Update on Things!

Hey yall, Sunny here!

I have been running the Bluesolarflare account for close to four years now! Surprisingly, I have been pretty consistent posting art, almost once a month (even when I didnt have access to my tablet)! For those who know me, they'll know how hard it is for me to even bring myself to post art, so I am very proud of all the work I have done and how much I had improved!

THAT BEING SAID: I am kinda burnt out on MCYT content :,). I'm finding it hard to keep drawing and kinda want to focus on my personal art (I am a year away from graduating from college :0 ). So consider this my formal hiatus announcement. I do not know how long I will be away, or if I will even return. But sincerely, THANK YOU ALL!! I read all the nice key smashes and character analysis under my art. I would not be the artist I am without y'all! I am forever grateful for all the mutuals and friends I have made throughout my time here. I will not be completely abandoning ship, worry not. I plan to continue using my account to view artist and support where I can! I just will not be making content.

I hope you all understand and thank you for everything !

TLDR: I am going on an indefinite Hiatus, thank you guys for everything :D

only 6 more days for 12th grade to officially finish and my exams to be over. perhaps jaeyunverse comeback with a long fic ????? 😳

me, halfway through my current tournament: I know what's next :) *plans new tournament for 30 minutes ignoring the blank google docs on the other side of the screen

hello, i hope you're all doing well.

i've gone by a few different names online but the one im currently using is lune. i started starlightsapphix in 2017.

i abandoned starlightsapphix a few years ago (2021). primarily because it was a sideblog attached to a mainblog that i stopped using when tumblr deactivated my main out of the blue for no apparent reason. my main was eventually reinstated but by that time i had transitioned to a new account, which i currently use. i am writing from this new account now. i logged into the old account and added the new account as a collaborator i'm planning on reviving this account. a lot has happened since 've been gone, to say the least. my sexuality/gender is pretty indeterminate now. i know that i'm queer and attracted to women but everything else is kind of up in the air. i'm thinking of returning to the label "sapphic" as i haven't really identified with it for a while and would like to try it on again. regardless of how i end up identifying in the long run, i have so much love and respect for the sapphic/wlw community. no matter where i go in the future, there is no denying the comfort and joy that sapphic identity has brought me. i have found so much kindness, tenderness, and support from sapphics. my goal for this blog was to spread some of the warmth as far as it could go. i hope that it served its purpose. i would like to continue that mission. if anyone is interested i can give my main blog if people want to chat or know me beyond starlightsapphix. feel free to send asks too. love, lune

ok you know what i mean though right? (and btw im a different person from the other anon!)

Apologies, thank you for the distinction. I'm glad to share some of my thoughts about them, and please do correct me if I get some of the facts wrong, I am writing quite a bit.

Why do I ship Oceleva?

I'll include some personal context on their ship; as much as I love Ocelot, I was more interested in exploring things with EVA's character, and just generally drawing her more.

Changing public perception of Ocelot is a no for me, I will never try to pass off Oceleva, that is not platonic or on serious terms, as canon. It's important people research his character, and archive accounts and discussions over the development of his character are very important, and why they made him relate to Big Boss in that way.

I'll pick out points you made in the original ask, and try to explain what's interesting about Ocelot and EVA's relationship, regardless of what I'm shipping.

1 —

The first point was based on their on-screen interactions being negative.

The two times they appear are in MGS3 (1964) and MGS4 (2014), before the Patriots were established, and the one where all the founding Patriots had to die.

This is after the stories of MG1, MG2, MGS1 and MGS2 were established, so EVA would have been created, then killed with very little knowledge and emotional weight to her character.

In MGS3, Ocelot knew very early on EVA and Tatyana were the same people, and that she was a Philosophers' spy. He's extremely smug about the whole situation, dropping very obvious hints that she was lying about her role, but he couldn't kill her because he knew she was the key to get Snake out of the mission.

In MGS4, Ocelot is supposedly under the Liquid persona, so he would likely been out of character anyway. In a different scene, EVA recounts the history of the Philosophers from her perspective, and mentions her connection to Ocelot and Big Boss, with an apparent emotional connection with Ocelot.

