Babies

Babies 😭

Arslan's not used to it, huh.

. Me 🤝 Narsus

Having faith in Arslan's abilities

Man, can't imagine being Gieve lugging around gold and treasures right up to a village that got sacked? I'd be squirming in discomfort bc don't look at me don't look at me I have money don't look at me. I'm getting second-hand embarrassment. Come on, Gieve.

Delulu Gieve. If I have to suffer through this then so do you.

Farangis is fucking delightful. And a breath of fresh air after having to deal with Gieve for a while though I do feel sorry for her for having to, y'know, interact with Gieve. I thought I'd gotten used to his nonsense bc I don't react as strongly to him anymore but I guess this means he was way, way worse at the beginning?

Farangis must've felt really lonely at the Temple, though. I guess she had the Head Kahina but... that can't be enough, especially not in a closed community like that?

Kharlan's face is shadowed once again. I sympathize with him and find his character fascinating, but man. The things he did this chapter left a bad taste in my mouth.

A less than stellar moment of Daryun, though I guess this was necessary. I do not believe Daryun a bad person, only that maybe perhaps things like this are... a little more normalized, in this world and era.

Okay so I've actually been keeping a close eye on Kharlan's sword this entire time and ha, it paid off! There's a goat design on the scabbard! It's not on the sword itself unlike Zandeh's here:

But both of them feature a goat design which also features on their crests:

So, yeah! Arakawa strikes yet again! With incredible attention to detail!

I am always hyped to see some AU ideas for the ArSen univers and it is always fascinated to see with which ideas everyone is coming up and how much afford is putting into it.

I absolutely love this fact

The Kingdom of Maar

Here is the lore post for Maar i pormised! It is only the history as I did go a bit overboard with literally everything lol. At least have this as I sort out the rest

(We love going overboard for Lore™)

WARNING: long post

HISTORY OF MAAR

What came when

people originated from Maryam

They searched for land in hopes of a better future and life

Water, not Land!

a small land in the Siyabun Sea becomes their new home

very slowly building homes at the coast and trying to grow differnt crops

creating a new faith so the people stick together (also found traces of ancient civilisation which they mix with the pagen religions from Maryam)

trying to resume their normal life with what they have

slowly building an army (ya know, just in case)

Hey, who wants wine?

finding fertile soil higher up

finding grapes and starting to grow them

make wine, discover demand and profit, selling time!

discover small amounts of metal (like iron, gold, copper,etc.) and start mining and smithing

Who the fuck?

tryed conversion/invasion by the Lucitanians

expanding the army into a small navy fleet

using self-made weapons and stopping the invasion

Lucitanians give up

destroied crops and some coastal villages due to the fight

needing to expand further into the mountains and higher up

Even more metal!!

through forced expantion discovered more raw metal in mountains

expantion of mining and usage of metal in every day life

finding more traces of ancient civilisation and starting to use the runic magic system

Come and get some!

establishing international trading and political and diplomatic bonds

great respons

Roundtrip

Eldar visits Pars for diplomatic discussions with Gotarzes

an accident happens

Eldar dies

Moja takes over until Farzin is old enough

Another expantion!

strenthening nayvel forces

expanding wine fields

New era of reign

marrige to Serrilda

Farzin succeeds the throne

new law that everyone can serve in the army

florishing international trade

What, again?

tryed invasion by Lucitania again

after they tried to invaed Maryam and where stoped by Pars

failed again (even worse than before)

Now

sending a small delegation to Pars

offer help against Lucitania

Andragoras refuses and sends them away

under the order of Farzin, they still help in the shadows

Later, form alliance with Arslan, which is even later revoked by Andragoras again

Saam is a wise man with perceptive eyes, he knows what he needs to say to get Hilmes to accept this, he knows what Hilmes has tied his worth to, he knows and he is willing to step forth and say it for the good of his liege.

Saam is an excellent retainer to have on your side.

(*thinks about what happened between them recently* *tries not to cry* *cries*)

The ponytail is one thing but it even has an ahoge, OMG. Zandeh!

I don't know what I could say here that @innerchorus hasn't already said before bc they're the Team Hilmes expert here but man. Poor Zandeh, hhhh. Somebody hug this puppy man! And Hilmes is right, Saam does make a good point! Why hurry for those bastards indeed!

Oh man Saam really is popular among folks, huh.

Was not expecting this guy to appear again when I first read the chapter so this was a pleasant surprise for me back then! Yes Zandeh, hug the man. And all of your father's men too.

Not much in terms of commentary, just that Andycakes really really has no faith in these sorts of things huh. I don't know how he reacts to Team Zahhak in the novel but shouldn't he be... even a little shook about being proven wrong? Then again, it's Andragoras. He's nigh unflappable.

Araya the Younger (OC) was also a blessed child and he still died, whoops.

He's not talking about Arslan here. Even if I hadn't known about the spoilery thing I would've still noted the wording as odd.

A smiling Zandeh! What was I gonna say for this part again? Oh, yeah, morale does play a big part in battles and wars, yeah? You gotta look to increase yours while demolishing the enemy's as much as possible. Hope is an impetus, there was even a scientific experiment thing where they put rats in water and forced them to swim endlessly though they were taken out when they gave up— and when put inside the water a second time the rats swam for longer bc they had hope that they'd be rescued.

Why'd I put that there? I dunno, just fun fact!

Aww, Saam is overjoyed. I think it goes beyond just being happy a fellow marzban who could be an ally is nearby, it really sounds like he's glad to hear a friend is alive.

sakuatsu spiderman au - safe and sound

I am in love with this!!!! This is so amazing!!!

Tried my hand at designing a collective sigil for the Marda clan as a whole (because individuals don't have crests) thanks to seeing @importantdestinydefendor 's crest design and being inspired by it.

It's a stylized pine tree flanked by mountains, with phases of the moon up above.

I am not satisfied with this, this was just me testing the waters and my god was this thing fucking stressful to draw. I don't ever wanna do it again.

Arslan's crest in this AU would bear similarities to this, albeit with the borders/circle of Shapur and Isfan's crests, a bird replacing the mountains and pine tree (though maintaining the general silhouette and the details on the pine). I'm not gonna draw it anytime soon, it was really stressful T_T