty is expected to be big each year, has a lot riding on it and allowing for cross play is a big step. I especially appreciate being able to play with a keyboard and mouse on PS4 and being able to matchmake only with people playing with controllers on PC, in fact, I have never really given the game much of a shot on PC before as I know people just fall of it, there has often been low player numbers reported on the PC versions of CoD and it looks like it won’t have that problem this time round due to cross play.

Modern Warfare still has to contend with Destiny 2 and Overwatch for my time as my main multiplayer game but it’s still as fun as ever.

1. Control

Put this down as my main “surprise” game of 2019. A game which was not on my watch list, though I was aware of it as you can’t ignore a game from the makers of Max Payne (I did skip Alan Wake and didn’t care much for Quantum break though). Bought it at the last minute before its release, downloaded it and was wowed by the sinister nature of the environment you run around in. This weird fictitious US government agency which looks into paranormal activity which you seem to have become in charge of because you picked up a mysterious weapon from the deceased Director while searching for your brother. What then follows is about 12 hours of wacky powers and odd video clips as you unearth what has been going on in this strange ever morphing building.

I especially loved how the game never holds your hand too much, the map of each floor is vague enough that you also have to rely on in-game signposting to move around, as well as a bit of memory work. There is also great humour involved too in some of the PSA posters on a lot of the walls, the antics of the caretaker and the videos you find of Dr. Darling throughout the game.

I did have a few weird technical issues with the game throughout playing, but still found it to be visually pleasing, there was this weird hitch that used to appear after coming out of the pause screen that always threw me, it would be followed by a few moments of low performance before getting back into the smooth action. But this didn’t stop me from having a great time with Control. Perhaps the game that will be the most prominent in my head when I think of 2019.

So there you have it, control is my best game of 2019. But let’s look at the other new games I played throughout the year in my honourable mentions:

Gears 5

The Outer Worlds

Days Gone

Apex Legends

Far Cry New Dawn

Trover Saves the Universe

Concrete Genie

Devil May Cry 5

Tom Clancy's The Division 2

And also a special mention to these old games that were rereleased/remastered/repackaged etc in 2019:

Borderlands Game of the Year Edition Remastered

Halo Reach

And now, a look at the games I have on my watchlist for 2020:

Cyberpunk 2077

Last of Us Part 2

Ghost of Tsushima

Halo: Infinite

Watch Dogs Legion

Phantasy Star Online 2

Gods & Monsters

Doom Eternal

Overwatch 2

Diablo IV

Minecraft dungeons

Marvel's Avengers

Carrion

Streets of Rage 4

Will they all even come out? Let’s find out, happy new year!

#mortal kombat #modern warfare #control #star wars #melee #borderlands

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pengiesama · 5 years

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The Real Library of Alexandria Was the Friends We Made Along the Way (Fic, TOZ/TOB, school AU)

Title: The Real Library of Alexandria Was the Friends We Made Along the Way Series: Tales of Zestiria / Tales of Berseria Pairing: Gen Characters: Laphicet, Mikleo, Sorey, Velvet

Summary: Phi crusades against two Bigger Kids making noise in the library. He winds up discovering some common ground, and becomes leader of the nerdiest gang this side of the hemisphere.

Link: AO3

This was written for After School Heroes ( @ashtaleszine ); a Tales Of zine focusing on school AUs!

The zine's purchase period is now over, but you can check out some of the other fic and art from the zine in the links below.

ASH's Tumblr: http://ashtaleszine.tumblr.com/ ASH's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashtaleszine/

Read on Tumblr!

“…I’m not saying that you’re wrong. I’m just saying that you’re vastly misinformed.”

“So, really, you’re saying I’m wrong.”

“No, I’m saying that you’re misinformed, and that your flair for the dramatic has led you to an incorrect interpretation of our sources…”

Phi did not mind listening to debates on topics that interested him. And this one did -- he’d always liked Ancient History and was happy to hear someone discussing it with such knowledge and passion. His own class at school was currently covering the period, but...well. When all they were expected to do was to be able to name city-states and list off a handful of gods, trying to engage his classmates in discussions was an exercise in futility. Even his teacher wasn’t much better. Such was the struggle of being ten years old and maybe a bit too well-read.

No, no, the topic wasn’t the issue, nor was the debate. There was just a time and place for this kind of thing, and the public library after school fit neither of those items. There also was a need for one’s indoor voice. Phi peeped over the top of his book, scowling. His baleful stare, full of judgement and righteous fury, went entirely unnoticed. This wasn’t really that surprising, as Phi was halfway across the reading room and half-buried under a pile of heavy books at his table. He thought of clearing his throat in an accusatory tone, but the idea of making a peep in the library was anathema to the very core of his being. Sure, this section of the library was deserted except for Phi and the debaters, but...but it was the principle of the thing, and that principle was what set man apart from beast.

The two intrepid historians were wearing uniforms from a high school across town. Their status as Bigger Kids gave Phi some pause in confronting them. But with the library’s honor to defend, could he ever forgive himself if he let cowardice win? Phi thought briefly about how his babysitter Velvet might handle the issue, then paled, and stopped thinking about it, because it was kind of scary.

“—Sorey, your arguments show a level of understanding that I’d expect from someone whose historical knowledge came from half-remembered edutainment cartoons from ten years ago, not from someone who I thought knew better,” said the white-haired boy wearily.

“Look, Mikleo, I know that attributing the destruction of the Library of Alexandria to a single catastrophic event ignores other things that led to its decline—”

“And leads to more public disinformation about a section of history that’s already rife with it.”

“—but,” said the brown-haired boy (the other boy, Mikleo, had called him Sorey), pressing on. “Even if there were other events which led to its eventual decline, dissolution, destruction, etcetera, what I’m saying is that the most important and impactful of these incidents was it being set ablaze in the Siege. Aurelian’s attack on the city and the destruction of the Serapeum are drops in the bucket in comparison, when the bulk of the collection was already lost at that point!”

“But they were still important events in its final decline, no matter what your little fanfic daydreams of travelling back in time with a magic firetruck to play hero! And all this assumes that the Library even was damaged in the Siege, considering that accounts of the time are contradictory.”

“Ancient accounts from any ancient historian worth their salt all agree that the library was damaged by Caesar’s short-sighted shenanigans! And it’s not a magic firetruck. It’s—”

“Yes, yes, it’s powered by advanced technology made possible by a time loop that hinges on the hero saving the Library from being burned. You act as though I don’t pay attention when I edit your work. But if you really want to be taken seriously, you have to address the other aspects of its decline that can’t be solved by a firetruck falling from the sky.”

Sorey squinted at the ceiling in thought. “...the firetruck could fall from the sky onto Aurelian.”

“Then you’re getting into further divergent history when a Roman Emperor gets killed like a wicked witch from the Land of Oz. And there’s still the Serapeum to consider.”

“The firetruck could fall on Theophilus too.”

