Very long, rudely worded, vulgar material in the spoiler below.
Mentions of sexual behaviors and self harm in a facetious sense.
Lots of swearing.
Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.
Don't say I didn't thoroughly warn you.
TL;DR - A very long-winded, crassly written, non-constructive, whiny critique of the recent Sky: Children of the Light Anniversary event.
Keypoint - I am a mobile user, and I play on a tablet with my fingers. I don't know how Sky's physics perform on other platforms, so I don't have knowledge on anything besides the Gen Alpha iPad Kid playstyle.
So, I've been playing the Sky Anniversary events after a long hiatus of not being able to or having any real interest in playing (half because my tablet got stolen and I had to wait several months to replace it)
The events that have transpired thus far have been cute and decent. Not much to work with after the initial novelty has worn off, but they’re still charming in their own way.
Intro
Today (now 'yesterday' since I'm in EST), Several fucking weeks by now, I've been trying to finish the "Sky Tower" event, and as someone whose favorite thing to do in the game is try to speedrun the Prophecy Trials, I have a few things to say about it.
Sky is a game that is quite sedentary. Running or moving on-ground quickly isn't a concern for most of the basegame or seasons, there's hardly a run option, and a good 80% of the gameplay after you've already grown accustomed to the controls is spent slowly ambling about lighting shit on fire, getting cosmetics, and chatting with friends.
However, there is a point of movement physics in which Sky, albeit obviously, truly shines: Flight.
Sky's flight mechanics are, in my opinion, unbelievably smooth. In flight, your skykid is seamlessly controlled, and with some skill, becomes a world-class aerial acrobat, and even if the flight controls are auto-toggled, you’re able to take back control of the flight mechanics almost instantaneously. There is really nothing I can complain about concerning their flight mechanics.
On the ground however, lies an unmanageable wasteland of clunky, unpredictable behaviors.
This concludes the introduction to the Shitshow that was the 'Sky Tower' event, and with that being said...
For lack of any better terms, No. I fucking did fucking not fucking have fucking any fucking fun. Fucking.
Dear Sky Devs,
Do you know how a fucking game works? Have you ever played a game? Do you even know what a game is?
A game is rewardingly challenging when its rules and mechanics are able to be well understood and utilized by all of its playerbase.
A game is challenging in a fun way when its errors and accuracies are solely up to the individual skill of the player and their understanding of the game's mechanics, skills which can be curated and mastered over time.
'Rage Games', good ones at least, take advantage of those features by relying heavily on physics. Despite this, with some attention and practice, you can master such games and finish them with ease.
But those games have something in common that Sky does not.
More specifically, 'good' rage games, and other challenging games tend to have mechanics that are actually FUCKING COMPETENT.
A game is NOT challenging in a fun way when the difficulty applied to it is NOT based on the player's ability to consistently master the controls and obstacles in the game, but is instead reliant on how lucky you are staying on in the rodeo that is your bullshit mechanics. That's not challenging. That's piss-poor programming.
In the sky, your skykid can zip through the air with near pinpoint accuracy in turns, speeds, and landings.
On the ground, your skykid moves with the certainty and grace of a lobotomized tapeworm. When you do ANYTHING on the fucking ground, it feels as though moving is simultaneously like hog-catching on vinyl flooring while everything is drenched in baby oil, and attempting to breakdance while submerged neck-deep in fucking tar.
In the air, there's a very clear, consistent sense of weight and inertia. One that can easily be understood and managed with time and practice.
On the ground, your skykid simultaneously weighs 0.3 micrograms and 30 metric tons. Jumping from one area to another either makes you drop like a sack of dried cement to the bottom of the goddamn ocean, or flail around like a produce bag in an F5 tornado. None of these 'features' are EVER consistent, mind you.
In the sky, flight mechanics are consistent and stable, you are able to repeat a variety of movements the same time in the same environments and be able to move seamlessly.
On the ground, you can say goodbye to any consistent control because from then until you’re airborne again, you are sorely your skykid's bitch. The same action can't fucking ever be executed twice. You are entirely left at the mercy of the game’s scripting, and may God help you if you think you'll be able to do anything with confidence, because every time playing Sky feels like the first time, in a manner that will guarantee a psychosis episode rather than any semblance of nostalgic glee.
