#kenzietensei

[felassan]

D'you know who General Rathura is supposed to be? He's an adversary in the crossroads, and my Rook remarked that he was part of the Dread Wolf's army, I think? No idea how he got that idea/came to know that information. Did they appear previously?

hello! ◕‿◕ after defeating this enemy my Rook said "The armor on those undead looked familiar... Well, whoever they served, they're fighting for the gods now." On defeating this enemy Rook can also say "Those undead looked elven. And ancient." If your Rook said that, maybe Rook's comment (and level of knowledge) at that point changes/increases as their progression through another quest does? (my Rook encountered this enemy quite early on).

I don't think Rathera or at least their name has appeared previously in the series. we know at least from Felassan that General was a rank that existed in the Dread Wolf's forces in the past, and we can say that whoever they were, they were an ancient elf. in the area behind Rathera are a couple of the frozen tree people like you can see in Arlathan Forest. and the Memento you can pick up from the area, the Unspoken, is connected to Dirthamen.

there is also this info/lines from the datamines:

"I've seen their armor on old frescoes. They fought for General Rathera. One of Solas's allies."

"The insignia. Those were General Rathera's soldiers." "And the gods have raised them to stop us." "Right! I remember now. An old ally of the Dread Wolf. And now the gods are raising them to slow us down."

Edit: @dreadfutures mentioned in the notes that Bellara gave them the dialogue about recognizing them as an old ally of the Dread Wolf. I reloaded a save just now to kill Rathera again only with Bellara in my party this time and my Rook said "The armor on those undead looked familiar." Bellara replied "The insignia. Those were General Rathera's soldiers" and then my Rook said the "Right! I remember now. An old ally of the Dread Wolf. And now the gods are raising them to slow us down." line.

[asoiaf-artbrdr]

A portrait of Quaithe! I'm not big on any particular fan theory on her identity or intentions, but I do love the concept GRRM was going with for her :3

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I'm interested in reading your hp fics, but I don't know where to start. The lily fics seem really varied and like there were some epileptic plot trees and nonlinear progression going on, from what I can tell looking through the story collection on AO3. Is there anything like a recommended reading order or core selection of stories within that set you'd advise if I wanted to get in on your particular brand of HP heresy?

Oh man, you ask the question of the hour.

This has actually been the subject of hot debate before.

How it Works in General

On Ao3 my HP fics are divided into series. Generally, the first fic of any series can be thought of as the "main" story. You should only have to read that particular fic to understand what's happening in the story itself.

If the story isn't part of a series, it's solitary and you're good on your own, if it's Xth in a series, you should read the fic in position 1 first. If it's part of multiple series, then that means you should read both fics in position 1 in order to understand what's happening.

(In the case of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" reach out to me for getting a copy, for reasons I won't get into in this post I took it down.)

So, for example, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, October, and Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus are all independent of one another, you don't have to read one to get the other, Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds on the other hand being a sub series of Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus will probably make more sense if you read at least some of that fic first.

(And The Man Who Would Be King, by myself and @therealvinelle, has similar rules where it's independent of everything else but if you read later stories in the series before the mother fic, you'll be confused.)

Side Stories

Sadly, I don't have a greatest hits list (as that feels weird for me as the author to compile) so I'd say read the side fics that catch your fancy, some are a lot better than others in my humble opinion.

What's important is that a) side stories are independent of one another unless in the same sub-series b) they were written to be non-spoiling. This means there's a lot of things that are 'not canon' to whatever the mother fic is. I generally noted as much in comments but basically if anything crazy happens, it didn't happen in the main fic.

Suggested Reading Order

There've been a few suggested reading orders from readers.

The above by Vanity Maxwell notes the chronological order fics were written in through 2018. Since side fics are non-spoiling (or I try to be) that means that when side fics were written does line up with plot progression in various fics/reveal certain things that have happened in the main fic or not.

The above by Michael gives a tree approach where, if you can handle the madness of Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus, you can progressively make your way through the fucking weird of my HP fics.