Mikleo appeared to be dumbstruck by this statement for a brief moment, then nearly flipped the table in rage.

“You can’t solve every tragic historical event by dropping firetrucks on it!” he all but shrieked.

“It’s called poetic irony!” Sorey shouted back. “And it’s art!”

Phi agreed with both boys on their more intellectual points, and neither of them on their thoughts about art and literature. More importantly, he also agreed with them on the importance of preserving cultural institutions, which meant that he was duty-bound to intervene in this fight before they destroyed this library too. Luckily, he knew the Dewey Decimal System like the back of his hand, and quickly collected a volume of text that might be able to smother the flames of this debate before they spiraled out of control.

Phi marched over to the older boys’ table, and – taking a page out of Velvet’s book on confrontations – slammed the volume down as hard as he could onto the wooden surface. But, as he was still a polite boy, he was sure to scream “excuse me” while he did so.

The two older boys stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, as the bang and scream reverbed off the library’s walls. Taking the opportunity for their undivided attention, Phi opened the book he’d brought over to the appropriate page and tapped a heading.

“Ptolemy VIII’s mass purges of Alexandrian intellectuals who opposed his seizure of the Egyptian throne, and the accompanying political turmoil in the Ptolemaic dynasty at the time, weakened the Library considerably,” Phi began, confidently. “This sent the Library into decline, well before Caesar’s invasion over a century later.”

The shock and confusion melted away from Sorey’s face. He reflected quietly on Phi’s thesis and gave an embarrassed little smile.

“...I guess I really did kind of get hung up on the dramatic events, huh?” he said sheepishly. “Man, with all the craziness going on during that period, it’s kind of a surprise the Library didn’t get set on fire sooner…”

“I don’t think there are enough time-travelling firetrucks in the world to drop on all the troublemakers back then,” Mikleo agreed. “But I’m guilty too, of only looking post-Siege, and at the Roman side of things.”

“And you’re both guilty of yelling in the library,” Phi added. “I could hear you all the way over there.

He pointed accusingly towards his table, which was still piled high with books. The two boys looked abashed.

“I’m so sorry,” Mikleo said. “We...we didn’t see you over there.”

Admittedly, from this table, it was quite hard to see where he’d been sitting, buried behind the books. Sorey, for his part, was already on his way over to Phi’s table. He looked over some of the volumes, interest clear on his face.

“Wow...no wonder you schooled us on this. I’ve been meaning to read some of these!”

“Well, don’t start with that one,” Phi said, gesturing to the volume in Sorey’s hand. “You’re not going to understand it without some background knowledge...”

When the time came for Phi to leave, he had lectured both boys quite thoroughly on history – and what’s more, he had quite completely forgiven them for their sins. Despite their...eccentricities, Sorey and Mikleo were very knowledgeable on ancient topics from around the world, and treated Phi as their equal -- not just some novelty to be humored and “corrected” on topics he knew like the back of his hand. They promised to be here again tomorrow, to talk more, and...and Sorey had talked about making an Ancient History Club, for the three of them, and that would just be too cool…

“It sounds like you had fun,” Velvet observed, after Phi had breathlessly explained to her all the above. “Give me your hand until we’re done crossing the street.”

Idly, Velvet wondered whether she should go through the trouble of inspecting these two new friends of Phi’s – and by “inspecting”, she meant putting the fear of god into them, and by the fear of god, she meant the fear of her.

Phi dutifully grabbed Velvet’s good hand and continued. “We’ll have official meetings once a week and unofficial get-togethers on the other days of the week, except Tuesdays, when Sorey has Track club and Mikleo goes to Home Ec club, but that day I think I can go to the library anyway and just plan our activities for the rest of the week…”

…but, honestly, they seemed like they were a perfect fit for Phi already. Velvet walked with him, hand in hand, and decided to hold off. At least for now.

#tales of zestiria #tales of berseria #tales of zestiria the x #i guess this is my personal tales of zestiria tag now #a tenderly crafted fanfiction #zines #afterschoolheroes

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vethyourhalflingmother · 6 years

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whenever you have free time: can you explain your opinions on what houses vox machina and the mighty nein are in? i 100% agree w gryffindor nott btw

I’d just like to start by clarifying that altho I do feel strongly about some of these opinions (& ive joked about them being unchangeable - which is not true, to be serious), that doesnt mean I don’t wanna hear y’all’s - do you agree w/ me on some & not the others? completely disagree? completely agree for different reasons? tell me (politely pls) & give me some of ur reasons! i think part of the intrigue of sorting our fav characters into hogwarts houses is that it tells us what we value in them & what traits of theirs stand out to us the most - and that subsequently makes it…. fairly subjective (also doesn’t help that the standards for each house are kind of……vague lol)

I expect all of ur essays on this v important question on my desk by 8 am monday morning

now onto answering the actual ask:

The Mighty Nein

Caleb - Ravenclaw; aside from the fact that he obviously values books & advancement of his own magical knowledge, he also seems to think through important decisions in a logical manner (ex. he spent a lot of time thinking about whether he & nott should stay w/ the rest of the mighty nein)

Fjord - Ravenclaw; again, besides the obvious, his interest in studying at the Soltryce Academy, he’s also really observant & intent on learning from those around him, given all the questions he’s asked Caleb & the way he keeps an eye on Jester’s divine magic

Molly - Hufflepuff; altho initially i had some mixed feelings about this, after giving it some thought, im actually most convinced of this one: as many have pointed out, he’s shaping up to be the Mom Friend & taliesin also says he has a moral code that he sticks to - i think being steadfast in the way youre gonna put good into the world (& in how u treat the evils & injustices) is very Hufflepuff

Yasha - Slytherin; though I say this tentatively bc we haven’t seen a lot of her yet - she doesn’t seem like a traditional slytherin in a highly ambitions sense, but she does seem like to stick to her guns & prioritise herself when necessary (“I run into the woods”)

Beau - Gryffindor; she strikes me as fight first, ask questions later kinda gal & going in guns blazing seems very Gryffindor to me - in addition, she also saved nott from that manticore, which struck me as reckless bravery consistent w/ gryffindors

Nott - Gryffindor; i spent some time thinking about this one after @matt-the-blind-cinnamon-roll gave some of their reasons for slotting nott as a hufflepuff - ultimately, I think nott’s a gryffindor despite the fact that she doesn’t consider herself brave is bc her actions speak louder than her words (“I cover Caleb’s body with my own” & “I kill the baby manticore”); the willingness to put urself at risk for the people u care about over and over even at ur own expense strikes me as a gryffindor trait (for better or worse, I might add - see my thoughts on Vax’ildammit)

Jester - look I……………………………..honestly don’t fuckin know. Hufflepuff? Slytherin? Idk ask me again in fifty episodes

Vox Machina

Percy - Ravenclaw; initially i had percy as a Slytherin but i think once he got over the whole demon revenge thing he actually turned out to be pretty Ravenclaw - I mean, he does invent things, and he’s not interested at all in being in charge of Whitestone (also what kind of fuckin nerd learns Celestial for the fun of it lmao)