In the novelization of MGS4, it's also implies she knew about their later joint plans to erase the existence of the Patriots.

EVA being part of the Patriots, then splitting to help Big Boss with the aid of Ocelot is an extremely important role, though most of it is only mentioned through exposition and small details.

2 —

The second point is the perception of them is different from them in the games.

In MGS3, they're not supposed to be how their perceived, they're both fronts. They're both liars for different reasons, but they're spies like how they were trained to be.

For EVA, she's just doing her job in reconnaissance, and obtaining a sum of money for her higher ups.

For Ocelot, he's working to eliminate branches of a hyper capitalist organization that steals children to put into petty proxy wars and missions for their own personal gain.

When Ocelot has any encounter with EVA, it's either to keep an eye on Snake, or to keep an eye on EVA so she wouldn't do anything out of line. Again, reiterating a previous point, he was very smug about knowing her gimmick.

3 —

I need to play the games again.

Yes, I do actually, and I will do it again. I've played most of the mainline games several times, it's my main fixation.

4 —

Last point is that EVA/Zero has more weight than EVA/Ocelot.

EVA said she disliked most of Zero's ideas of the revival of the Philosophers in her MGS4 monologue, and had more faith with Big Boss even if she knew he was wrong as well.

Maybe it's her being rescued, maybe it's their discussion after the Ground Zeroes events, maybe it's the Les Enfants Terribles project idk.

Even if I weren't shipping them, Ocelot and EVA would still have more connections and similarities as allies.

They're both heavily influenced and inspired by the Boss, as children raised by the Philosophers, and Big Boss as her successor.

They both witnessed the events at Tselinoyarsk.

They both worked to stop Zero's plans and ideas from proliferating; one example, by both planning the assassination of Paramedic.

They worked together for over four decades, under a cover people did not know about, against a scheme people did not know about.

—

As characters that are insanely unrealistic and live in a different world compared to us, it's fine to explore the weirder and less functional aspects of them. Their perception of relationships deviates from the norm, their morals are way different, the way they would comprehend of sex or love or just relating through experience is different. Which is what also makes things like Big Boss' and Ocelot's relationship interesting to explore as well.

My ideas of them are fluid, everything about either of the two characters I want to know more about, through talking with other people who also have cool headcanons.

I have one where Ocelot's orientation is closer to ace or demi, I have one where he's trans, I have one where EVA is ace, I have one where they both go on missions. I have one where Ocelot and Big Boss met as ghosts at the end of MGS4, like at the end of MGS3 with the Boss and the Sorrow.

I don't think I'll delve into less grounded headcanons but there are a lot of other reasons why I took up the whole Oceleva shipping thing.

Why Escape the Dark Castle is pretty cool

Escape the Dark Castle is a 2017 1-4 player board game published by Themeborne, and its damn good. First shoutout goes to the artist, Alex Crispin, who did an amazing job. The art is all very reminiscent of old school rpgs or choose your own adventure books, and im here for it.

The art isn't the only thing that's inspired by old school rpgs. Everything about the game, from the campy dark fantasy writing, to the gameplay itself feels like an interesting take on the osr, and honestly works best when you treat it as such.

The mechanics are simple (its successor, Escape the Dark Sector is a better fit for people who want more complexity), but there's actually quite a bit of depth. Basically, you slowly reveal scenarios on cards that have been randomly set aside before the game, read them aloud and then roll dice to resolve actions. You loose health if you do bad, and if anyone in the group dies you all fail.

There's actually quite a bit of depth to the system, each character has different traits on their dice, which mean they are good at different things. Before you flip over each scenario You choose a player to flip it. That player is you for the duration of the scenario, and any effects that specify You affect that person. Encounters can award players with items that they can use and pass around to other players between combat. All of this results in a lot of micro decisions across the course of the game.

Combat consists of rolling dice, trying to match the dice the monster has. If you match them you can roll dice. Monsters attack every player after the players attack. If you roll a double, you block and take no damage. Additionally, you can place one character at a time, on rest, restoring 1 HP each round, but taking them out of combat.

