Southern Comfort (2001)

happy pride lol

(shout-out to @andreabandrea for the idea <3)

Sorry if this is an annoying question, but I think I remember you saying that abbadon was a trans-man? (Or trans-masc?) If so, does this ever come up, or is it just a fun fact for the audience to know?

abaddon is a trans man, yes! i believe that miiiiiiight be in his carrd bio, but i don't wanna go look at said bio until i have the energy to do whatever revamping i deem necessary, so i'm not sure at the moment.

specifically, the name for abaddon's identity would be "agender male". some people would describe the experience as being "mostly agender, a little male", but for abaddon it's more like... "male, but not that way". if asked about their own gender, of course, they would just say male — for them, gender is just another social construct they don't really understand or care for, but they do know the impact it has on how people perceive them, and further ostracization would be very detrimental to their goals. they don't even tell people their pronouns, usually; they just don't correct "he" or "they" when they come up xD

i'd say that abaddon's transness doesn't come up suuuuper often in the story, or at least it's not planned to? (besides some drama with cross down the line, that is, and maybe some discussion with killer.) i could see it being mentioned during any sex scenes, not just because "hey i might not have the genitals you're expecting" is an appropriate thing to bring up to someone you want to bang, but because abaddon, being an asexual trans man, has some pretty significant vaginal atrophy that he's absolutely uninterested in getting treated — which of course means that vaginal penetration isn't really possible for him.

...and for reference on that last note, because i don't see people talking about this a lot with transmasc characters: vaginal atrophy isn't something you necessarily need to get treated, provided your personal symptoms don't bother you. (which they probably won't if you don't plan on having sex or masturbating vaginally.) vaginal atrophy just means that your vagina isn't getting "enough" estrogen (something that also happens to post-menopausal people) and therefore kind of shrivels up into "do not disturb" mode, which involves being smaller, dryer, and more easily irritated. of course, everyone's body is unique so the symptoms of vaginal atrophy can be more uncomfortable to some people than others, in which case it's pretty easy to treat with some topical estrogen cream — but since i've seen "atrophic vaginitis" thrown around a bit as a scary buzzword by people who undoubtedly confuse "atrophy" with "necrosis", i thought i'd take a second to clarify.

if you're asking this because you're worried about transphobia against abaddon being a significant plot point, though, don't worry. most of TAU's cast are monsters, and monsters in TAU barely understand what transness is, let alone have a negative opinion on it. the exception to this is probably just X!Gaster, but at this moment i'm not even sure if he'll show up in TAU by any other way than passing mentions xD

Play your part. Someone’s always watching

You know… for us it’s just a show. But for them — it’s their last moment. And Frisk got so lost in this ‘role’ they stopped seeing it too.

Papyrus — still kind, still accepting you. Toriel — shocked and betrayed. Undyne — fighting to the end. Asgore — broken, stripped of everything. And Sans… god, he’s still trying to stop you, even when he’s got nothing left.

It hit me. Like… they were real all along. And we just didn’t notice.

i just wanted to quickly say — things are still pretty tight right now with my bf's little brother staying with him, so while i wouldn't necessarily say i'm in an emergency, if you can afford to toss a couple of dollars my way for groceries/toiletries it would be a huge help qwq

Ko-fi

Buy byrdblood a Coffee

Become a supporter of byrdblood today!

i really appreciate all the support so far, not just with money but with my ventures into 3D on the side; it's been really keeping me going!

from the comments

???: denji ...

Denji: WHA--WHO ARE YOU??

???: i'm the gayness devil, Denji

Denji: WHY ARE YOU SMALL

???: not enough people are homophobic anymore … i need you to spread homophobia, Denji. You need to spread homophobia

Denji: i… um… i don't think i can do that

???: i'll show you a boob

here's a question i've had before: how does monster aging work in mtau?

for example, horror is 58 yrs old if i remember correctly, does that make him relatively old or is their lifespan usually longer than humans'? (i imagine average lifespans also differ between boss monsters and the rest)

TAU horror is 54, but close!

i'm pretty sure i've talked about monster aging before but i can't remember where the post is — TLDR; a monster's llfespan depends on how much mana it generates, which typically correlates (at least roughly) to its size. it also isn't a straight graph of "more magic = more life", because mana slowly wears down a monster's leylines similarly to how oxygen slowly "burns" our cells; there's a sweet spot in the middle where you can have enough mana to live a long time but not enough to burn your body and SOUL alive from the inside.