Vex - Slytherin; Lady Vex’ahlia, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt - she cares about the title & the money & with very good reason, i think - her ability to obtain what she wants & persevere through the tough times puts her in Slytherin (also - with trinket’s origin story - i think it takes some real fucking grit & confidence to dig urself out of that kind of situation on ur own)

Vax - Gryffindor; this one is a lot to unpack. @swiftbell & i have been arguing about this one on & off for awhile; she thinks Vax is a Hufflepuff (& she has good reason to). there’s a lot of debate about whether hogwarts house are based on who u are vs who u want to be/strive to be & while i think arguments based on the latter r fine, i tend to base mine on the former in this list bc its easier to see actions than try to parse out thought

so that being said, i think Vax is a gryffindor bc while he cares deeply about his found family, he doesn’t exactly place a high price on his own safety; he goes in first, he goes in stupidly, he almost gets himself killed a lot - that kind of drive toward self sacrifice, to me, falls under the reckless bravery of a gryffindor

(as I said to steph: a hufflepuff would die for their loved ones if they absolutely had to, but a gryffindor tends to look at it as one of their first choices - also vax reminds me a lot of sirius black but im gonna stop right here to avoid turning this post into a vax character analysis)

Grog - Gryffindor; grog doesn’t do much thinking, he just does (& im not saying all gryffindors don’t think - obviously many do (@ hermione granger)- but i do they’re the types of people most prone to falling into the trap of not thinking things thru) it’s almost like the opposite of vax’s problem except we’re not talking about vax anymore bc this isnt a vax character study

Keyleth - Gryffindor; i feel like im beating a dead horse here but kiki also doesn’t always think things through & is very prone to action; the difference between her brand of gryffindor as opposed to vax’s & grog’s is that her outcomes are a little more mixed bag

Pike - Hufflepuff; i think pike is a hufflepuff for a lot of the same reasons i think molly is… which is a little surprising so just bear with me a second; she’s very devoted to Sarenrae, which sets up her (mostly) clear perspective of the world and how she should exist & treat people in it; she’s less of a mom friend (altho she still has some of those qualities), and she’s as loyal to her own causes as she is to Vox Machina; she also tends to be very kind & fun-loving w/out being a pushover

Scanlan - im a huge fan of scanlan, which probably means i should have some momentous opinion here…………….but I don’t, I really don’t know - i think once i get to some key points in scanlan’s character development (which i think are coming up in the next like 15 episodes or something), i’ll have a clearer thought

Tiberius - im not sure i remember tiberius well enough to make a full judgment, but I would say Ravenclaw probably if i had to bc of his constant interest in intelligence & learning to be a better sorcerer

Tary - ive heard of him but i dont know him yet so tbd

#idkimoutofideas #i'm sure this was more than u all wanted to know but here you go #i'm a slytherin myself btw #the mighty nein #vox machina #critical role #harry potter au #hogwarts houses #text #asks #answers #long post

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farkenshnoffingottom · 6 years

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Ace Discourse, Here We Go

So. *rubs hands together* I decided it’s time for me to break into the discourse. Largely inspired by recent happenings on @highkingfen‘s blog. I’m going to bring some theory into this so we can understand why people are so invested in this.

But first, since the first line of attack always seems to be aimed at people’s identities, I’m gonna go ahead and state mine right now: I’m transmasc nonbinary, gray aroace, and sensually, aesthetically, and platonically attracted to all genders. I’m also not able bodied, so I want you to understand the physical toll getting involved in this debate means for me, so that you know I am invested in this discussion. I apologize in advance for any errors, although I think I caught them all. (Long post, so I put it under the cut)

I will use queer in this post because I am queer.* Let’s start with some basic politics of sex, then work our way into queer politics, and then bring it back around to aceness.

In 1984, anthropologist Gayle Rubin wrote an essay called “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in which she argued that feminism could not take on sexuality theoretically or politically (she was writing in the midst of the feminist porn wars), but that we needed a distinct politics of sexuality. The part that strikes me as most relevant here is when she describes her theory of the sexual hierarchy.

(While this does not include asexuality, it is fair to say that asexuality can fall behind some of these walls too, because it is not accepted. Underlying the category of “good” sex is the assumption that people will be having sex, so asexual people are a threat to this social order that requires that people have “good” sex to reproduce itself.) I highly recommend you read this article, but I am mainly using it here for the visual. Walls are high, and I would say most people cannot just scale a wall all by themselves. So the way we get around this is to throw each other under the bus, to mix my metaphors. In order to cross the line into “good” and acceptable behavior, people have to step on others, push them further down, to advance themselves (instead of, say, just destroying the walls). It looks a little like “we’re exactly like you, we just love each other, we want to get married, we want to be normal. They’re the ones having public sex, turning tricks on the streets, flaunting their sexuality, etc.”** Anything that buys into the normative narrative gets you a little closer to the “good” side of the wall.

Now, I’m sort of rambling, but I promise I have a point. That point is that while asexuality may seem diametrically opposed from Rubin’s list of “bad” sex, it actually is theoretically and politically very similar. Society needs people to have sex to keep itself alive, but it just wants people to have the “right” sex. In a biopolitical way (see part five of the book linked), queer sex is just as threatening as no sex at all. The state is highly invested in controlling their population and regulating its function. This is why "Hyposexual Desire Disorder” appears in the DSM IV (It now appears split into separate disorders for males and females, which I won’t even get to, and now contains the caveat that it isn’t a disorder if someone identifies as asexual). So, improvement, right? Not quite. It still fits into the long history of queer identities and people being pathologized by medical and psychiatric authorities. Our cultural institutions acknowledge the danger asexuality poses to the social order alongside its other queer counterparts.

So, I’m counting that as my theoretical evidence that ace people belong in the queer community and moving on a little bit. One of the critiques I see of including ace people in the community is that asexuals aren’t discriminated against enough to be counted. First, see my very brief discussion of pathologization above. Second, the “cishet asexuals pass as heterosexual, so they don’t experience oppression” argument misses the point. I assume most people in this community understand why heteronormativity hurts. The assumption that you are straight when you’re not hurts. And that’s exactly what this is. The assumption that you’re straight, and that you are sexually attracted to people. And it hurts, except now it’s our supposed community that’s telling us we’re straight even after we say over and over that we’re not. Asexual is by definition not heterosexual. Three, the microagressions: lol you’re asexual, does that mean you reproduce like a plant? Don’t worry, you’ll find the right person some day (remind anyone of “but wait how do lesbians even have sex?” or “don’t worry, you’ll find the right (‘opposite’ gender) one day”?). We can acknowledge that microagressions are bad in other areas, so why can’t we admit that it’s true for ace-spec people too? Four, “corrective” therapy and/or sexual assault happen to us because of our orientations too. Even though I could go on and on, I’ll stop there. Just check my “ace discourse” tag for more. Or don’t. It’s exhausting stuff.