While all of these factors individually don't account for much strategy, together they make a huge difference. The odds are stacked against you in Escape the Dark Castle, so every little difference count. In fact ive found that good planning and careful strategy can lead to fairly consistent victories even against some of the harder challenges we've attempted. The game also balances itself for more or less players, giving you less health and the enemies more the more players you have.

Here's the example they give of a monster in the rulebook. The bottom left shows the health of the monster, thevplayer simble meaning to roll s number of dice equal to the player and add that to the monster's HP.

The most important part of Escape the Dark Castle, however, is the mood. The game is all about mood, it even has an official soundtrack (here's it on spotify: https://spotify.link/MVbjH3GkZDb ). This is perfect for setting the mood, and I'd highly recommend it.

The game is packed with flavor text and lore. Every card has a flavorful description of what's happening, which are best read aloud in your best dark fantasy voice. There's also the lore book, which has 2-3 page descriptions of every boss and character, aswell as the Death book, which has unique death descriptions for every card in the game (that can kill you). This is all written with the tone you'd expect from the game's setting.

Due to the nature of the game, they've also been able to publish 3 similarly well designed expansions for the game. Also, if you feel overconfident after a clean victory, you can add more cards (or even more bosses) to your deck and play a longer run.

The game acomplishes a lot for its simplicity, and part of my love for it probably comes from my love for old school revival rpgs. It ultimatley offers a fast, pretty simple but satsfying, definitley quite tense gaming experience that does a lot with its simplicity. Randomizing the control of a dungeon crawl to a deck of cards isn't exactly a new idea but it is executed very well.

(Note: i kept bolding escape the dark castle bc thats how i say it in my head: w all the bravado of a mortal combat announcer)

How do you feel about Mitsuru reveal

Holy guacamole my first anon ask

But,

I love it!!

I played Genshin (and probably will be for the update at some point soon) and Beidou is a key part of my team so I hear Allegra Clark a lot when im playing so i just KNEW she'd do great as Mitsuru. Pretty much for all the VA reveals my girlfriend was keeping me posted as I don't use twitter unless I have to (in fact it's an account that I left for half a year that I gave her to use to keep up with voice actors stuff on there and she revived it from the dead) and I was so hype with them all. In the lead up to seeing the design, I kept saying "They can't girlboss her character portraits harder than Arena, right?" And yeah I'd say that kinda but she still looks great. Her 3D model however is GORGEOUS!💖 I recently got a gaming laptop via help from a friend and I'm planning on playing P3RE on that but also my switch if its coming out on there still (very ambiguous on that).

I have actually drew Beidou in the pq style in Mitsuru's outfit along with a different drawing I'm probably gonna redo with the vice versa.

I have worries about the game like everyone else but I do very much like the Mitsuru Return (Akihiko's too!)

Now... Who's going to voice Elizabeth?

something that i kinda just realized today is how the appearances of Redwood in danielewski’s books, specifically House of Leaves and The Familiar, correlate with Danielewski’s experience with Redwood.

For those who don’t know, Redwood was one of Danielewski’s first written stories. when he showed his father the short story, his father had berated him for writing it, saying he’ll never be a true writer (ironic, ain’t it). disheartened, Danielewski had torn the story to shreds, but his sister, Poe, actually went out of her way to tape the story back together to encourage him to keep writing.

in House of Leaves, Redwood is mentioned in one of Zampano's entries. Specifically, Zampano mentions running away from him and while he got away, Zampano believes his luck will run out and Redwood will catch up. judging by how it's mentioned along with the cat killing (which are implied to be caused by the Minotaur) and the fact that 'red' is in 'Redwood', it's probably safe to say that Redwood is associated with the Minotaur, and judging by the book saying myth is both the Minotaur and Redwood, i'd wager that they are one and the same.