(And they are, really truly, fucking weird. Even the ones that are less weird are... weird.)

Personal Recommendation

The fics are different from each other and not all are everyone's cup of tea, they're also long. I recommend starting with the first story in series and dropping quickly if you don't like it and, once you get through it, then going on to read side fics.

[dgcatanisiri]

Hey, I've got a question about DS9 I'm wondering if you could answer. I'm in season 5, just watched EP 15, By Inferno's Light. If you don't recall, it wraps up a 2-parter wherein we find out Bashir was abducted a month prior and has been in a Jem'hadar prison. He still wears the original uniform - the cast switched to the grey-top uniforms in EP 10. This means that the changeling imposter has been in place for the episodes in between...

Notably, EP 12's plot involves an infant changeling which Odo begins to care for like his own child. The baby is infected and initially seems to be successfully treated by the doctor. After a couple weeks and some impressive progress by the lil goo baby, it suddenly worsens dramatically and dies. As it does, it's gift of transmutation is given to Odo and he resumes his original abilities.

This has me wondering - did changeling!Bashir poison the baby? Should we see it as a genuine failure of medical treatment or understand it to be sabotage? Right before it's health takes a dramatic turn, the baby had shown to make a huge leap in growth and connection to Odo, and had seemed perfectly fine, if not thriving, up until then. I would think changeling!Bashir would know how to gauge the needs of it's own kind, so like, was it withholding vital medical care? What the hell?

Also, a big deal is made about no changeling ever harming another - and it's funny that the punishment Odo got of being stuck as a solid for killing one of his own is reversed at the end of this particular episode. Not sure what to make of it!

Well, the out of universe answer is that the writers didn't decide that Bashir had been replaced by the Changeling until writing that two parter, so when they were writing the episode itself, Bashir was Bashir (Siddig himself has been interviewed and said that he would have played things differently if he'd known ahead of time). Also out of universe, I think the writers just didn't really vibe with making Odo a solid in practice, as Odo's solidity was not really explored in any significant fashion between the taking of his abilities and their restoration, and they just decided to find a way to undo it.

So what I think is that what happened with the infant Changeling was more akin to something like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or something of that sort, or perhaps a reaction to the tetryon radiation exposure it had suffered, that while it had made some recovery, it just wasn't enough to prevent it from dying, in the way that someone can be in remission from something like cancer and then suddenly have it return aggressively.

It genuinely seems that both writer intention and in universe evidence is that it was just a routine failure of medicine to solve the issue, which has always been known to happen. It could even be that while the Changeling seemed to be thriving, putting it through the effort of that level of shapeshifting when it was still recovering might have caused problems, like popping your stitches when you exert yourself too much too soon after surgery.

I feel like Odo receiving this gift and specifically like this is almost like being granted "atonement" in the eyes of other Changelings - a life for a life, where Odo took the life of one of their kind, his efforts to save the life of another, while in the end not enough to save the life, was enough to redeem him.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Hi Rosie :) I really respect your efforts to educate! RE: bodily autonomy, I wonder about stand your ground laws... Do you think that's another example of it superceeding right to life? I don't know how to feel about it, cause I think there are other alternative methods to knock someone out or contain them, & my instinct is that we should do all we possibly can before shooting to kill >.> But I do think it structurally resembles arguments you've made about bodily autonomy, so... Idk (TBC)

Also, if an artificial uterus became an effective & cheap method of growing an embryo to viability, would you find it ethical to expect women to undergo surgery to remove an embryo instead of aborting it? Excepting cases where it would cause undue harm to the mother to perform such a procedure. Do you think it would be too invasive to be ethical, or would it be reasonable in your view?

So, most self defense laws in the country specifically only allow for lethal force if you are unable to retreat from the situation safely, which I think is very reasonable. If you are able to maintain your safety/bodily autonomy without lethal force, that feels morally like what should be done. (And would still apply to abortion if we wanted to make that argument, since you can’t really become unpregnant without terminating the pregnancy.) Stand your ground laws eliminate the stipulation about being able to retreat- you are legally able to use lethal force if you feel threatened REGARDLESS of your ability to safely remove yourself from the situation, which feels a lot more dubious to me.  