Another critique I see is that this somehow plays into the desexualization of gay people. People who are attracted to their own gender will be hypersexualized or desexualized by straight society as their politics call for.*** It is not asexuals’ fault that people cannot conceptualize the difference between asexuality and desexualization. Asexuality is an identity. Desexualizing someone is an act of perception and political understanding.

Additionally, asexuality is newer (not in concept, but in public visibility) than other queer orientations, and yet no one seems to want to remember that each of those past orientations had to go through the same thing, fighting to be seen as real and not pathological or unhealthy. Sure, we don’t have a legal fight in the same way that homosexual and trans people do, but that is mostly because a lot of people have no idea we exist. I’m going to point you to AVEN for an asexual history, because they’ll do a much better job than me.

Finally, simply this: it is not your job to decide who counts as queer “enough” to be in the community. Another thing we tend to forget when having this argument is that identities shift all the time. It’s politically important when dealing with the straight world to be able to say “it’s not a phase!” But sometimes, your identities shift, and that’s okay. I thought all sorts of things about who I was before I figured myself out, and I’ll probably end up somewhere a little different from where I am now. It is not so cut and dry. People can come out while they’re still questioning, and then realize that they were wrong and are really something else. Some people can be solid in an identity for years, and then start to think maybe there’s something more to it. And that is okay. What’s the point of saying we’re queer if we are just recreating the exact same structures and hierarchies and expectations that we faced in straight society? There is no need for gatekeeping here. I realized I was ace only two years ago, and started to question whether I was aromantic only a year ago. And guess what. I’m still not entirely sure who I am. But that’s fine. It’s okay to explore yourself. You don’t have to be locked into one category forever. Asexuals are not straight, and they are and should be welcome in queer spaces.

*While this should probably be covered in another post, I want to point out how intentional my use of the word is. Queer and LGBT are different concepts, in my mind. See my “queer discourse” tag for some history and theory that others have contributed. Also, read Queers Read This! to get a sense of the approach I take. For now, I will just say that queer has a historical and political meaning that grew as it diverged from the lesbian and gay movement (which was half-heartedly tacking the B and the T to the end of their name) in the ‘90s. Queer as a concept has a much higher capacity to be inclusive of ace-spec identities, because it defines itself and prides itself in its difference from the norm rather than its attempts at being normal. **For a much better discussion of this concept than I can provide here, Michael Warner’s book The Trouble With Normal is excellent, and I highly recommend it.

***Besides, the mainstream movement intentionally desexualized themselves to be acceptable to the straights. The more mainstream turn in our politics was essentially to de-sex gayness. That’s where things such as “love is love” and the gay marriage court cases came from. These were very effective political attempts to play into the normative “good” sex narrative, and distance themselves from all those bad queers doing the things on the other side of Rubin’s walls. Again, I’m going to point you to The Trouble With Normal, even though it’s almost twenty years old, because it just so brilliantly addresses all of this.

ETA: Michael Warner does talk about sex as being essential to queerness, specifically because he is writing his book in response to the desexualization of gay politics. I do not read this as an argument that asexual people aren’t queer, because I don’t think he is trying to account for our existence in this book, and it seems likely that he wasn’t thinking about us at all (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it’s not what he set out to do with his book, and I’m fine with that. You’ve gotta narrow down your scope to something manageable, and he already has a huge topic to address).

#long post #ace discourse #queer discourse #queer #ace #e's endless rambling #i'm tired and in pain #but i had to get this out of my system #I'm too exhausted for this bs #gatekeeping #happy pride month everybody #with just a hint of sarcasm #and frustration #i don't know if any of this made sense #but i hope it does something meaningful for someone somewhere #aromantic #asexuality #asexual #The Discourse™

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trinuviel · 6 years

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Crowned with Fire – True and False Lights in A Song of Ice and Fire (part 1)

I have previous written about the notion of “false light” in ASoIaF in relation to the prophecy of The Prince that was Promised/Azor Ahai.

…we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that … light without heat … an empty glamor … the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam.” – Maester Aemon to Sam, (AFfC, Samwell IV)

The inspiration for this meta comes from both from the quote above but also from this one from the novella The Princess and the Queen:

Atop the Hill of Rhaenys, the Dragonpit wore a crown of yellow fire, burning so bright it seemed as if the sun was rising. (The Princess and the Queen)

There are two things I want to point out in relation to this quote:

There’s a fire burning so bright that it could be mistaken for the sunrise. This is a false light.

Then there’s the image of the crown of fire.

The crown of fire or the burning crown is a piece of imagery that repeated recurs in the text, both in a positive and a negative manner. In this post, I will examine the image of the crown of fire in relation to the notion of a true light.

THE LIGHTHOUSE

The image of the Dragonpit crowned with fire is a striking one – and it made recall another instance where GRRM uses the image of a building crowned with fire, only this time it is a tower:

The challengers trotted back to the south end of the lists to await their foes: Ser Abelar in silver and smoke colors, a stone watchtower on his shield, crowned with fire. (The Hedge Knight)

Ser Abelar belongs to House Hightower. Their sigil is a white tower with a flaming beacon at the top. Their words are We Light the Way. This is an incredibly important detail and it will inform much of my examination of false and true lights in relation to the imagery of burning crowns in the text.

The sigil of House Hightower refers to their ancestral seat in Oldtown: a tower so vast and impressive that it is commonly knowns as The Hightower – and the family is called House Hightower of the Hightower. The family is among the most ancient of Westeros and they are commonly believed to descend from the First Men. During the Age of Heroes, King Uther of the High Tower is said to have commissioned Brandon the Builder, the legendary founder of House Stark, or his son Brandon to build The Hightower.

(Hightower in Oldtown. Art by Ted Nasmith)

And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. Some claimed a man could see all the way to the Wall from the top. (AFfC, Prologue)

This description points pot that The Hightower isn’t just a holdfast of an ancient and powerful House, it is also a lighthouse! The fire that crowns the tower is a beacon that lights the dark until the break of dawn and it guides ships into safe harbor. Compared to image of the Dragonpit crowned by fire, the Hightower crowned with fire is a positive image. Whereas the burning Dragonpit is a uncontrolled, destructive and deceptive fire that only looks like the dawn, the burning beacon of the Hightower is fire harnessed for a constructive purpose: to provide light and safety in the dark. It is the difference between a false light and a true light!

Light is often associated with Truth and it is a symbolic connection that is millennia old in Western thought. Within the universe of GRRM’s world, this symbolic connection is also in play. In the cult of R’hllor, the high priest of the Red Temple in Volantis in not called the Flame of Truth and the Light of Wisdom but I’ve argued elsewhere that the priesthood of R’hllor are blinded by a false light. For them any fire contains the light of truth, whether it is a fire used for visions or a fire used to burn men and women so their purified souls can ascend into the light of R’hllor. The problem with this cult is that they are fanatics and fanatics always stares so hard into the light of a perceived “Truth” that they become blind to everything else.