Dear reader, I challenge you to find anywhere in the Realms in which there is a somewhat complicated jump. Now I want you to make that jump, and then try doing that same jump again using the exact same mechanics. You could go to one platform, try to jump from there to another platform, and without pummeling the shit out of the jump button, miss your landing and fall to the ground. You could then go back to the SAME PLATFORM, at the SAME TIMING, do the SAME ACTION, in the SAME LOCATION, with the SAME EXACT X,Y,Z,I,J,K, AND W COORDINATES WITHIN THE GAME, and suddenly your skykid launches themselves off the first platform, and misses the second platform by about 40 feet.
You can also be able to climb up from miles under a surface, then immediately slip off the same surface you’ve made an accurate jump on.
You can either land with feet planted on the ground and be left immobile on a ledge you SHOULD BE ABLE TO JUMP TO, or the second you try to move subtly, your skykid suddenly covers themself and the floor in bacon grease and helplessly slides around in a fashion that makes me want to match the placement of the chandeliers in my house.
There is seldom any triangulation you can do in this game. No amount of calculation and timing will guarantee you consistent results doing anything in this physically incomprehensible shitstorm of a game.
Deep honking also doesn’t work to echolocate, by the way. Neither does lighting a candle, at least not to people like me who CAN'T FUCKING SEE WELL. All in all a horrifying experience that leaves me needing to take a long bath, preferably with active electrical equipment in place of bath bombs.
And Sky: Children of the Light is the sole fucking game that makes me rage like this.
I’ve never screamed at, rage-quitted, or punched my tablet to any other game at a billionth of the same degree that Sky is capable of. Who knew that the game that clamors for peaceful playing and relaxation is also the only game that incites the wrath of the captive Xanax-drugged chimpanzee within my very soul. Fuck these fuckass controls with every fiber of my being.
The worst part, is the devs actually did this RIGHT ALREADY.
But the ground mechanics are the least of my problems. The majority of Sky’s gameplay consists of shambling about at a leisurely pace. If the only thing wrong with this event was just having to slog through the programming abortion that is Sky’s terrestrial controls, I would not have taken about an hour Several fucking weeks out of my day to write a scathing review on an entirely voluntary, for-fun event. No, I would’ve just grit my teeth and bared it, provided I could actually SEE WHAT THE FUCK I WAS DOING.
As someone who actually enjoys the Prophecy Trials (idk how crowded they were when the season was taking place, I'm a dr**ms moth), I have been able to somewhat manage Sky's agonizing ground controls, even to the point of being able to do some tricks and shortcuts. In the Prophecy Trials, there are two things that the aforementioned does right that Sky Tower does not.
The Prophecy Trials, at least nowadays, allow you to complete the trials alone. Meaning even with ground controls so bad they may be considered a method of psychological torture just to get through them, it is at least somewhat manageable to move with decent speed in platforming environments.
Whereas the Sky Tower constantly blasts you in the face with a bukkake of bad programming decisions. You’re spending more time wiping sperm cosplayers out of your eyes than you are actually trying to fucking parkour in this parkour activity.
The prophecy trials were also in an entirely new area, Despite being in dark environments, the platforming qualities were either glowing/white, for visibility, or they were set in an environment that isn’t platform-y, a la Fire Trial.
However, platforming is still possible in the Fire trial. I haven’t been able to do so recently, as it’s been several months since I’ve played, and the controls I fear have gotten worse since the last time I've touched the game. But that’s a post for another time.
But alas, that’s not the issue. For context, I have a few vision issues. I need glasses to exist outside of bed, I have troublesome color vision, but worst of all, I’m incredibly photosensitive and have been since 2022. Tell me why the only fucking things with good visibility are the fucking festival tech, in a platforming area in which the contrast is always EXCRUCIATING.
Sky’s modus operandi consists of lowering my eyeballs onto the Judas Cradle of light bloom until the assholes of my retinas are dilated to 10 inches each due to how fucking bright this game INSISTS on being. This is also why I play at night. Playing at night, however, gives the devs more opportunities to teabag you with their wonderful scripting expertise, and the sweat from their digital balls that they slather all over the faces of the playerbase tastes like absolutely no visibility at night, meaning bright objects in backgrounds, paired with no shading and near 100% blackness in the foreground (to my perspective, and possibly other people with visual issues). Minus the insufferable festival tech, of course, THAT has to be at 100% opacity and blinding white brightness.
The Prophecy Trials at least gave their platforming sections a decent contrast, so that you weren't at a risk of being totally blind no matter what the brightness in the game is.