what im trying to get at here isn't the Minotaur itself or whether or not it exists, but rather its presence in the text itself. any text about Minotaur and anything related to it is in red and crossed out. Johnny notes in one of his footnotes that the crossed out text were text that Zampano tried to get rid off, but Johnny managed to piece back together the text. this creates an interesting parallel between Danielewski's and Zampano's experiences with Redwood: a writer tries to destroy their own text, but a third party ends up bringing their story back to life. hell, you could even replace 'third party' with 'family member if ya want to get into the "Johnny and Zampano are related" theories.

now on to The Familiar. this part will contain spoilers AND will rely on both speculation and reaches seeing as how there are only 5 books to get info on out of the planned 27 (i cri everytime)

In vol5, which signifies the finale of season 1 of TF, Xanther ends up naming the cat Redwood. in addition, in vol4, it's mentioned that one of the rejected names for the cat was Redword, a name suggested by Kle's brother Phinneas, who is implied to have read House of Leaves, judging by the text "Something about myth. Stalking the herd. Slaughtering reason" (528), which correlates with HoL's "Myth is the Minotaur. Myth is Redwood" (335-337).

what differs from Zampano's and even Danielewski's experiences with Redwood, besides the fact we're dealing with a cat and not just text, is that when Xanther finds the cat at the brink of death, she takes him to her step-dad Anwar and asks him to save the cat. When Anwar tries to do so and fails (and starts tearing up), Xanther asks if she could do it, and she succeeds in getting the cat to breath. instead of a third party/family member reviving Redwood, it is the writer who revives it themselves (well, if we can call Xanther a writer, but still). of course, you could also count the intervention of tian li in vol5 as the "third party" saving Redwood, but cmon, the themes in the first book were there.

i dunno, there's something heartwarming about reading about Danielewski's account of his first experiences with writing, knowing that the cat is named Redwood, and Xanther in the final chapter of the first book going "No, Xanther never thought the kitten [Redwood] was dead" (803).

im so tempted to revive my old discord acct from ~2016 so i can grab berry and hoard it until its available for my current acct. but also i don't want to bc of safety concerns. this new username thing discord is planning makes me suicidal

not to mention people who have been running from past abusers/stalkers, esp if they're still actively trying to look for you, will have an absolute hellish time trying to escape them. i'm fucking terrified that my current stalker is going to find me on discord again and permanently know what username i use on there so they can continue to harass me on every future account they make. thanks discord for putting ppl like me in danger LOL