Too much light blinds the eye and a fire unchecked devours.

However, let’s return to The Hightower and Old Town because the words We Light the Way refers not only to the lighthouse function of House Hightower’s holdfast but also to their role as patrons of learning. King Uthor of the High Tower’s sons King Urrigon and Prince Perrimore the Twisted were integral to the founding of the Citadel and House Hightower has remained patrons of this institution of learning ever since the founding.

Thus, on the symbolic level we have another distinction between a false and a true fire. There’s the false light of prophecy and the fanaticism of the priesthood of R’hllor versus the true light of learning. GRRM has explicitly stated that in his text, prophecy is rarely useful. Instead the meanings are often murky and misleading. That can be incredibly dangerous because if those murky meanings are being mistaken for an absolute truth then it is easy to be lead astray. Melisandre is a good example – her visions are ambigious and hard to read but she places an absolute faith in the prophecy of Azor Ahai reborn, even when she acknowledges that she can read a prophecy wrongly:

“If sometimes I have mistaken a warning for a prophecy or a prophecy for a warning, the fault lies in the reader, not the book.” - Melisandre (ASoS, Davos V)

Likewise, not all scholars are wise and not all of their work leads to the truth of things. However, there’s room for debate and dissent within a scholarly community. A scholar has to be prepared for having his theories and findings contested and he has to provide evidence for his argument. In contrast, there’s not much room for debate or dissent within the cult of R’hllor. That’s the trouble with fanatics: their truth is the only truth.

“I AM THE FIRE THAT BURNS AGAINST THE COLD, THE LIGHT THAT BRINGS THE DAWN”

The imagery of a lighthouse as a beacon against the dark, a guiding light until the break of dawn makes me think of the wows of the Night’s Watch:

"Hear my words, and bear witness to my vow,” they recited, their voices filling the twilit grove. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.” (AGoT, Jon VI)

Furthermore, the text itself connects The Hightower in the far South with the Wall in the far North:

Some claimed a man could see all the way to the Wall from the top. (AFfC, Prologue)

This is, of course, not the literal truth but the mention of the Wall within a description of the Hightower servers to connect the two edifices in the reader’s mind. Then there’s the legend that the Hightower was built by Brandon the Builder, the same man who is credited with the building of the Wall.

A TOWER CROWNED WITH GOLD

The Hightower is not the only crowned tower in the text. In A Storm of Swords both Bran and Jon comes across a small holdfast called Queenscrown:

“The holdfast has a golden crown, see? He pointed across the lake. You could see patches of gold paint up around the crenellations. “Queen Alysanne slept there, so they painted the merlons gold in her honor.” – Bran Stark to Jojen Reed, (ASoS, Bran III)

This relates the Queenscrown tower indirectly to the Night’s Watch. The journey Queen Alysanne made North was to visit the Night’s Watch and she was so impressed by them that she had more land allotted to the Watch. This is called the New Gift. Queen Alysanne was called the Good Queen and the smallfolk painted the merlons so it would look like the golden crown she wore.

(Bran, Hodor, Meera and Jojen trying to make their way to the holdfast Queenscrown. Art by Michael Komarck)

“It is only a towerhouse. Some little lordling lived there once, with his family and a few sworn men. When raiders came he would light a beacon from the roof. Winterfell has towers three times the size of that.” […] “Men can build a lot higher than this. In Oldtown there’s a tower taller than the Wall.” – Jon Snow to Ygritte (ASoS, Jon V)

Here the Queencrown tower is directly compared to the Hightower in Oldtown. The tower crowned by fire is a beacon that guides or, in this case, warns. However, the connection with the crowned tower as a positive image (a true light) and kingship (golden crown) is an interesting one.

There are plenty of golden crowns in the text – mostly in relation to actual people wearing golden crowns, whether they be kings or pretenders, as well as heraldic sigils with golden crowns. However, there are a few examples where “a golden crown” is used metaphorically. In one of Sansa’s chapters in A Game of Thrones, Joffrey’s blonde hair is described as shining in the sun like a golden crown. Then there’s the “golden crown” that Viserys gets from Khal Drogo:

It had grown so silent in the hall that she could hear the bells in Khal Drogo's hair, chiming softly with each step he took. His bloodriders followed him, like three copper shadows. Daenerys had gone cold all over. "He says you shall have a splendid golden crown that men shall tremble to behold."

When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother.(AGoT, Daenerys V)

Viserys’ golden crown turned out to be a false crown, one that killed him – and Joffrey’s crown of golden curls is also a deceptive image. It appears in the text right before he reveals his true nature in the confrontation with Arya and Mycah. Furthermore, Joffrey is a false king since he has no claim to the crown of Westeros. Then there’s also the fact that they both men are vicious and abusive men. Joffrey was a terrible king as would Viserys have been.

I am not entirely ready to make a definite conclusion about what the imagery of a tower crowned in gold may signify but I do find the connection an interesting one, especially since Queencrown is also compared to The Hightower, directly in terms of size and indirectly in terms of their function as a beacon of light. So you could argue that the tower crowned in gold in relation to the tower crowned by fire could signify a true king/queen. In that sense, it is interesting that this particular tower makes an appearance in one of Jon’s chapters, considering his hidden heritage. There’s an interesting passage in one of Jon’s chapters:

… a huge bolt of lightning stabbed down from the sky and touched the surface of the lake. For half a heartbeat the world was noonday bright. The clap of thunder was so loud that Ygritte gasped and covered her ears. “Did you look?” Jon asked, as the sound rolled away and the night turned black again. “Did you see?” "Yellow," she said. "Is that what you meant? Some o' them standing stones on top were yellow." "We call them merlons. They were painted gold a long time ago. This is Queenscrown."Across the lake, the tower was black again, a dim shape dimly seen. "A queen lived there?" asked Ygritte.

"A queen stayed there for a night." Old Nan had told him the story, but Maester Luwin had confirmed most of it. "Alysanne, the wife of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator. He's called the Old King because he reigned so long, but he was young when he first came to the Iron Throne. In those days, it was his wont to travel all over the realm. When he came to Winterfell, he brought his queen, six dragons, and half his court. The king had matters to discuss with his Warden of the North, and Alysanne grew bored, so she mounted her dragon Silverwing and flew north to see the Wall. This village was one of the places where she stopped. Afterward the smallfolk painted the top of their holdfast to look like the golden crown she'd worn when she spent the night among them.” (ASoS, Jon V)

The dark of the night is briefly illuminated by lightning, and in that brief flash of light Jon and Ygritte sees the golden crown on the tower, i.e. the merlons painted gold. Jon correctly identifies the tower as Queencrown and tells Ygritte the story of how it came to wear a crown. The story relates to his own ancestors, one of the rare good kings from the Targaryen dynasty: Jaeherys I “the Conciliator” and his sister-wife Good Queen Alysanne. She cared for the smallfolk and he gave the realm its first unified set of laws, among other things. In this sense, the story of Queenscrown links this particular imagery of a golden crown with a positive view of kingship – as opposed to the imagery of the golden crown in relation to Joffrey and Viserys.

