An unnoticed bruise.

+| Gale or Mito |+ | cis lady | lesbian | 30 | 🔞 Minors are discouraged from following. Proceed with caution. ⚠️ This is an anti-censorship and anti-harassment blog. ==== Hi. I'm trying to be more active. I mostly snoop around the tags I follow. Sorry if there's not much to see, but thanks for stoppin' by. 💛

[cannibal-tango]

They have a father-daughter dynamic to me when this game is finished in 4763662586279521576334 years. I'd like to think Norman (the detective) isn't a bad person, but he's extremely paranoid because of the number of criminals in this world, so he'd probably be really suspicious of Elora. But during his conversation with her, he's able to trust Elora and understand she's not dangerous.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

things some people, especially people who are new to ao3 or fandom/fanfic space as a whole, seem to not understand:

archive of our own is an archive. not a social media.

archive of our own was built with the stance that there would be no censorship, because other platforms already had censorship where some things that were taboo were reported/removed. ao3 was built with the purpose that all of these works, that were not allowed on other platforms, would be allowed on ao3.

the archive will house anything that’s considered fanworks. so no, you cannot report this fic because it portrays in explicit details taboo topics about xyz, you cannot report that fic because it romanticizes and glorifies xyz. ao3 will not remove any of those fics, because whether or not you like it, those fics do not go against ao3’s terms of service.

“but these things are not allowed on other platforms” that’s precisely why ao3 was created, to house and give a platform to these things that were censored/banned/removed from other platforms.

if you have a problem with this, you can use other platforms to post and read fanfics

but you should also know that ao3 by far has the best tagging system, meaning you won’t get anything like what ao3 provides on other platforms, meaning it may be a pain in the ass for you to find a fic with the prompts and pairing you’re looking for, meaning you may still get jump scared by things that are triggering to you half way through your reading of what you thought was an innocent fic. because other platforms don’t have tagging systems, where you can find and avoid any character/pairing/tag as you please, like ao3.

[innocentb3an-deactivated2025111]

i think it's quite harmful to share the mindset that basically anything goes on ao3. yes, tags and filtering are super helpful to avoid your dislikes, but because of how many "taboo topics" are written, it's more challenging to find what i want when i have to scroll past abuse, mental health glorification, etc. i think authors need to really take some time to self evaluate and really come to terms with what they're writiinf and if it's that important to be written.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

actually, authors can write whatever they want because they write for themselves. not. for. you.

we don't have to cater to your personal liking or comfort because we fucking write whatever the hell we want for ourselves. we are our main audience and priorities. and we already tag our warnings, it's your job to avoid them.

also if you actually filter out tags about topics you don't like, you won't have to scroll past most of the things you don't like, because every fic that's tagged as such just won't show up on your screen at all

[ecchymosess]

Rides With Strangers official and promotional art, done by the very talented Jorge Gonzalez!

The second and third pics are pretty notable for giving us a more solid glimpse at Elora's parents. I wonder what their names would be?

I kinda' like the name Mercy for her mom. No clue about her pops, though. He looks kinda' rough-and-tumble.

This is likely the last bit of RWS-related stuff I'll share for a while unless either I commission new art of the characters or we get news on the game. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that there just isn't a lot to share, at the moment.

[ecchymosess]

Kim Walker as featured in an Oil of Olay ad!

Yep, found another commercial that Kim was in! This time for Oil of Olay (now known as simply Olay, I think).

I promise she's there, make sure you watch all the way through! You'll know when you see her.

Even the tiniest little peek at her makes me happy. The hunt for more of Kim's work, as always, rages on!

[holidayslaughter]

whenever i see people call random edgy but not-at-all harmful artists "degens" i would like to refer them to the first sentence of wikipedia's "degenerate art" article

[grimalkhiindi]

I hate you shipping discourse I hate you unnecessarily aggressive DNI banners I hate you dehumanization of those you disagree with I hate you harassment over ships or favorite characters I hate you purposeful lack of nuance I hate you false equivalencies I hate you policing how people engage in fandom I hate you actively trying to make fandom spaces hostile I hate you refusal to filter your feed I hate you making it everyone else’s problem

[ecchymosess]

Got another Rides With Strangers thing that I felt was worth posting for the sake of having it available for everyone.

It's yet another video that Adam posted a long while ago on his YouTube channel that has since been made private (it was originally unlisted anyway, so you already needed a specific link to see it - the original link came from a now deleted tweet on Adam's Twitter). The original video also had no visual - I added that part myself (the art is from Jorge Gonzalez, by the way).

Anyway, the video features a segment of what I assume is a prologue or intro from Rides With Strangers, featuring everyone's favorite hitchhiker providing narration and giving us some details about her life.

That's right, you're hearing Elora's canon voice! Or, at least, her original intended voice. I don't think this video was seen by many, so I'm posting it here!

Elora's voice actress was intended to be Mel Gorsha, as stated on the game's Kickstarter campaign page. But from what I understand, she's been MIA for a while, and not much can be found about her online. In fact, Adam actually had a post on a voice acting forum looking for a new actress for her (as well as the "Momma's Boy" stranger, interestingly enough) where he specifically stated that the reason he needed a new one in the first place was because he could no longer get in touch with Mel. Unfortunately, these posts have been lost to time and nobody seems to have archived them. Take my word for it, though, they did exist. Adam's profile still exists on the site and was archived on the Wayback Machine (you can in fact see that the two posts regarding Elora and Momma's Boy were there as well, even if they weren't archived).