A Chronology of The Peculiar Institution: Slavery Timeline 1300-1600

This is not covering the Arab slavery of our people. The reason for this post is I have seen so many of us who have no clue about how and when it started. I hear people say Black started slaver here or we sold our people into slavery and it makes me sad and mad. Anyway much could be added but I cant make it long because we will not read it. If I missed any points just let me know. Do you know how the names Grain, Gold, Slave Coast came about? Im working on a post about our fight against the Maafa which has never been told in full. 1380 In the aftermath of the Black Plague, Europe’s slave trade revives in response to the labor shortage. The slaves come from all over Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Later on they will ever use their own children. 1444 We learn from the Portuguese royal chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara, who was a young ship captain named Antam Gonçalvez, who sailed to West Africa in 1441 hoping to acquire seal skins and oil.  After obtaining his cargo, Gonçalvez called a meeting of the twenty-one sailors who accompanied him and unveiled his plan to increase their profits. According to Zurara, Gonçalvez told his crew, “we have already got our cargo, but how fair a thing would it be if we, who have come to this land for a cargo of such petty merchandise, were to meet with good fortune and bring the first captives before the presence of our Prince?” That night, Gonçalvez led a raiding party into Cap Blanc, a narrow peninsula between Western Sahara and Mauritania, and kidnapped two Berbers, one man and one woman. Another Portuguese mariner, Nuno Tristão, and members of his crew soon joined Gonçalvez. Although the raid resulted in less than a dozen captives, Zurara imagines in his account that prince Henry of Portugal responded to this enterprise with, “joy, not so much for the number of captives taken, but for prospect of other [countless] captives that could be taken.”While Gonçalvez’s voyage in 1441 is widely considered to mark the beginnings of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, it may also be viewed as an extension of an older tradition of raiding and ransom on both shores of the Mediterranean. Upon returning to Portugal, Gonçalvez treated his captives in accordance with this custom, and allowed them to negotiate the terms of their release. Rather than offering a ransom of money, the captives promised to give Gonçalvez ten slaves in exchange for their own freedom and safe passage home. According to royal chronicler Zurara, the Berbers explained that these new captives would be “black [and] not of the lineage of Moors, but Gentiles.” Thus in 1442, Gonçalvez returned his Berber captives to Western Sahara, receiving as payment ten enslaved sub-Saharan Africans, whom he then transported back to Portugal for re-sale. Please understand this was no trade, it was kidnapping. Its was also a agreement of one white man with another all believers in a book that said God will make Africans people slave the them. No European nation was willing or able to put an army in western Africa until the Portuguese colonization of what is now Angola (this Angola was part of Congo Empire) more than a century later (and even then, Portuguese forces received extensive aid from armies of Imbangala or “Jaga” mercenaries). Early raids as they say are nothing more than kidnapping, but really such as the one made by Gonçalvez and Tristão in 1441 were unusual, and may have only been possible because the Portuguese had never previously raided south of Cape Bojador. Portuguese mariners soon learned that inhabitants along the Upper Guinea coast were more than capable of defending themselves from such incursions. Not long after his 1441 voyage, Tristão and most of his crew were killed off the coast of present-day Senegal.Prior to the colonization of Angola, Portuguese colonies and commercial hubs in Africa were generally established on islands that had previously been uninhabited. I cant recall what pope made it illegal to kidnap thus creating what we now know as the slave trade. but was it really a Trade???? 1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the first merchant we can identify to send an African slave to the New World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permitted by the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Others send two or three. 1504: a small group of Africans - probably slaves captured from a Portuguese vessel - are brought to the court of King James IV of Scotland. 1505: first record of sugar cane being grown in the New World, in Santo Domingo (modern Dominican Republic). 1509: Columbus's son, Diego Cólon, becomes governor of the new Spanish empire in the Carribean. He soon complains that Native American slaves do not work hard enough. 1510: 22 January 1510: the start of the systematic transportation of African slaves to the New World: King Ferdinand of Spain authorises a shipment of 50 African slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo. 1513: 2 April 1513: Juan Ponce de Leon becomes the first European to reach the coast of what is now the United States of America (modern Florida). 1516: the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, authorises slave-raiding expeditions to Central America. One group of slaves aboard a Spanish caravel rebel and kill the Spanish crew before sailing home - the first successful slave rebellion recorded in the New World. 1516: in his book Utopia, Sir Thomas More argues that his ideal society would have slaves but they would not be 'non-combatant prisoners-of-war, slaves by birth, or purchases from foreign slave markets.' Rather, they would be local convicts or 'condemned criminals from other countries(AKA prison industrial complex) , who are acquired in large numbers, sometimes for a small payment, but usually for nothing.' (Trans. Paul Turner, Penguin, 1965) 18 August 1518: in a significant escalation of the slave trade, Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo de Gorrevod permission to import 4000 African slaves into New Spain. From this point onwards thousands of slaves are sent to the New World each year. 1519: 20 September The circumnavigation expedition of Ferdinand Magellan sets out from San Lucar de Barameda. In December 1520, Magellan discovered the ocean which he named the Pacific. Magellan died in the Philipines, 27 April 1521. Only one of the five ships to set out returned to Spain, on 8 September 1522. 