THE BURNED TOWER

There is another tower that the text relates to the Lighthouse in Oldtown. However, it is done very subtly through the imagery of a specific passage in A Clash of Kings:

Behind him the broken tower stood, its summit as jagged as a crown where fire had collapsed the upper stories long ago. As the sun moved, the shadow of the tower moved as well, gradually lengthening, a black arm reaching out for Theon Greyjoy. By the time the sun touched the wall, he was in its grasp. (ACoK, Theon VI)

The tower in question is the Broken Tower of Winterfell, also called the Burned Tower. Along with the Godswood and the Crypts, the Broken Tower is one of the most distinct landmarks of Winterfell. It was once the tallest watchtower in Winterfell but it was struck by lightning and the resultant fire cause the top to cave in.

What is so interesting above is not just the image of the tower’s ragged summit resembling a crown but also the image of the tower as a giant sundial, its shadow an arm reaching out for Theon. If we compare this image with the description of the Hightower from A Feast of Crows, you can recognize the striking imagery:

Here we have the image of the tower as a sundial again but whereas the shadow of the Broken Tower is likened to an arm, the shadow of the Hightower is like a sword.

What does the Broken Tower of Winterfell have to do with this theme of beacons, true lights and golden crowns. The Broken Tower is associated with secrets, lies and truths. It is here that Bran witnesses Cersei and Jaime Lannister having sex. Jaime pushes Bran in order to keep this secret, to maintain the lie that Cersei’s children are Robert Baratheon’s children and not born of incest.

How does this relate to image of the tower as a sundial, which is the associative point between the Hightower and the Broken Tower? The quote from Theon’s chapter comes from a passage where he is trying to bluff himself out of a looming fight with Rodrik Cassel by threatening to hang his daughter Beth. This whole passage is saturated with anxiety on Theon’s part because he feels that he cannot win. The shadow of the tower thus becomes the shadow of the sundial, counting down the time to the moment of truth. Thus, on the basis on such an associative logic, the Broken Tower becomes a symbolic locus for secrets, lies and the countdown to the moment of truth.

This is where this post crosses into the territory of tinfoil. Daenerys Targaryen has several visions in the House of the Undying in Quarth. One of them goes like this:

Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies… (ACoK, Daenerys IV)

The imagery of this passage indicates that Dany will uncover three lies (I think that in this context “slayers of lies” doesn’t signify a literal killing). What are the lies that Dany has to uncover?

The first one most likely relates to Stannis Baratheon – the blue-eyed king with a glowing red-sword. I have previously written about how Melisandre is wrong when she identifies Stannis as Azor Ahai come again and I have also explored the idea that his glowing sword is wrong as well. Here the sword is linked with the sunset rather than the dawn. Stannis’ “Lightbringer” is a false light that leads into the night and not into the dawn. Stannis as AA reborn is the first lie that Dany has to slay.

The second lie probably relates to fAegon, the young man that Varys claims to be Rhaegar Targaryen’s son and that he has had brought up as the perfect hidden prince. Many readers suspect that fAegon is not who Varys says he is, and Dany’s vision of the cloth dragons, a mummer’s dragon as she calls it, seems to support this theory.

Then there’s the third (and final) lie: The stone beast that takes wing from a smoking tower, breathing dark flame. I think that this lie represents Jon Snow’s parentage – the stone beast represents his Targaryen heritage and the smoking tower represents the Broken Tower, also called the Burned Tower. Though the Broken Tower mainly features in Bran’s and Theon’s chapters, you could argue that Jon is indirectly present through the symbolism of the crows that live in the tower – and Jon is continually called Crow during his time with the Wildlings. Whether the Broken Tower will play a literal part in the disclosure of Jon’s true parentage remains to be seen – but it’s metaphorical connection with secrets and lies (as well as its burned status) makes it a good candidate for the smoking tower in Dany’s vision.

In the next installment I’ll taker a closer look at the imagery of the burning crown in relation to the notion of the false light.

#asoaif #meta #crowned with fire #hightower #queenscrown #the broken tower #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire

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lucysmuse · 4 years

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november 8, 2019

ive been home all week boarded up with bronchitis. needless to say its resulted in one big fat greek meltdown full of theatrics so many tears and a lot of despair about what im doing with my life. i think i might end it after all this, im not sure. decisions are hard to make what can i say.

im an art major and i have a huge issue with motivation, deadlines, a lack of guidance, and im an art major. what the fuhk am i even doing.

i havent made a single piece of art in weeks. its like when i was starting lithium. im terrified.

also forgot about eating today, unless a handful of peanut m&ms counts. ive been eating so awful lately; id feel bad for whoever would have to clean my body if i hung myself haha the hell that would put them through to deal with it

i finally got back to watching better call saul, caught up to where i left off, and continued on to what is now the latter half of season 2. i plan to finish and then jump right into the start of breaking bad again. i miss my old favorite show.

i wish i had friends who really cared about cinematography and aesthetics because i have been wanting to just drivel on about how breaking bad and its spinoffs are the perfect ode to modern americana; the sheer amount of domestic, tame, almost siesta-hazy shots of just. life in desert america. fuels me with the want to draw so many cowboys in opulent garb in various states of undress (hubba hubba). now that i got that straight white woman out of my system, Anyways.

my favorite part about the shows arent just that theyre interesting or edgy on the inside drama on the oustide, or the insane amount of ingenuity the show writers have (half the $hit they think up im astounded by and the other half my jaw is just on the floor start to finish), the long shots are what really gets me. theyre pausing, like taking a breath amongst all of the high wire, almost bleak scenes and plot regarding crime and how morally grey we all as people are. i also appreciate the humanity of each character -- theres some good parts in all, and bad parts in all that get more than a few lines. and even then -- hey, look at ernesto -- there is nuance. the show is so empty of fake characters. not a single one of them couldnt exist in real life for any reason. never do i question whether one character would or would not do something, because even if i were to have doubts gilligan & co back it up with so much context and reason that everything checks out before its even done.

better call saul centers on one of my favorite characters from the original series and gives him a backstory. his character is absolute tacky insanity and you want to know during the entirety of the original series what could possibly go on after walt leaves that office. and better call saul not only does that but drags you along for a much more adrenaline filled explanation than you could have possibly asked for.

