Vulpezz

They/he MCYT + JRWI fan Art and writing acct

[metfell]

"Ranboo, my littlest…never forget I care for you."

I love Event Horizon Ranboo's mother so much. I wanted to give this piece a very dreamlike quality to add to the fact we never really learn much about her, only what Ranboo remembers, which is obviously very biased. So her bed looks magical and like it's not possible.

[its-snail-time]

it's the Guy!!!

[thispreciousthing]

So a free tool called GLAZE has been developed that allows artists to cloak their artwork so it can't be mimicked by AI art tools.

AI art bros are big mad about it.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

Seeing as Twitter is gonna legally steal your work now, please use glaze to protect what you make.

[chromatocloo]

Guys did you hear about Nightshade?

Using both Glaze and Nightshade would corrupt the generation of pictures mimicking artist AND mess with the AI's recognition of what everything is. Like it would generate a dog when you ask for a cat.

And it would be hell for AI bros to remove the cloaked pictures from their database ʕ 👀人ʔ

[ominous-ellipses]

FOUND family??? you think i just found them like this??? babes this is FORGED family. Me & the bros were scrap metal in a junkyard (very valuable, very sharp, very dangerous, uncared for) and we GOT IN THE FUCKING FIRE TOGETHER. WE did this. we said I AM NOT LEAVING YOU and melted into each other for better or for worse (it’s for better) and we are A FUNCTIONAL UNIT now. DO NOT SEPARATE. BATTERIES FUCKING INCLUDED. FOUND family my ass, we built this non-nuclear family unit from the ground up, don’t devalue this!!! it was is and will be a labour of love!!!

[vigilantsycamore]

I like this but also. "Forged family" as in "we faked the paperwork to scam money from the government"

[ad-wills]

[maiya5t]

There’s a grief that can’t be spoken

[hellenite]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DE TERRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh my god i have a 2 year old (de terra)

it's funny i usually count how old a fic is by the completion date but yeah! 2 years ago today I posted the first chapter of de terra :D

I had absolutely no idea how much my life would change in 2 years but I am so incredibly thankful to be where I am now!

[arcticvulpez]

Happy two years to the best fic I have literally ever read

[temporarytemporal]

I can't help but love these three characters even though they're from a piece of media with terrible roots and connections. I don't really care about any of the content creators, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about these characters for the last four years; they're like my OCs...

[arcticvulpez]

Merry Christmas, I like gay people

[hellenite]

hi hellen!!!! i’m currently reading de terra and OH MY GOD. your writing is absolutely heartwrenching in the best way, i adore it, and i loved reading ad astra

i’m very curious about apidae culture, especially their language, apian, since it sounds so beautiful. is there anything more you’d be willing to share about their world/culture?

and would you ever make a translator/dictionary for some apian words that appear in event horizon?

wishing you well!! <33

Hi welcome to my unhinged bee culture ramble.

First off, really glad you’re enjoying/have enjoyed Event Horizon!! I care this series so much.

Okay so ramble time. Disclaimer, realistically a planet the size of Apidae would be as culturally diverse as our own Earth, but I am just a singular humble dingus, so Apian culture is more homogenous than honestly makes sense but whatever they’re space bees and I’m here to yell about rural societies.

Language

Apian is sorta a conlang? Which is, if you’re not familiar with the term, a constructed langue as opposed to one that developed naturally. It’s basically a hell franken combination of Spanish, Italian, and Latin. There wasn’t too much logical thought behind what got translated from what or how I fit words together (I do speak some Spanish but that had no bearing on this monstrosity), so it was mostly about how the made-up sentences sounded when I read them out. If they passed the vibe check it became Apian. I did try to keep up with words and sentence structure I’d used before to at least be consistent! But it is by no means a well constructed conlang.

Social Structure

The Mellifera are a matriarchal society. Lineage is passed down through your mother’s side and mother’s last names are the ones that are taken as the family name. This idea came from Earth bees and how the hive is run by a singular queen, and while the Mellifera do have a Queen, she obviously doesn’t produce a planet’s worth of kiddos. She acts more like a spiritual leader and functions as a figure head for the entire planet, and past Queens are worshipped to a degree, though it’s probably something a little closer to ancestor reverence.

Also the Queens are just- fucking taller than the rest of the species, like seven feet easy. That’s why all the Mellifera kiddos call EH!Ranboo Queen as a joke because he’s so tall.

The Queen of Apidae is a special role that only select members of the species are born for. Queens can only be born from the previous Queen, so there’s only ever one Queen at a time and then her heiress. Since this is such a hugely important part of Mellifera culture and identity, Nirox keeps custody of the current Queen under the premise of ‘intergalactic relations’, claiming that, as ‘allies’ of the Empire, the Queen is needed on Nirox to vote for her planet’s interests in the imperial senate.