13 August 1521: with the capture of King Cuahutemotzin by Hernan Cortés and the fall of the city of Mexico, the Aztec empire is overthrown and Mexico comes under Spanish Rule. 1522: A major slave rebellion breaks out on the island of Hispaniola. This is the first significant uprising of African slaves. After this, slave resistance becomes widespread and uprisings common. 1524: 300 African slaves taken to Cuba to work in the gold mines. 1526: Hieronymous Seiler and Heinrich Ehinger of Konstanz become the first Germans we know to have become involved in the slave trade. 1527: earliest records of sugar production in Jamaica, later a major sugar producing region of the British Empire. Sugar production is rapidly expanding throughout the Caribbean region at this time - with the mills almost exclusivly worked by African slaves. November 1528: a slave called Esteban (or Estevanico) becomes the first African slave (Know 2 the white man, African not slaves had beeen coming here long before) to step foot on what is now the United States of America. He was one of only four survivors of Pánfilo de Narváez's failed expedition to Florida. He and the other three took eight years to walk to the Spanish colony in Mexico. After their return in 1536, the group's leader, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, published an account of their journey through modern Texas and Mexico 1530: Juan de la Barrera, a Seville merchant, begins transporting slaves directly from Africa to the New World (before this, slaves had normally passed through Europe first). His lead is quickly followed by other slave traders. 1532: William Hawkins of Plymouth becomes the first English mariner to visit the coast of West Africa, although he does not take part in slave trading. 22 January 1532: Martim Afonso de Souza founds the first Portuguese colony in Brazil at São Vicente. Sugar production begins almost immediately. 15 November 1532: Francisco Pizaro massacres the Incas at Caxamalca (modern Caxamarca) and captures King Atahuallpa, an event that marks the Spanish conquest of Peru. 1539 30 May 1539: Hernando de Soto, following reports from Cabeza de Vaca, lands on the coast of Florida. Of about 1200 men in his expedition, around 50 were African slaves. After exploring modern Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the expedition ended in disaster. September 1541: on his third voyage to Canada, Jacques Cartier establishes the first French colony in the New World at Charlesbourg-Royal, close to modern Québec. 1555: the Portuguese sailor Fernão de Oliveira, in Arte de Guerra no mar (The Art of War at Sea), denounces the slave trade as an 'evil trade'. The book anticipates many of the arguments made by abolitionists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 1555: Queen Mary of England, under pressure from the Spanish, forbids English involvement in Guinea. July 1555: a small group of Africans from Shama (modern Ghana) described as slaves are brought to London by John Lok, a London merchant hoping to break into the African trade. 10 November 1555: a group of Norman and Breton sailors, under the command of Nicolas de Villegagnon, found the first French colony in South America. The settlement, close to modern Rio De Janiero in Brazil, is named La France Antarctique. 1556: The Italian city of Genoa tries to prevent trading in slaves - not for any humanitarian reasons - but only in an attempt to reduce the numbers of Africans in the city. 1556: Domingo de Soto, in De justicia et de jure libri X (Ten Books on Justice and Law), argues that it is wrong to keep in slavery any person who was born free. October 1562: John Hawkins of Plymouth becomes the first English sailor that we know about to have obtained African slaves - approximately 300 of them in Sierra Leone - for sale in the West Indies. Hawkins traded the slaves illegally with Spanish colonies, but the trip was profitable and others followed. These contributed to increasing tensions between England and Spain. (As well as initiating the English slave trade, Hawkins also introduced both the potato and tobacco to England.) 1569: a Sevillian Dominican, Tomás de Mercado, publishes Tratos y contratos de mercaderes (Practices and Contracts of Merchants), which attacks the way the slave trade is conducted. 1571: the Parlement of Bordeaux sets all slaves - "blacks and moors" - in the town free, declaring slavery illegal in France. 1573: a Spanish-Mexican lawyer, Bartolemé Frías de Albornoz, publishes Arte de los contratos (The Art of Contracts), which casts doubt on the legality of the slave trade. 20 February 1575: Paulo Dias de Novães founds the Portuguese colony of São Paulo de Luanda on the African mainland (modern Angola). The colony soon became a major slave-trading port supplying the vast Brazilian market. 13 December 1577: Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth on his circumnavigation of the globe. (Returns 26 September 1580) 29 January 1579: with the Union of Utrecht, the northern provinces of the Low Countries unite to create a Calvinist republic free from Spanish rule. The United Provinces (modern Netherlands) soon becomes an important slave-trading nation and an aspiring colonial power. 1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and a short campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugal are united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes the most important colonial power - and the largest participant in the slave trade. 27 July 1585: the first English colony in the New World is established at Roanoke Island (modern North Carolina), organised by Sir Walter Raleigh and governed by Ralph Lane. It was not successful, and the colonists withdrew in June 1586. 16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands. 11 January 1586: Sir Francis Drake sacks the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (modern Dominican republic). He goes on to sack Cartagena (modern Columbia) and St. Augustine (modern Florida). These acts of piracy are among the factors that precipitate war between England and Spain. 23 July 1587: A second English colony is founded at Roanoke Island, again organised by Sir Walter Raleigh. When it is revisted by English ships in August 1590, it has vanished without trace. July-September 1588: the failure of the Spanish Armada (an intended Spanish invasion of England, largely destroyed by bad weather) provides a boost for English maritime power and for English colonial ambitions, although the boost may have been more psychological than actual. 1592: Bernard Ericks becomes the first Dutch slave trader. 1594: L'Espérance of La Rochelle becomes the first French ship positively identified as participating in the slave trade.