but the still shots. god i love the still shots. like come on the theme to better call saul alone, with the overexposed fried images of oldsmobiles and phone books with gaudy ads and a statue of liberty inflatable. that alone is enough to wrap southwest americana of the past couple decades up in a tightly knotted bow. but then they go on, and let the freak flag fly in just about every episodes script. like come on they even bring up hummels. the scene they led into by wheeling the camera in on the seniors’ jello cart, thats genius. and complete with a tacky law ad at the bottom of the cup. the show from start to finish bleeds tack. and i love it. over the last couple months maybe a year or so i had kinda lost my grip on the cowboy blood i have, by which i mean this: if i were to be alive during the quote unquote wild west times i wouldve zipped out to the country to make a living on a ranch where id soon find a husband to spend my life with, there would be no discussion. to be out isolated with all that desert and not a single person to call you faggot or tranny or d*ke but yourself. thats the only thing i could possibly ask for. i could be me, and my husband would lovingly sew my nipples back on after i go insane and cut my tits off one night instead of bringing the horses in. a chestplate of scar tissue is miles more appealing than an a cup if you ask me. to go back to what i was saying, the cowboy blood in me is simply that--blood that fizzles and swims through my body and heats up at the idea of being in the desert and being myself, calling myself the man that i am with a man who loves me. (and some cool boots too)

i dont know what this post was. its not coherent, i forget to follow through on a thought a few times throughout, and i still dont know what i want to do with my life. what i do know is that before writing this i was debating slitting my wrists and now those thoughts have settled. i also have french homework to finish and a little over a season left of better call saul on netflix so i think with that i bid this post a passive adieu. think of the next entry as picking up where i left off.

song: me & the boys (& a bottle) by tokyo lucky hole

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sssoto · 7 years

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Creator’s update #1

Hey guys! So I’ve decided to start actually blogging on this blog and tell a bit about the various things I’m working on, share WIPs, music I’ve been digging recently etc. I realise that I rarely post anything, so it seems like I’m super inactive - which is totally not true, I just have so much stuff going on and take a long time to finish things, and I’m also pretty picky about what I put up online lol! For the sake of keeping those of you interested in the loop, I’m gonna start this series of creator’s updates in which I’ll update y’all on the progress I’ve made on my various creative projects. The goal is to give an update a few times a month (hopefully lol)!

This past while I’ve been super inactive in the writing department, but very much productive in the art department, so my writing update will be mostly a summary of what I’ve been doing the past few years up until this point.

Mood: Feelin’ real good cuz my parents finally brought my comfy double bed over from my mum’s place this past weekend, which means no more sleeping on the couch yaaaaaas.

Music I’ve been digging recently:

Skye Sweetnam - Boyhunter So, the other day I randomly listened to this song on my way home from work, and I totally realised that Skye Sweetnam is the perfect voice for my character Caitlyn, and this song totally embodies what Caitlyn is all about lmaoooo. (The song isn’t very accurate to the time period Caitlyn lives in, but it’s super accurate to her character essence and personality, and I just find that so lit hahahah)

Fallulah - Out of It This song is basically my MC’s theme song?? It’s performed by a Danish artist and was super popular in Denmark a few years back as it was the theme tune to a Danish tv show (a show I loved!). The lyrics are just so Daniel, it’s not even funny. It mostly fits his mental state at the beginning of Renaissance.

Girl’s Day - Love Again Ugh I just love the tune of this song so much, I can’t really place my finger on it, the emotion is just so great. I love the guitar riff especially, and Girl’s Day is a four member girl group, so it’s one of those songs where I can imagine my main girls Annaliese, Caitlyn, Mary and Serena singing as each member lmao.

Nine Muses - Remember Another four member group now, this song is also one where I can imagine my main girls singing each member’s part lmao, and having that aspect to a song always makes it a little better for me! Forreal tho, this new release from Nine Muses slays, and we all know it. The music video haunts me.

Sistar - Lonely This song makes me sad and happy all at once, cuz I’m not ready to say goodbye to Sistar, but at the same time this ending is probably the best one any fan could’ve wished for because there was no drama or anger, just well wishes and hope for the future. I know these girls will go far, and this song just pulls at all my heart strings man. The melody of the bridge and chorus, Dasom and Soyu’s parts in particular, really works for me. And yeah, Sistar has four members too, and once again I can picture my main girls singing as each member lmao. It’s a thing I have, okay?

Moana OST - We Know The Way + Know Who You Are I recently watched this movie, and while I sorta felt like the plot was a bit rushed and tropey in many ways, I totally adored the visuals and the MUSIC OMG. These two songs are my favourite, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vocals never miss, and Auli’i Cravalho’s high note is gorgeous! Also dat choir in the background tho, and in context with the movie scene that song just makes me irrationally emotional mkay. (That ending was the best twist ever, it definitely lifted the story up a notch for me!)

Writing

So I’m writing a book! You might have seen me mention it a few times already on here, but I’ve not really shared much insight into my process or what sort of book this actually is (other than talking about characters here and there), and as I’ve not been making huge progress lately (I’m in an art state of mind duuuh), I thought that I’d keep this section short and sweet, with a bit of an introduction into what my book project is all about.

I call it a book project because I don’t feel comfortable just calling it a book when I don’t have rights to publish. Technically my book is a fanfiction based on the horror video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and as such I don’t own copyright of the small percentage of my story that features the canon elements. However, I take this as seriously as anyone else would writing their own book, because I’ve poured my entire heart and soul into it, and the vast majority of the content (plot, characters and world) is my original creation. It’s my own little big project lol!

You might be familiar with the game, and even if you aren’t, that’s not a prerequisite for reading my book since everything is introduced and set up just as in any regular book. The protagonist is an Englishman named Daniel, and we know little of his past through the game. I won’t go into too much detail on what the game is about (if you really wanna know, you can look it up), but the point of my book is to explore the protagonist’s life from his childhood up to the events of the game and beyond, and afterwards connect his story to the game sequels featuring other protagonists within the same universe. It’s a bit complex and elaborate, which is just the way I like it!

As the games are set at various points during the Victorian era (game #1 is set in Prussia 1839, game #2 is set in France 1858, and game #3 is set in England 1899), you can probably guess that the entire thing will be pretty long. That’s why I’m making it a series! I have at least seven books planned so far (though there’ll definitely be more, since I’m not near the end of the timeline I need to cover yet), and I currently have the first book written and am writing the sequel - however, the first book will need a complete rewrite once I’m finished with book #2, because I’ve since developed and changed a lot of stuff, and I have many new interesting ideas for a more fleshed out version of the first book. Still, the fanfic version is available online, so if you’d like to read it, you can find it here. You’ll get a pretty good idea of the general story and the characters, but keep in mind that it’s super outdated and will be very different after my rewrite!