Now tell me. If you couldn't bother to make the skykids that AREN'T the bukkake ghosts glow a little brighter during the night segments. If you can't lighten the platforms or make them glow either CONSISTENTLY. If you can't lock the daylight settings on the platforming event which requires you to be able to SEE WHERE YOU ARE GOING.
TELL ME WHY THIS EVENT TAKES PLACE IN A FUCKING AREA WITH A DAY/NIGHT CYCLE THAT OSCILLATES BETWEEN BLINDING YOU WITH WHITE LIGHTS AND BLINDING YOU WITH A NEAR COMPLETELY BLACK SCREEN. WHY ARE YOU CONSTANTLY GETTING SPOOGED ON BY FESTIVAL TECH THAT’S BRIGHTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE ON THE SCREEN, YOUR OWN FUCKING SKYKID INCLUDED, WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE IS SHROUDED IN SO MANY LAYERS OF BLACK THAT MY SCREEN MAY AS WELL BE TURNED OFF TO MATCH IT. IS IT REALLY SO FUCKING HARD TO MAKE IT MORE CHALLENGING ON THE PLAYER'S BEHALF? TO PLAY AND ORGANICALLY MASTER THIS GOD FORSAKEN, HERETICAL, BLASPHEMOUS, SATANIC DISPLAY OF BAD MOVEMENT CONTROLS, RATHER THAN RELYING SOLELY ON MAKING CONTROLS AND LIGHTING CONDITIONS WORSE THAN THEY ALREADY ARE? EVEN PLAYING THIS FUCKING EVENT DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS MEANS FUCKING NOTHING. WITHIN MINUTES THE ENTIRE SCREEN WILL FADE TO BLACK, LEAVING ONCE MORE, FUCKING NOTHING VISIBLE BESIDES THE MEASLY 3 SECONDS OF FIREWORKS YOU RECIEVE BEFORE THE EVENT ***LOCKS*** ITSELF IN ITS NIGHTTIME SETTING. MEANING YOU HAVE TO RELOAD THE GAME ******AGAIN******, JUST FOR THE EXACT SAME LIGHTING ISSUE TO HAPPEN *********AGAIN*********.
Now, why am I so upset, one might ask? Isn’t this one of the biggest non-issues to surface in our time? Isn't this just a game where you're supposed to have fun?
Normally, I would say yes. But what causes my skin to blister out in rage is that there’s a grand total of fuck-all to do in this game once the base game is completed. Even with the Two Embers season going on, I have doubts that even that area will keep its interesting properties and not fall away from novelty into the sludge of monotonous candle-running or chatting, just like damn near every other seasonal area in the game. There’s also only so many times I can repeat the Prophecy trials before they too become just as monotonous as everything else. I like platforming. I like having things to actually DO in this game, and to any dear humble fellow that suggests I stop playing the game, or refuse the challenge if it makes me like this, I humbly request that you find the longest, largest item in your domicile that you’re able to grab two-handed, and gingerly perforate your rectum with it.
I’ve invested TOO MUCH time, energy, money, and more on this game to just drop it and not look back, as I’m sure Many Other Players can also attest to. I know there are other games that satisfy the platforming itch, but for a game that’s supposed to be PLAYED LONG TERM and SOCIAL, is that really too much to ask for? Just SOMETHING to fucking do that isn’t candle running, cosmetics acquiring, and chatting? No other area in the game besides the Prophecy Cave, in my opinion, is worth returning to for means that aren’t either for collecting wax, or gathering references for art. Is this EXPLORATION GAME where the PLAYERS HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY STATED TO BE AKIN TO ARCHAEOLOGISTS too good for competent ground movement controls? Is Sky: Children of the Light damned to being a repetitive, grindy dress-up game with nothing to do for the rest of its days?
This game asks for so goddamn much, and yet gives almost Nothing back that’s actually worth returning to long term. Everything is a temporary dopamine rush before having to return to the grinding mines. It’s work away from work.
This event would’ve been my favorite shit in-game EVER if it wasn’t for the bullshit mechanics and controls this game insists on making WORSE just for certain things like this, Eden, and etc to be more "challenging". What could’ve been something genuinely refreshing to play and fiddle with the controls over, in my opinion, will instead continuously result in getting fisted into a hellish orgy of bad controls, bad visibility, bad priorities, and constant monotony.