Obviously this is a load of bullshit and it’s one of the ways Nirox continues to maintain its ruthless control over Apidae and the Mellifera. There have been generations of Queens that have been born and lived their lives on Nirox, never setting foot on their home planet once. Attempts to free the Queen never really happen because all the Mellifera know Nirox wouldn’t hesitate to execute her if it came down to it, and the generations of Queens raised on Nirox are fed so much propaganda, they don’t really see a problem with the situation.

General cultural vibes

So when I’m making up cultures for sci-fi or fantasy stuff, I usually pick a few real world human places and cultures and mash them together. For Apidae and Apian culture, this was in large part inspired by like- the Italian countryside and then where I live, rural southeast USA. It seems like two very strange things to combine, but honestly the landscapes are very similar and like, the slow feel of everything? It’s old and quiet and soft, really strong sense of community and general distaste for governing organizations.

Basically I wanted it to seem like a place really tucked out of the way of the rest of the hustle and bustle of the galaxy, somewhere that’s not super modernized but has all the potential for it. The thing with Apidae is they really could be a galactic powerhouse, but do to the fact that they couldn’t fight the Empire off when they first started their imperialization efforts, means they’re frozen in this weird stagnate place while the rest of the universe surges lightyears ahead.

About the conquest

OOOOOOOOOOO I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS. Also didn’t know where else to put this so it gets its own section. It’s mentioned in one of the Survival Guide entries, but as Nirox spins it, Apidae submitted to the empire peacefully which obviously isn't true. Like most people being imperialized, they fought back, but Nirox was already ahead of them technologically speaking and it wasn’t much of a fair fight.

Basically the Queen at the time was faced with the choice of either; give up their sovereignty and strike a deal so her people are more or less forced into slave labor but can still live their lives, OR, keep fighting, keep losing more lives, and end up the same place but under much harsher conditions. She made the choice she did to protect her people, needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few kinda thing.

AND THEN ON THE FLIPSIDE

Annwyl.

Nirox had made contact with the Mellifera and the Ender around the same time, and both planets were prime subjects for conquest, but things went very differently on Annwyl. It was a similar situation, the Ender were outnumbered and would likely lose, but they weren’t outgunned, had already figured out End Crystals were a terrifying weapon, and the Ender King used this to its full potential.

(That’s why Nirox was there at first, they wanted the firepower to better expand their empire)

Anyway so back to King Dickhead.

He refused to back down, was willing to drive his entire people and planet into extinction to stop Nirox from getting what they wanted, and it paid off. The Niroxan Emperor agreed to a more equal split of power and left the Ender as autonomous in the empire, and thus began their codependent, downward spiral as they attempted to backstab one another for the foreseeable future.

Ender culture has more emphasis on the individual while Mellifera culture places more significance on the community. It’s fun to think about how those mindsets would affect things on a much larger scale, and thus shape this whole galaxy that the story revolves around.

--

Good god I’ve gone on for a hot minute so apologies about that. I just have a lot of thoughts on these guys and how they all interact with one another. To anyone that made it through to the end congrats!

Sorry this took so long to answer, I’VE BEEN THONKIN, hope it was a fun read!

[tamryisk]

I'm Never Leaving You Again....

( fic by @hellenite )

[hellenite]

HI HELEN!! i want to make ranboo’s cariad bead for a school project and I’m wondering if there’s a canon design for it, or if I should just use the description of the design ^^” If there’s any way theres a drawn out cariad bead that would be amazing, even if its just fanart !

HI HELLO!! Ooooo that sounds so cool! I really like the designs Myra did so here are those!

Also please go follow Myra on twt she's super cool and really talented

[zizsmthg]

Redraw of my old artwork - Osirion supernova from Event Horizon fic by @hellenite

[hellenite]

Hi, I’m really sorry if you’ve already gotten this ask, but what, usually, is your world building process? I just finished re reading EH + FL once again, and I’m still left in awe at how amazingly detailed and thought out the worlds are. If you could answer, it’d be really really helpful! Thank you!

Hi helllo! I think I have talked about world building before but idk how in-depth it was. World building is a hard thing to pin down because it really depends on how much detail you wanna put in it ya’know? A lot of what I do is just pulling references from real life and tweaking them to fit whatever scenario I need. But! Taking a look at the two works you referenced;

Honestly I didn’t think Fading Lights had super creative world building? /gen

A lot of the alien/multi-dimensional stuff was reffing Karl’s Tales series so I can’t really take too much credit for how I morphed it to suit my needs. And then for all the regular earth stuff, I just wrote about my home area pretty much. I don’t quite live up in the mountains, but I live really close and so many summers as a kid were just like this, driving winding backroads in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

Event Horizon has more concentrated world building, and I know I’ve talked about it somewhere but I can’t find it, but basically the base world set up, with Nirox and everything, is just a space reskin of the British Empire more or less. I mean it could technically be any of the global empires form the age of colonization, but you get the point. I used to be a history major so I have a decent background in world history, and I use that a lot to build realistic global/intergalactic conflicts. Once you kinda understand how societies and people work, it’s easy to piece together what would motivate them and things like that!