(and you're correct: most boss monsters normally sit somewhere around this sweet spot, hence their longevity irrespective of size. :>)

how quickly an overabundance of mana can kill you also depends on the type of body you have, which is why it's important to consider the "race" of monster. ghosts and skeletons, for example, don't have a lot of physical matter even by monster standards, which means that even though their leylines play a more important role in their bodies they're also more resistant to those leylines getting worn down. this corresponds to the idea of "undead" monsters living a very long time.

(...that said, the point where a monster reaches "maturity" also depends on the type of monster. generally speaking, more humanoid monsters will reach maturity rouuuughly the same time as a human — maybe a bit older or younger. this is, again, more to do with the size of the monster than the shape; if a monster was humanoid but also the size of a cup they'd probably reach maturity in just a few weeks. but most humanoid monsters in undertale are also humanoid in size, so... let's take that as a hesitant norm across most universes.)

anyway, with that out of the way, and given the context that all of the pantheon members (obviously save abaddon and nightmare) are boss monsters (lots of mana) AND skeletons (not a lot of physical matter to burn), this means that their lifespans are naturally going to be very, very long. like, at least a couple thousand years a piece. (which seems overbalanced until you remember that skeletons are typically pretty rare in their home universes; seeing more than 3-5 in one spot would normally be very strange, multiversal shenanigans aside.) HORROR, however, comes from an anomalous universe where monsters are made of flesh and blood instead of dust, which means that he does have a lot of matter — and that unfortunately means that he is going to have one of the shortest lifespans on the team besides dust himself, who already suffers heavy leyline damage from the condition he has that causes his body to overproduce mana.

all that to say: horror is still pretty young by skeleton standards, but he'll probably only live a couple hundred years (if he's lucky) as opposed to the more typical few thousand. that's not to say that he's a child, either, of course — all of the skeletons are well past the age of maturity, and in that way "their" 54 isn't really different from 54 in a human — but he's not quite on his deathbed yet, so no need to worry.

so i'd say horror (specifically) is like... late 20's, in human years?

OOMF asked for an ecto tutorial so I whipped one up to share with you all! This is just my personal process so keep in mind that it won't work for every artsyle or artist,. Neither is this a "do and don't" sort of thing- Artist's are always evolving and I'm sure I'll look back on this some day and see all the mistakes I made, so don't take this as the only way I will every draw ecto. Also, I am sorry if my handwriting is hard to read here, I tried to make it as clean as I could 😭

i just wanted to quickly say — things are still pretty tight right now with my bf's little brother staying with him, so while i wouldn't necessarily say i'm in an emergency, if you can afford to toss a couple of dollars my way for groceries/toiletries it would be a huge help qwq

Ko-fi

Buy byrdblood a Coffee

Become a supporter of byrdblood today!

i really appreciate all the support so far, not just with money but with my ventures into 3D on the side; it's been really keeping me going!

Hai!! Hope everything is alright ^^

So I was thinking about their designs again and (if I recall correctly) you mentioned awhile ago you wanted to change some things with their refs, so I’m curious what you would add or change to their designs?

ahh, i forgot to follow up on that!

mostly i was just unhappy with killer's outfit(s), horror's general shapes (looked a little too fanon for me), and the specifics of abaddon's palette. those are all things i corrected on their 3D models xD

there's still a lot to do — i need to figure out how to animate/switch between textures to finish killer (mostly for his tears and makeup), and i obviously haven't rigged everyone yet (nor do i know how to get their faces set up in a more natural "default" expression; i know there's a way to set up a library of faces, but idk how yet xD), but as for the color schemes and details of the outfits i think i've fixed them!

i also still need to do all the props... i did abaddon's phone and polearm just as a test, though, and i think they turned out cool:

might still need to adjust some things; i think the polearm needs to realistically be a bit longer, and i'd also like abaddon's soul to actually be able to show "levels" of fullness as they absorb mana. i think i know how i could approach that, but i'd like to know more about textures first so i don't do things some unnecessarily hard way xDD

killer also has more outfits cuz he's a lil fashionista:

rn i'm not sure about the "earrings", but once i can figure out the textures and finish up the details with his face, i think it'll tie together nicely!

idk; like i said, there's still a lot to do, but it's been nice to work on something that isn't work related. it's cool seeing them slowly come together uwu