Friendly reminder that there are almost no plant-based farms or agricultural areas in Sky.
Which leads me to believe that most, if not all of their dietary needs (both skids and spirits alike) are met by hunting, rather than growing anything.
There's the "farm" in the Forgotten Ark area, but that's the only recorded agricultural phenomenon, which may or may not imply that they have very poor, or developing skills in growing food. There's also no proof that the spirits will even eat whatever's been planted.
Besides the farm found in the Golden Wasteland, there's zero evidence of farming anything that isn't animals (butterflies and other light creatures), or plants used for utility (although due to a lack of trees in much of Sky's kingdom, most tools and furniture are made of stone, rather than branches), and fashion (tangerines?? Nah m8 that's a hat).
Now in my own little headcanons, I do think these guys occasionally eat fruits and other sweet things, because they enjoy sweets. However, in "canon", we only have two pieces of evidence that skids and spirits even eat, and it's not the birthday cakes, the moon cake bunnies or the tangerines...
Firstly, this area
I don't see any onions or peppers on that crab kebab...
Also take a look at these OFFICIAL MERCH??????????? chat stickers:
N'aww, look how cute. Look at these tiny baby children doing tiny baby children things. And look, they eat!
There's a ruthless and bloodthirsty apex predator lurking inside that tiny little baby scrunkly
It's been officially stated from some TS hints that timid bookwork enjoys fruit salads and assorted nuts, and enjoys making food for their vegan friends. That last one holds heavy implications cos, that means spirits *can* be vegan
Sparkler Parent, Prophet of Fire and Double-five light catcher are vegetarian as well! And other spirits have been stated to enjoy food that would require a lot of non meat ingredients (lots of baked goods, which need flour, which implies they have a consistent source of the stuff)
TL;DR: I am still a "Sky: Children of Obligate Carnivory" truther, but now I am sure they both photosynthesize AND eat, and can have…. a little broccy
I’ve been getting some new traffic on this post, and while I think it’s a personal classic, I would like to do some retconning, with Two Embers being released, and offering a more immersive look into the lives of what was before the game Sky.
Sometimes I can be a bit blunt with making explanations, so I hope none of this comes off as rude or dismissive, I have a blast every time people respond to my headcanons and discussions!! :- D
!!! LONG ASS POST WARNING !!!
To respond to the post above, I personally don’t view traveling spirit hints as very intrinsic to game canon. I think they’re really only something fun for the fandom, and not anything that should be considered as canon. It’s fine if people, save them as headcanons, or consider them canon entirely, the traveling spirit hints are just something I tend to get very nitpicky over. /not sarcastic + angry + dismissive /genuine
The spirits + skids, whether they’re viewed of as the same species or separate, have societies and behaviors that would suggest some separation from humanity on the biological and cultural sense. They wear masks for no disclosed reason (it must be significant though, since the vast majority of the population wears them Very often), have no means of getting to vast portions of the Realms on-foot (and not everyone would have access to light creatures for locomotion, which implies they’d have Some abilities humans don’t), capes/ponchos large enough to glide with are a VERY popular clothing item (Not seen in Two Embers though, I wonder why besides modeling and animating costs…), as well as being able to produce wax from the body, which is seen in Sky spirits, but not in Two Embers.