Apparently Mel might be still around, going by a different alias according to her info on the Visual Novel Database, but I don't know how true this is. If anyone has any more info, I'd love to hear it! Regardless, I hope Mel's doin' okay! I think her voice fit Elora well.

Fun fact: you can also briefly hear Mel as Elora in this early trailer for RWS, right at the start! Thankfully, this video hasn't been taken down.

And there you have it. Obviously, I think at this point Adam's choice for Elora's voice actress has likely changed (if he has gotten that far along in RWS's planning stage), but if you ever wanted a clearer idea of how Elora was intended to sound, now you know.

[graveyardp1aygr0und]

𝔇𝔬𝔫’𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔨 𝔟𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔰 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔣𝔲𝔫? 🥀

[romnctics]

Since none of you wanna do it, I’ll do it

Elora Silverman at work!

[ecchymosess]

I remembered that I had this video saved on my PC and I believe Adam himself deleted it from his socials a while back (could be wrong, but I have trouble finding it online now), so I figured I should post it here, for posterity's sake.

This was a sneak peek of Lydia/the Nympho pulling in to pick Elora up in an early development build of RWS. It's a neat little interaction that I felt was worth preserving.

Maybe some people will find it interesting.

I like that you hear Lydia talk for only a moment, but you immediately know what she's all about. lmao Girl wants Elora bad.

In all seriousness, at least according to some comments on Lydia's page on the Rides With Strangers wiki (so take them with a grain of salt), there was more footage of Elora's ride with Lydia that Adam showed off in a live-stream a long while back that showed her being pretty seductive with Elora (duh) and also showed that she doesn't like family being brought up? Which, if true, is a pretty neat dynamic/difference between her and Elora.

We know that Elora's reasoning for pursuing the job interview in her backstory so adamantly was at one point because said job involved being able to work on a cure for her mom's illness (and at one point, if I recall correctly, the entire goal of the ride was changed to simply getting to her mom's deathbed before she passed away) so we know Elora cares deeply for her family. I wonder what Lydia's relationship with her family was to make her react so negatively? And does it potentially tie into her hyper-sexuality? Does it explain her behaviors? Much to think about!

If anyone has any more information about that live-stream, by the way, I'd love to hear it! I can't find any archive of it anywhere (assuming that it existed in the first place).

[ecchymosess]

While I'm on my Rides With Strangers kick still, I might as well throw it out there that even though it is the most current model for her that we know of, the girl on the right doesn't even register as Elora to me.

I look at that model and think to myself "WHO is THAT??? 😭".

Not that I think it's badly made or anything, mind you.

I'll chalk it up to my attachment to the demo, although I do think there's more to it than that. I know the original model isn't necessarily as "pretty" as the newer one, either, but I honestly prefer it that way. Her first look has an uncanny nature to it that I think fits RWS better. And maybe this is just me, but despite what I just said, I think the old one is significantly cuter, too.

On another note, the newer model is from, what, 2020? I wonder if Adam has done any changes to it since then? Maybe not, since I doubt he's worked much if at all on RWS in recent years, but still, it's a neat thought.

[ecchymosess]

Sometimes you see a head-canon that so fundamentally misunderstands a character and misrepresents their struggles, environment, etc. so blatantly that you genuinely cannot wrap your head around how someone even came to that conclusion and said "yep, sounds good to me".

I mean, head-canon whatever you want... but that doesn't mean I don't roll my eyes, every now and then.

And people try to pass it off as "well, everyone has their own interpretation", and yeah, that's true. But, sometimes, your interpretation goes against all the canon information available. Sometimes, it goes against words people more intimately involved with the work have said. And sometimes, the interpretation makes no sense no matter what angle you look at it. It goes against common sense.

Again, you can head-canon whatever you like as long as you're not being a jackass about it, and I'd say most people are nice about these things in my experience. But I really don't subscribe to this idea that all interpretations are equally "valid" when held under scrutiny. Sometimes, an idea is clearly self-indulgent with little or no regard to the character's defined personality and traits and doesn't align with canon at all. That's fine. But that's all it is. And there are clear differences between a head-canon where you can read about it and say to yourself "yeah, I can see where this idea came from and the logic behind it" and ones that scream "what the actual hell are you talking about, where on earth did you pull that one from".

And when you love a character a lot and see many people say things about them that are outright wrong, that can get pretty damn annoying, head-canon or not. There are some things that simply aren't "up to interpretation". They are clearly spelled out for you in the work.

It's hard for me to explain myself in a way that doesn't sound overly judgemental, so let me make it clear in case it isn't obvious that I do not support going after people for their head-canons in any scenario, regardless of how little they make sense. I'm just getting this off my chest.

TL;DR: Head-canons are all fun and games, but sometimes I see one that makes me do this:

[cannibal-tango]

I don't even know if I like this one tbh

[alevolpe]

Queen Nehellenia

[voron228]

[dragoumare]

[frongfriend]

All of the Spyro hub world paintings. With reference screenshots below 💛