For reference, this is the list of books that I’ve planned (and titled) so far, so you can keep up with what book of my series I’m talking about at any given point:

I - Amnesia: Memoirs

II - Amnesia: Renaissance

III - Amnesia: Voyage

IV - Amnesia: Noir

V - Amnesia: Encore

VI - Amnesia: Rogue

So what I’m doing right now with this project is revisions. Uuuuggghhhhh. Yes, that’s right, I’m stuck in revision hell. I’ve not even finished the first draft of Renaissance yet (I know, sacrilege, writing blasphemy, don’t start your damn edits until you’ve finished your draft dumbass), but I had some pretty major changes to make, changes so big that it would be a waste of time and effort to go on drafting without implementing them first. Mainly the changes are surrounding 1) a change of ages of my main cast (I aged many characters up a few years), and 2) changing and figuring out the specifics of the illness which my MC’s sister, Hazel, is afflicted with. She’s not such a major character in Renaissance, but she plays a big role in Memoirs, and since I had all these new ideas for the rewrite of that, I wanted to implement the ripple effects in the second book so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to edit later when Renaissance is a finished 3-400k first draft lmao (I have a lot of words okay?). These changes mostly affect the early chapters of my book - chapters I wrote about three years ago, which means that these early chapters really need a face-lift. In addition to the age and illness change, I wanna revise the first five chapters by cutting the fluff and tightening up the beginning so we get to the action a tiny bit faster. Adding to the fact that these early chapters are three years old, the prose also needs an almost complete rewrite. So long story short, all of the edits are taking a long ass time, and I’m not having a good time lmao. Doesn’t help that I had to stop drafting right at one of the juiciest scenes in my book?!?!? (that’s a lie, it gets juicier, but I was just getting to the real good stuff yanno?)

(Side note: for someone who said that I’d keep this short, it sure turned out long lmao. I just have too many damn words.)

Chapters edited: 2/16 (working on 3 right now and it’s an effin’ pain)

Current total word count: 120,591

Current total chapter count: 17 (the number will go down to 16 once I finish the revisions, as I’m merging two chapters)

Look at all the dumb shit I still have to edit for chapter 3. Look at it.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Art

Man, I’ve been doing a lot of artwork recently, and by a lot, I don’t mean that I’ve finished any.

I think I’ve been focused on developing my actual drawing skills rather than making finished illustrations, because I’ve been so overwhelmed with inspiration and I’ve wanted to try out drawing a bunch of different motives, so my mind is on a lot of different art projects at once, and I’m making baby steps of progress on each of them because I just wanna do everything lmao. I should probably take a step back and settle on one thing at a time, but at the same time, I feel like this is working for me because I’m so inspired and motivated and super excited for every single art piece; I don’t feel myself losing interest in any of them, in fact I just feel like my switching between different artworks keeps every piece fresh and interesting for me, yanno?

So here’s one thing that I’ve been slowly chipping away at for the past few months. I’m drawing a full body group picture of my main cast from Renaissance!

I’ve drawn the anatomy sketches of all the male characters (though I’m debating whether I should add some others), and now I’m adding the female characters one by one, so these are not all of the characters yet. But man, I just love seeing the characters side by side? The variety in their body language, body types and heights is just so interesting to look at, and it’ll be even better once I get around to actually adding their facial features, expressions, hair, attire, and then colouring them as well omg! I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, blame it on @juliajm15 and her amazing diverse character designs.

It’s gonna be a huge picture with a lot of characters, and I’m stoked for it!! This is a piece which I hope I’ll be able to show ya’ll the progress of bit by bit in every few updates. (also, if you feel somewhat familiar with some of my characters, you’re welcome to make guesses at who’s who (; )

Another project I’m working on is making official character portraits of my main cast (and possibly minor characters as well). I just think it’s nice to have official portraits as reference for anyone who’d like to see what the characters look like, and also for myself for whenever I need to refresh the specific features and expression of each character. It’s just a nice thing that satiates my very Type A personality lmao!

So the characters above are Owen Wright (to the left) , Daniel’s puppy bff with the fluffy hair, and then from left to right I’m colouring the portraits of the Armstrong siblings: Caleb, Caitlyn and Tristan. Their dad is a duke! n.n Caleb is the oldest, Caitlyn the youngest, and Tristan is the bland middle child. He’s a little brat LOL but I still love him.

Also, due to this glorious reference I found, I finally figured out how to draw Daniel. Bless this model, I never knew I wanted Daniel to have big puffy lips, but apparently I do.

He looks actually nice now? Which is nice? I’m amazed. Also his hair? I can never draw his hair, but this looks nice so yay? Also, I dunno why I never draw clothes on him, I guess I’m just lazy lol, but he’s gonna need to wear clothes for the official character portrait soooo... That’s a thing I’m gonna have to do.

Now that I’ve figured out his features, it’s gonna be fun to remodel all his family members accordingly. I sense that he’ll have gotten those cute puffy lips from his mum meheheheh.

I also did some Disney fanart of my two favourite Disney ladies; Esmeralda and Kida <3

I actually never really draw fanart any more, it’s been yeeeaaaars since I did, and when I used to do it, I was always very particular about staying as true to the original art style as possible. But now that I’ve spent the past couple years focusing on developing my own art style, I actually decided not to care about that so much and just draw the characters the way I’m used to drawing my own, and lo and behold - it looks pretty accurate to the Disney style?? I assumed that the characters would end up looking very different, but other than the eyes being smaller I feel like they look the exact same lmao. It’s interesting to me, because even when I used to do fanart, I usually did so of Japanese art and manga, not of Disney or any other western art. Also, I don’t consider my own style very Disney, but it pleases me a lot that the characters look so much like themselves even in my art style! The most important thing to me is to capture the essence of the character anyway, so any fan can recognise the character they love so much n.n

So that’s about it for this round! I’ve been working on other things as well, but I’d rather not disclose them to the public just yet - perhaps later, when I’ve made more progress, or (gasp!) actually finished something!! Bahahah, with the many things I’m working on, hell will freeze over before that day comes. *cries*

Youtube

I’m adding this Youtube section because, in addition to writing and doing artwork, I also like to record vocal covers (mainly of kpop songs, but I’ll do anything I’m in the mood for at any given point), aaaaand as of today I'm gonna be uploading speedpaints as well! Which is probably good since I don’t upload my covers nearly as often as I finish them lmao.

I’ve not uploaded any new covers recently (though I really should, I do have some covers lying around on my laptop mwerp), but I’m gonna list a couple of my favourite covers I have on my channel here so you can take a listen if you’d like!

youtube

And today I uploaded my very first speedpaint to my channel, so check that out if you’re interested in that sort of stuff! It’s the process of my Christmas portrait piece for Serena. I aim to be more consistent with uploads since I have a few unedited recordings lying around, so keep an eye out for that!

youtube

If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking around and taking a look at my work, even if it’s only in WIP form. I wanted to start doing these updates because I’ve been watching my friends do them for a long time, and I always love reading their writing updates; they motivate me so much to get working on my own stuff, and I just wanna be able to perhaps do something similar for anyone else who’s watching me out there. So thank you sincerely to @coffeeandcalligraphy, @sarahkelsiwrites and @shaelinwrites for sharing your process with the world and being such an inspiration to me and many others, I love seeing you all make progress on your own projects <3

So that was all for this round, I hope you guys enjoyed a little sneak peek into what I’ve been working on! Until next time, folks!

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