However, many of the traveling spirit hints make references to human customs, materials, and societies, such as:
I was gonna leave the dr**ms spirits out entirely because fuck that season with the entire height of the KVLY-TV mast, but unfortunately their info is also relevant
Sports
Sassy Drifter - Golf
Stretching Guru - Skateboarding
Saluting Protector - Dodgeball
Video* Games/Consoles
Sassy Drifter - PlayStation
Stretching Guru - Video Game Mention
Doublefive Light Catcher - Dominoes
Crab Whisperer - Neopets
Sparkler Parent - Puzzle Games vs Combat Games
Thoughtful Director - Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Hiking Grouch - Competitive Video Games
P**k*ng P*stm*n - Mario Kart
Specific Cuisines
Pizza
Pizza Rolls
French Fries
Candy Corn
Paella
Coffee
Hot Cocoa
Spaghetti
Muffins
Mustard
Mayonnaise
Pie
Artificial Grape Flavor
Sandwiches
Sticky Buns
Cinnamon Rolls
Italian Food
Chocolate
Cupcakes
Sprinkles
Fondant
Tacos
Any Dairy Product
Scones
Croissants
Cereal
Espresso
Bagels
Baguettes
Banana Bread
Pot Pie
Nougat
Chamomile Tea
Minestrone
Gummies
Tajín
Piña Coladas
Quiche
Daifuku Mochi
Guacamole
Konpeitō
Kinako mochi
Holidays
Stretching Guru - Halloween
Blogging/Social Media
Saluting Protector - Travel Blogging
Crab Whisperer - Vine
Crab Whisperer/Boogie Kid - TikTok
Boogie Kid - Zoom Calls
Playfighting Herbalist - Generalized Social Media
Pop Culture References
Provoking Performer - Earth, Wind, and Fire
Wise Grandparent - SpongeBob SquarePants
Rallying Thrillseeker - Jeopardy
Prophet of Earth - Dungeons and Dragons
Prophet of Fire - Dead or Alive
Drivers Licenses
Provoking Performer
Prophet of Earth
Star Collector + Tinkering Chimesmith - Boating
(Human-Specific) Astrology
Stretching Guru
Saluting Protector
Greeting Shaman
Laidback Pioneer
Sparkler Parent
Wise Grandparent
Troupe Greeter
Festival Spin Dancer
Troupe Juggler
Scarecrow Farmer
Snoozing Carpenter
Jellyfish Whisperer
Hiking Grouch
Prophet of Earth
Prophet of Air
Prophet of Fire
Sp*nn*ng M*nt*r
Slouching Soldier
Franchising
Crab Whisperer - Beanie Babies
Grateful Shell Collector- IKEA
Prophet of Fire - Pillow Pets/Jujutsu Kaisen
Human Language
Crab Whisperer - Gregorian Chanting
Prophet of Air - Korean/K-Pop
Human Technology
Crab Whisperer - Online Gaming
Hairtousle Teen - Telephone Communication
Sparkler Parent - GPS Navigation
Snoozing Carpenter - Login Passwords
Hiking Grouch/Prophet of Fire - Generalized Television
Grateful Shell Collector - Photo Filters
Prophet of Air/ Prophet of Fire - Air Conditioning
Jellyfish Whisperer/Prophet of Fire - New Wave/Synth Pop
Hiking Grouch - Elevator Music
Grateful Shell Collector - Metal
Prophet of Air - K-Pop
Sp*nn*ng M*nt*r - Musicals
Human Culture
Saluting Protector - Ballet
Hairtousle Teen - Taco Tuesdays
Hiking Grouch - Polka
Prophet of Air - Fursonas/Furry Culture
Several spirits mention comic strips and manga but I forgot to reference them because comics could theoretically exist but I don’t want to have to go all the way back and comb through TS hints again sighs and pees everywhere
Miscellaneous
Doublefive Light Catcher - Newspapers
Sparkler Parent - Phonebooks
Jellyfish Whisperer - Trampolines
Timid Bookworm/Rallying Thrillseeker/Prophet of Fire - Genchat
Jellyfish Whisperer/Hiking Grouch/Prophet of Fire/ - Anime
Prophet of Air - Utility Bills/Funny Fail Video Compilations
None of the items listed are things the spirits of Sky should know about, so if they were to be applied canonically, it throws off the immersion to a pretty dramatic extent, and in my opinion ruins a lot of the cohesion that the game has within its styling and themes, even if these were largely meant to be funny (I audibly lol’d at Air Prophet’s appreciation for funny fail video compilations). I kind of wish that some of the hints for future TS’ would actually go into their in-game culture, but that’s wishful thinking on my end.
There’s also a lot of inconsistencies within what is or isn’t canon according to the traveling spirit hints, such as western astrology being either existent or nonexistent depending on the spirit for example. Zodiacs apparently don’t exist (see Chill Sunbather), but many spirits are mentioned with astrological information anyway. Another example is one of Nodding Muralist’s hints referencing Days of Mischief as a holiday the people of Sky celebrate, whereas with Stretching Guru, it’s specified as Halloween, a human holiday.
HOWEVER.
I am due for a bit of retconning on my end, due to my own research on carnivorous animals and new evidence shown in the Two Embers game area.