AHAH Hi! So Twitter...

TY for following me here since Twitter is a disaster right now,,, I plan to revive this account in case everything genuinely goes down, which personally I doubt. FYI THIS ACCOUNT IS VERY OLD - FROM WHEN I USE TO DRAW LESBIAN WITCHES BAHAHAHAH,,,, it’s a bit embarrassing You going all your way to follow me.......... IM GOING TO CRY /POS  💛 💛 💛 💛 💛 💛 (Happy 1k - I’m so sorry old diakko fans)

📌 hello !!

call me shoyu, its time to revive this account with smth i rlly want to do .

recently i planned to do or open an request or ask box to let you guys send any of your faves pics or selcas so i can turn them into an icon or header / layout pack like the example in the pic ! (mostly for twitter)

before you request :

please DO NOT send an ask like " like everyone can do this " or some ask that arent related to anything. im just doing this for the people who want it !

do you have any rp accounts anymore? or do you only write on discord, etc 👀

omg hello !!! you must have been around for a while eheh i havent had an active rp blog for over a year now sadly. i have considered trying to revive my diluc blog abt a year ago when i was going through it un-privating all my old posts, and i've been thoroughly tempted by the idea of a dan heng blog these past few months but the current tumblr rp culture of flash first substance second is... a big turnoff for me sdjhfdsh not just as a principle but also because i. am not good at making graphics. and dont like the idea of having to tear my hair out over making some just to be considered as a writing partner yknow ?

i do have an Ao3 account here, theres nothing on it currently aside from an old(ish) chiluc one-shot, but i do plan to start using it more in the coming weeks ! i have a draft for a cute little short of dan heng and yanqing bonding that should go up in the next few days, and i'll probably indulge in writing more interactions like it down the line (if you see it, and enjoy it, feel free to tell me what other characters you'd like to see this sort of thing for !)

otherwise yeah, discord is where i do almost all my brainrotting these days. its less so rp than it is discussing the game and lore and characters which sometimes devolves into humoring possible interactions which sometimes devolves into actual rp, but if you enjoy that sort of thing feel free to add me (friendlifyre) !! im mainly into hsr these days but i do still play and enjoy genshin as well so either are up my alley (among other things)

oh and please only add me if you're an adult tyyy

Hey Tiff!! First congratulations on finishing your masterpiece! I have to say I enjoyed it far more than TBAS and I can really see you maturing as a person and a writer from the former to TBAW. Obv I was on the right team all along but I felt so depressed towards the end as it all went to hell and really couldn’t guess the ending, with all honesty. Chapter 36 had me crying both on first read and reread, truly soul crushing. Congratulations and shame on you! 😭

Now I need your help with something!

Since I don’t have an AO3 account to comment on the series from, I have to ask here: are there any books that feel similar to TBAW? Maybe that you’ve driven inspiration from or just know of, or maybe someone else has a suggestion and they would be nice enough to share. I was fully immersed in the angst and the fluff and it really gave me an emotional drive that I don’t get from books any more, and it helped me get back into reading so much so I would love to dive deeper.

Thank you so much for inspiring me and reviving a part of me that was lost for almost a decade. I think that alone speaks volumes on what art you made and what kind of a gifted artist you are.

I was along for the ride since Chapter 2, so Tuesdays really won’t be the same.