The artificial womb scenario is definitely an interesting one. Abortion itself can be pretty invasive, so it could be a question of whether or not a potential procedure to move the fetus to an artificial womb is as invasive as the alternate abortion method would be, and what about of invasiveness is an allowable alternative, ethically. I don’t have a firm answer to that, but it certainly will be something to grapple with if/when artificial wombs become widely available. 

[puniper]

kenzietensei replied to your photoset: these are the best ones

Ditto, what game is this? I feel like I’ve seen the promo of it but that’s as far as my memory allows

it’s ni no kuni 2!

[sanderdraws]

I'm fascinated with the way you place elements together in your art! The blocking and background details are so perfect and stylish... Where do you find inspiration for your designs?

Heya!

I had a post up that briefly went into this earlier (took it down because I wish to rewrite it and go a bit more in-depth with how I work), but the basics comes down to seeing what it is I like in other things, understand what I like about it, and how I can use that knowledge in my own pieces.

For example, something I adore and that really inspires me is medieval manuscripts and the artwork that goes with it- usually with clear lines, it was decorative and symbolic, things were drawn and placed a certain way to convey the importance of things, with illusion of depth and focus (aka proper perspective) taking a backseat to all this.* I also love the intricate borders some pieces have and the way florals are portrayed: as an example, you can see some of my inspiration in this in how I did my take on a mille-fleurs background style on my piece for The Adventure Zine.

Hopefully this makes some sort of sense, haha. I’m not saying to go out there and copy your favourite artists work, but try to experience as many thing as possible and find out what you like/dislike.

(*please note that this is just my understanding of things; an expert in these matters probably has a different and more correct understanding, this is just what I take away from it all! If anyone has any good sources out there with more in-depth knowledge of medieval art please do let me know )

[asoiaf-artbrdr]

Leaf & an Other

Hihi~ When I made my earlier portraits of Children of the Forest and the Others, I noted that I couldn't achieve everything I'd imagined via the Artbreeder interface. For truly nonhuman characters, it has limitations. The only way around that is to supplement what Artbreeder can do by painting over it.

So, here is my updated portraits of Leaf, and an unspecified Other.

For Leaf, the main things that I wanted Artbreeder to do but had issues accomplishing were the scale and shape of the ears and eyes, and the dappled effect on the skin. I had been pleased actually by how close to my imagined hair the program was able to get, so that didn't get much adjusting - I just tried to make it look more explicit that there were plants and vines in the hair. The eyes are noted to be large and slit-pupiled, so that was important to me to change. Also, I tried to counter some of the youthfulness I felt from the original, since Bran describes Leaf as seeming like Arya in age but not at all at the same time, idk how well that comes across though. I'm not sure if I'll do the same with my portrait of Snowylocks (as they were posted as a pair) at the moment.

As for the Other, I worked off the more feminine example I'd posted. The original is pretty buried in this new portrait lol I changed a lot! My initial focus was changing the skin texture and making them seem less human overall. Part of the process for this was changing the eye shape, as well as the shape of the orbital region on the whole, and creating ridges to produce a more angular, structural face. I don't see why an Other would have eyebrows, eyelashes, or protruding ears, so I just nixed those. I'm of the opinion they are a constructed race rather than one that evolved... I thought about changing the nose but ultimately decided against it. I wanted to do something completely different with the hair, too, but I couldn't manage it with my skill level. For those familiar with the anime/manga Houseki no Kuni, I was trying to make hair like the gems have, sort of sheets of ice instead of strands, but damn if it isn't an endeavor. Props to fanartists who go all out - I recommend looking it up if you aren't familiar with the property!! Anyways, I defaulted on strands - I'm satisfied with the result but in my mind that is not what I picture for the Others.

Overall, I'm excited to share these! I'd love feedback <3