While I still speculate that Skykids/Skyfolk/Rythulians/Whatever are incapable of being actually vegetarian/vegan due to severe nutritional deficiencies, They 1. Have an alternative (They can, will, and do utilize energy from light, similarly to how Costasiella kuroshimae utilizes chloroplasts from the algae it eats to gain glucose from photosynthesis. Skykids and their predecessors, however, directly use light itself as an energy source, as a sort of animal-plant hybrid. "Vegetarians/vegans" of this species would either only eat material that has fully died of natural or non-people causes, or they would eat small amounts of meat and spend the rest of their time subsisting off of sunlight), and 2. I did not consider in the original post that obligate carnivores, such as cats and alligators (which are also odd ones out as they are one of the few obligate carnivores that can actually register sweets) still eat plant material occasionally, with some notable favorite snacks being corn for cats, and fruit/marshmallows for gators.
With that being said…
There’s a lot of produce in the game area, which implies that agriculture was far more prevalent than I initially thought in the world of Sky (blame stupid me for forgetting the wasteland wasn’t always a desert /not sarcasm). Still not enough to claim omnivory, so I assume the items listed are more or less for the animals rather than for the people (Though it isn’t questionable that the people would still be able to indulge in the amorphous balloon produce on display below. Since we’ve all eaten horse treats, guinea pig feed, and dog/cat food at some point in our lives……. 👀). The fruits/vegetables here can also be used in teas, broths, sauces, garnishes, and condiments for the usual things these people eat which furthers their necessity as a commodity.
I don’t even know wtf this is…. Flour? Mochi? Stuffed rolls? Hi-Bounce toys? Potatoes? Supersized Matzo Balls? Perhaps we’ll never know…
Spices and herbs can be seen from this booth/stall thing as well. I’m not sure if the hanging things are supposed to be some kind of Garlic equivalent, if not Garlic itself, but I imagine it’s also used in soup and tea. The things wrapped in cloth and blue twine near the bottom center + bottom left corner of the images may be jars? But considering jars are seldom transported wrapped, it could be meat of some kind. I can imagine due to the risk of being seen as gory though, why rendered meat models wouldn’t be created for the food stalls within the market. Within the Two Embers film itself, nobody is seen really eating anything, so it’s fairly up for debate what the wrapped stuff could be.
My bad for the 6XL post as per usual. I still, in my 4 years of tumbling, don’t know how to properly end posts. But I do appreciate any and all feedback!!!
frontiers keeps giving me such big sky children of the light vibes, especially the golden wasteland level and the eye of eden. and like the end of the eye of eden could be altered a lil and easily applied to cyberspace corrupted sonic 👀
Treat anything on Discord as media that will be lost
Do not use Discord to host your files. Do not rely on Discord to preserve your text. DO NOT RELY ON DISCORD FOR ANY KIND OF PRESERVATION OR HOSTING!!
It CAN be lost, it WILL be lost! You must consider Discord as a part of the Core Internet, controlled by one company that hosts the servers.
I thought it was impressive at first that it replaced IRC, but now I am horrified. If the company behind Discord went under today, how many friends would you lose?
How many relationships? How much writing?
You may think this won't happen, but I remember when AIM went down and along with it, entire novels worth of interaction with my oldest friend.
IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. NO COMPANY IS INFALLIBLE.
Back up your files! Download anything you've saved to Discord NOW, before the API changes go into effect! And DO NOT RELY ON THEM FOR HOLDING IMPORTANT FILES!
Here is a program that lets you download any and all of your discord DMs, your servers, everything. You can set the format (raw text, html (dark and light), and others. You can even download the uploaded files not just the text, though that may be just for the command-line version not the GUI window version.
Exports Discord chat logs to a file. Contribute to Tyrrrz/DiscordChatExporter development by creating an account on GitHub.
Please back up your conversations, your stories. I have a backup of everything I care about that runs once a week, with full attachment backups every several months. I write stories on discord, and would be devastated if someone happened to them. You have to have your own local copies of every file you care about.
So a HC of mine I wanted to briefly mention is naming titles for Sky's people, and how children, adults, elders, and Megabird are addressed. I may expand on this later.
Firstly, Skids and child spirits (at the time they were alive) name themselves, as to their people, identity is very important, so parents will not name their children and instead leave them to choose when they're old enough. Sometimes the results are disastrous, and you'll have adults in esteemed positions named "Grass" or something.
Rythulian naming customs tend to keep to what is natural, visible, tangible, and so on. So names such as "Butterfly", "Cliff's Edge", "Dove", "Meteor", "Beetle", and so on are quite common. Symbolic or implicit names are less common, only found in those who have changed their name later in life, or didn't choose a name for themselves until they deemed themselves old enough to do so.