Waiting patiently for more to come🩷

omg hello and thank you!! i'm so sorry it took me so long to respond to this. 💗💗💗

i'm so happy to hear that you think i've matured from tbas to tbaw because that's the goal!! i want to get better at writing and crafting stories so i'm happy that you're able to notice some sort of difference 🥺

i have my fic recs list (that needs to be updated) and i have all fics that i like tagged here under #fic recs, but im not sure if those will scratch your itch. also the hunger games series by suzanne collins loosely inspired tbaw lmao

followers!! do you have any recommendations for fics with tbaw vibes for this person??? plz comment here or send to me in an ask if you wanna stay anon and i can share for you 🥰

(also lowkey i'm planning on doing a milestone event soon involving fic recommendations. something akin to @princess-okkotsu's writer's making the world brighter event because i think that's such a cool idea so keep your eyes peeled for that real soon.)

lost track of how many times ive tried to revive this acc but hi its me again! 👋 (not that anyone remembers who i am but that's ok)

been trying to get back into japanese (aka be consistent for once and be able to finally string more than 2 sentences together) so here are my very messy and disorganised study plans for the foreseeable future:

Finish Irodori Elementary 1 & 2 by the end of October;

italki lessons 2x month;

daily wanikani + get reviews down to 0 (currently have 352 piled up 🫠 - but it could be worse because i started with nearly 500 so there's hope)

prepare/pass jlpt N3 next summer *VERY tentative* should be doable but idk if i can keep up the study pace for that long so we'll see

immersion !! (mostly by watching streams, youtube videos & listening to podcasts in japanese; i also watch shows/anime but those are with eng subs so its not full immersion)

finish vol.1 of Yotsuba&!

im doing this very impulsively at 3 am on a monday so pls excuse how short and messy it is, but there's no time like the present, right?

i'll try to keep myself accountable by posting on here what i work on & my progress !! so if anyone's looking for more jp content/study buddies hmu im also happy to chat and make new friends :)

おやすみ〜

This post is for @autisticsupervillain and them only!!! (Im joking obviously but I'm making it for them)

Welcome to the Sol~Ath au! It's my brainchild and I'm word spewing. So let's goooo....

It starts with the death of Sollux in the Vast Glub, he knew that this was gonna happen so he made a back up plan, an ai equivalent to him. (Think AR (not hal hes his own deal) to Dirk.)

This equivalent to Sollux is kind of a bonzi buddy/that one episode of TTG where cyborg takes control of the tower figure. His file name is Sol.ath so that's where his name comes from. (It's also a really grim joke cause he's Sollux till death, which is never.)

He contacts Karkat AS he is grieving proto-sollux and the conversation goes something like this

Obviously it's a lot more existential and Solath actively denying he is a different to Sollux (it's your own choice if he is or not.) than this, and he convinces Karkat to let him live in his computer and then inadvertently his entire hive.

Oh yea Solath uses 1=I and 0=O cause you know puters n shit

All the other trolls think Karkat is insane, as they all know Sollux is dead but yet still find Karkat hunched over whatever alchemized laptop saying he's talking to Sol. Some like Tavros and Kanaya are sympathetic thinking Karkat is just taking the death quite bad whilst others like Vriska and Eridan chastise him for still talking to Sol's (what they think is) inactive pesterchum. With exclusion to Feferi.

Also since Solath is not plagued by the voices of the imminently deceased he's more of a dick and more chipper than regular Sollux, causing Karkat to feel like there is more dissonance between the Sols

Also murderstuck never happens cause no Sollux means no Eridan murder.

Feferi couldn't revive Sollux cause Feferi was told by Solath he was fine. The pair are quite close but no matespritship happens since Feferi feels weird at the concept of dating someone who'll be 6 sweeps forever.

Also Solath can choose to go between his and Karkat's Trollian accounts, which causes shenanigans between him, Karkat and the beta kids.

This is mostly all I have so far this au (that I can think of) I'll have a tag for it so when I do make art or think of new stuff, it'll go there!

I'll leave off with Solath's sprite