this post reminded me that i never posted my lesser known garlean boy here, so here he is! meet benignus (or ben for short) :>

Okay it's four in the morning and I'm not entirely right in the head and I absolutely have not thought through the ramifications of this in its entirety, but

Garleans can't use aether, but they can affect and be affected by dynamis. we've seen this in canon.

Culturally Garleans seem to have a lot of emotional repression, breaking through only when pushed to extremes, which has no doubt prevented them from actualizing the combat potential of dynamis in the past. There is now an opportunity for this to change.

as they rebuild and reform their culture we should see Garlean bards becoming a thing, and they should invent heavy metal

think about it think about it. You've got Garleans coming into direct and peaceful contact with other cultures en masse for the first time since they were exiled. They're going to be learning and absorbing so much, and with no infrastructure, one of the things people do for entertainment is gather to sing and tell stories. They are going to learn about bards. They have plenty of skilled ranged combatants. With lots of half-scrapped magitek components lying around, they have the ability and motivation to experiment with sounds no one's ever thought to turn into music before.

All it takes is one bored engineer working with something that can make different pitch frequencies, realizing that they can manipulate those frequencies on purpose, playing around with it until they can make this hunk of sparking wires and metal play the melody they heard around the campfire the other day. That's always been how things start getting invented. Iterate, clean it up, make it more purposeful, advance it. And what the hell else do we have to do but fine-tune the few things that are still ours?

imagine someone getting a brief glimpse a hundred years into the future, when a fully equipped Garlean combat unit includes a sound system broadcasting metal screams and electric guitars that boost a whole platoon's combat capabilities. visions of madness in the best possible way.

COMMISSION FORMS ARE OPEN

COMMISSION INFO & FORMS

Commission forms are open again! If you're interested in getting art from me, you can find all the information/prices/examples & forms here!

This time all categories are available ✨

Since I can finally work full-time again and have some heavy medical expenses to cover, it's time for these again!

You can find the forms here! (you'll need to scroll down a little for the sketch page form)

For now, only the forms for sketches, chibis & sketch pages are open, but full colored categories & illustrations will be available again once my queue is fully cleared.

As always, thank you so much for your support!💙

A couple more slots are available because I'm having a bit of an emergency, so if you missed this last time, the forms are open again!

Since I can finally work full-time again and have some heavy medical expenses to cover, it's time for these again!

You can find the forms here! (you'll need to scroll down a little for the sketch page form)

For now, only the forms for sketches, chibis & sketch pages are open, but full colored categories & illustrations will be available again once my queue is fully cleared.

As always, thank you so much for your support!💙

A couple more slots are available because I'm having a bit of an emergency, so if you missed this last time, the forms are open again!

Since I can finally work full-time again and have some heavy medical expenses to cover, it's time for these again!

You can find the forms here! (you'll need to scroll down a little for the sketch page form)

For now, only the forms for sketches, chibis & sketch pages are open, but full colored categories & illustrations will be available again once my queue is fully cleared.

As always, thank you so much for your support!💙

i am not immune to stories in which characters who have endured harsh, empty existences become absolutely transformed by someone’s sincere love for them and learn to live

nobody understands this highly popular fictional character at all except for me and my carefully curated panel of mutuals