Lastly, is the usage of pronouns and gendered titles.
Idk if I should link an earlier post, but I hc that Sky's people and Rythulians in general, through all stages of their development, are physiologically hermaphrodic. When relating to gonochoric specimens, they will use separate nouns, but for themselves, pronouns are largely used for titles, and not for denoting any kind of gender.
"They" or "He" is used for children, adolescents, and adult Rythulians, and they may be used interchangeably. The elders are almost exclusively referred to as "He". "She" is almost exclusively reserved for Megabird.
Megabird is referred to as "she", because she is the only entity that brings the birth of new children, as adults of their species neither give birth nor lay eggs (I may briefly go into how I imagine these things reproduce, but that's a post for another time), instead relying on their unborn to be gestated in stars within the body of Megabird. Without her, new souls cannot be born and those who have died cannot be reborn.
Daleth, who shepherds newborn children down to the Isle, among other things relating to the guidance and guardianship of newborns to young children, may also be referred to as "she", thanks to his role in aiding the birth of new Rythulians. However Daleth is only referred to as "she" in the context of shepherding souls. In other contexts, he is 'he' along with the other elders.
Elders are referred to as "he" because they aren't explicitly joined within Megabird like the people they guard over are, and besides Daleth, have no role in facilitating or aiding the birth of new souls. Because of this, they are farther away from the connected existence descendant Rythulians have.
As for titling, it's fully dependent on the role that the descendants, ancestors, elders, and Megabird herself have.
Words like "king", "lord", and "god", to name a few have female counterparts such as "queen", "lady", and "goddess", since they are high esteeming titles that may be applied to Megabird.
However words like "prince", "sir", "mister", and so on only have their masculine counterparts with no feminine equivalents, since they are lesser esteemed titles that, if applied to Megabird, would be considered disrespectful.
everyone say happy birthday to the birthday girl! it's his quinceañera today!!! (he is not Mexican and also he is 64 years old)
gonna spoil some basic info shit under the cut cause i get cripplingly autistic over this gd cooling gel mattress creature and im a sucker for headcanons... might post more later when my brain isn't leaking out of my ears /aheemheem
mr grumpy was born the youngest of a litter of 7 on march 5th, 1960 at 1:33AM. the rest of his siblings are cringe OCs minus his eldest sibling, mr grumble, who was born March 4th, 1960 at 10:17PM/22:17.
he was born in a rural territory in north conway, new hampshire to a french canadian father and a chilean mother.
he's technically trilingual but finds his chilean and french canadian sides "humiliating", as his first language is english.
he is autistic and wasn't properly diagnosed until he had already earned geezer status (this is a hill i am willing to die on, there's canon "proof", at least in the 2008 show)
mr men show thats rereleased with a tv-mature rating. its utterly the exact same except mr. bump's new catchphrase is "fucking shit" every time he gets mortally wounded.
This, or he gets wounded in the most graphic and visually upsetting way possible, and he just shrugs and tells the camera in a silly manner, "I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles!" and canned laughter follows soon after
Decided to make a little introductory post to a very particular crossover AU (for ABZU, The Pathless, Journey (2012), and Sky: Children of the Light, to be specific) that @abhorrenttheorizer and I have made art for over on Discord. As there's a lot of ground to cover, I'm putting it under a read-more for courtesy.
Introduction
Welcome to Earth! Specifically, thousands if not millions of years in the future, after at least one cataclysm has claimed the lives of every human on the planet. But not to worry!
A little before the end of humanity arrived, two bird-like gods arrived on Earth, settling in the eastern and western hemispheres to establish their own followings.
Off to the East, we have the goddess affectionately nicknamed "Megabird," who landed on a mountain and began constructing her own unique ecosystem centering on light and flight, creating the Rythulians as her worshippers. (AT's more in charge of this portion; he's got a lot of interesting ideas about the "slugbirbs" as we like to call them.)
To the West, we have the goddess known to her own people as Mother Eagle. First, she got to work producing five eggs, which would hatch into their own unique gods and goddesses: Cernos, Sauro, Nimue, Basilla, and Kumo.
Basilla, the shark goddess*, was the one who crafted the people who would become their worshippers, taking remnants of humans and mixing them with seals and sharks to create the Basillan species (my specialty, based on my personal headcanons for the TGS games).