Like in EH, Nirox’s motivations for expansion are pretty simple. Money. The more planets they have under their thumb, the more resources and manpower they get, and greed is one of the oldest motivators for people, especially those in power.

Besides that though, I’d just build the worlds I needed for other scenes based off simple, condensed versions of real places. I can’t remember half the dumb names I gave places, but it’d just be like “okay build a planet based off a street market in Tibet” or “make someplace that’s basically space Tokyo”, ya feel me? And then just add enough Odd Space Stuff to make it feel like it could be a stop in a star wars movie. For Annwyl and Apidae, I pulled more history and anthropology knowledge in, like how court systems work (hello France and the court of the sun king) and then how more agrarian areas get taken over and used for manufacturing (hi and sorry most of the rest of the world).

Long short of it is, I highly recommend learning some of our history and how people have interacted with each other over the years. It will help make your worlds more believable when you can understand how people are motivated, and the ways in which they go about trying to achieve those goals. That kind of thinking can be applied at super huge scales like global conflict, but it can also be applied on much smaller scales, like understanding the culture and customs of a particular area!

People are more alike than we tend to think. There are a lot of through lines in between customs practiced around the world, and it’s fun learning about new areas and making those connections! I might also be a massive nerd, so take that with a grain of salt.

Last little piece of advice, I generally never have all my details at once. I have like, a good sketch of an idea but I fill in chunks as I go along, so don’t think I’m sitting here on an encyclopedia of world building knowledge for my stories. I build them little pieces at a time, kinda like a quilt, so don’t worry if you don’t got it all yet :]

Hope that helps!

[hellenite]

Thank you for answering my question! I have two more and then I’ll leave you to your writing ^.^

(Can’t wait to read wgbitn btw looks sooo cool and interesting!)

I was curious if we will ever get a side story from tubbos perspective during his “jealousy and low key pinning” arc after the breakup, Braids and Relationship conversation!

Every once in a while I’ll remember the “Why don’t you do combat training with me!!! Huh??? >:(.” “Because your arm is broken???” Bit and giggle for a minute while rotating more scenarios in my head of the similar vein. I imagine there would be a bit more angst in this situation but all my brain can giggly think up is tubs ranting to tommy and tommy just dropping “didn’t you divorce him???” I just think it’s funny is all lol

And also with the braids! Do you have any extra lore for them! If I remember correctly ranboos moms braid is described as having more bits of gold woven into it. Was that just a status symbol thing or did king bitchboy just really love giving her more rings and beads to wear (cute <3)

And if it’s just an affection thing, does ranboo ever do that with tubbo or vice versa? They’re sappy enough for it I’m sure <3

cracks my lil finggies /lh /pos

I love the jealousy arc. It's so fuckign funny to me. My idea for that bit was Tubbo needed to have some boundaries set for his sake, but then he starts trying to figure out how this all fucking happened, and like, is trying to muddle through his feelings?

He really wants to try and understand where Ranboo is coming from, and because it's Tubbo, one of the best ways he can think to do that is by sneak-reading the crappy romance novels Ranboo likes.

That part of De Terra always holds a special place in my heart they're both so dumb <3 /aff

I'm not sure if I'll be writing that perspective though? A problem I've had as time passes is my writing style changes a lot and, I think, improves, and it's hard trying to get back into the same headspace I was over a year ago.

A lot of people are just reading my fics for the first time, but for me, De Terra has been over for almost 2 years now and it's kinda hard remembering the characters like I used to know them, ya'know? And I could probably still write them, but like, I know it might be OOC and that'd be super jarring/disappointing for a lot of y'all :/

Anyway braids!

The Ranparents both kinda suck in their own way, and their relationship wasn't the...best, at times, but God did Zeetho ever love Ettaah. So her trinkets were in part to display her status, but her husband also loved doting on her, and giving her material objects like that was one of the safest ways he could show his love for her.

And then for Ran and Tub- hah. Ranboo would throw as much material wealth as he could at Tubbo, but Tubbo is a simple guy. He likes engine parts and a mostly comfortable place to sleep, and he's kinda at his max tolerance for jewelry at the moment. On the flipside though, Tubbo does for sure continue to blow his Syndicate pay on way too nice things for the two loves of his life (the Eshachi and Ranboo).

Also thank you for the lil shoutout to my book :D I am also excited for you guys to read it! Like 1.5 more chapters to go!!

[myriadblue]

Lyrics from Meteor Shower by Cavetown 

[sandersstudies]

Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)

Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!

Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!

Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row

[coldgoldlazarus]