*(based on the Great White from ABZU being referenced in The Pathless and the mysterious stele that got edited out in an update)
The original Basillan kinda looked like this (these being the "humanoid" forms of the Tall Ones, Basilla included).
However, they wouldn't stay united for very long. Differences in religious views and lifestyle got heated, and eventually the mortals banished Basilla and her followers from their island home, with the Basillan cult setting up shop in an underwater territory a ways away from the Eagle's Island. Over time, the more land-focused followers of the Mother Eagle and the remaining four Tall Ones became the Vokara subspecies, and the more aquatic followers of Basilla alone became the Nanshen.
Here's a really old drawing of the differences!
(Did I forget to mention this AU has been in the works since 2021? Man my art's changed since then.)
Anyways, average Nanshen guy on the left, average Vokara guy on the right.
The Nanshen are more suited towards an aquatic lifestyle, with wider gill slits, darker skin due to heightened sun exposure, shorter and more compact body type, a flatter nose more suited for passing water to the gills, and longer barbels on the ears to allow for greater olfactory sensation underwater. (They're based off of the murals in the ABZU game, as well as probably unintentional environmental storytelling with how unnavigable the map would be without a lot of diving underwater; it only made sense to me that the lost civilization was probably amphibious.)
The Vokara have lived mostly in the mountains for generations, so they're more suited for terrestrial life, with a broader chest, smaller gills to focus on breathing air, lighter skin due to weather conditions providing less light, a more opened up nasal passage for ease of breathing, and smaller barbels due to less of a need for underwater sensory measures. (They're more based on the Hunter's appearance in The Pathless, given that she is way too gray to be a human. I know it's probably just to make her aracial like what they did in Homestuck, but I'm running with it damn it!)
(Anyways, here's a nicer comparison drawing from a little while later. Behold the specbio lesbian wedding!)
Fun Bits I Forgot to Organize
Tusks
Adult Basillans grow tusks like boars (based on the Godslayer's ascended model having these wicked tusks among his rows of fangs). They only really develop towards the latter portion of adolescence, around one's late teens to early 20s, and are regarded for the males as the sign that one has become a proper adult.
Of course, the downside is that these things are continuously growing and have to be trimmed every now and then in order to avoid poking oneself in the eye or scratching people with it.
The Vokara are especially finicky about covering their mouths for... not quite modesty reasons so much as baring one's scary teeth at another person is considered rude and aggressive. The Nanshen, living far more amphibiously and thus not really comfortable with more cloth than is comfortable underwater, don't care about that as much, though if you grimace at somebody they might kick you in the shins.
Barbels
A general rule I keep when designing out-of-water clothing for these guys is to cover the ears. In universe, it's because their barbels are very sensitive to differences in temperature and UV radiation out of the water, so it's deeply uncomfortable to have them uncovered for these guys. Out of universe, it's because The Hunter did something like this in her game, in addition to the ABZU people also covering most of their heads but not their chests for some reason (so probably not quite a modesty thing), and I decided to make up a silly specbio reason for it.
For some examples, here's a spread of different Nanshen city states and their different fashions:
History
The games are still canon here! But there's a little more to it.
The Nanshen had always been travellers, more keen to explore and establish their own territories far and wide. But after those dwelling in the Crown began messing with the Abzu, the life energy of the ocean itself, the ecosystem around the capitol collapsed and the population fled the area. Their former empire collapsed, and in its place, a number of different city states off the shore of their various old territories were established in its place.
Some time before, or maybe simultaneous to that, the Vokara had their own little collapse in the form of the Godslayer's rebellion. Many had read the writing on the wall and fled the Isle before he successfully slayed the gods and took control of the whole Island, leading to a number of villages and kingdoms being formed on the nearby continent, which would eventually spawn the Last Hunter, who would defeat the Godslayer.
There's more to it, but I think I'm approaching Tumblr's picture limit, and I've got more, sillier pictures from the AU. I'll add those later!
AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LET'S FUCKING GO GAMERS!!!!!!1!1!1!1!1!1!!1
I have not much to say but I am unironically so fucking proud of this crossover, and I'm glad that @fascinatedhelix was willing to plunge into this and turn our little headcanons into their own fully fleshed world!!!
(There are others that have helped out in this project, I'll tag them too once they give me permission)
jacobvanloon
izzy806
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
baratheonpilled
