#{ And I do have her on this blog actually. }
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 5 months ago
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Sublime Equine.
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aflamboyanceofflamingos · 4 months ago
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In order to turn a very embarrassing moment of my life into something funny have this stupid Timbern au:
The Drakes are alive so Tim is still on track for being the heir of D.I. but is interning at W.E. for the summer because Bruce offered a position
Bernard has been interning at W.E. as well, for volunteering hours
The both work in a small, newer branch of W.E. that focuses on cultivating more information about Gotham’s history
Bernard’s there because it's the most teen focused thing and Tim’s there because he wants to figure where exactly the Lazarus pit is under Gotham so he can mess with Ra’s
They are currently stationed at an old house that was made into a museum which is managed by Wayne Enterprises, but since most of it is a museum there are only a few rooms to actually work, however it being a teen thing it’s very much choose your own hours so that prevents too many people from being there at once
Tim, who doesn’t want someone to come in a see the fact that he’s already finished cataloging all of the 2023 Donations to the museum and is instead using the time to further research the numerous curses in Gotham and/or watch Demon Slayer, is very happy about this fact and only comes at either the earliest or latest times so he gets a room to himself and only has to pretend to be going through boxes when someone checks on him
Bernard immediately messes up Tim’s plan
He’s always there- morning, night, even when Tim changes up his schedule
And no matter how many how many empty rooms there might be he always finds Tim and sits with him, even the time Tim tried to hide in the attic under the guise of organizing a couple boxes up there
Being the paranoid idiot that he is Tim assume that Bernard is a from the League of Assassins and enacts a 46-step plan to figure out what he’s planning (read: stalks him) and in the course of it ends up falling in love
Meanwhile on Bernard’s side, the first week of the internship he walked into the room Tim was in and wanted to be friends with the cute boy
The reason that he kept finding Tim was that he was talking to Dick Grayson, his gymnastics instructor, and Dick had realized that the boy in question was his honorary little brother and told Bernard that “Timmy’s shy, you just have to break down his walls to get to know him” and tells him when Tim’s going to the museum
Dick is well aware of what Tim thinks the situation is because he’s the one Tim rants to, but he thinks it’s funny and will make for a great story to tell at their wedding
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aardvaark · 6 months ago
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im so glad that we never get a clear picture of sophie’s background in leverage & i hope we never do. however i also really like making up various, often conflicting backstories for her in my head. perhaps they’re all backstories for an alias of hers, ones she laid to rest back in season two.
#leverageposting#leverage#sophie devereaux#particularly that one of or both her parents had to move around a lot for work & so she would change herself to fit in at every new school#or new town etc etc. and that whatever original identity she had was dropped due to some kind of really awful event and her bio family think#she’s dead. eg she got into some kind of extreme legal trouble for the first time & she faked her death & everyone she knew as a kid thinks#she’s dead too. like. astrid wasn’t the first person she left to miss/mourn her.#but also that she was a teen runaway at like age ~16 and pretended to be an adult (like. 18/19) cause theres not much you can do by yourself#as a minor like booking flights or renting an apartment. and so began her first proper alias. and she was a pickpocket until she could fund#her life fully through grifting & cons.#or alternatively her parents died when she was a teen & she was old enough to become an emancipated minor (everyone in lev is an orphan)#and she kind of just fell into crime from there bc she had no one#or perhaps she got married at 17 and realised how fucked it all was and stashed money until she could run away & leave it all behind. that’s#bc of a single vague sentence on john rogers’ blog saying she was married at 17 and in context it was quite possibly a joke or random#hypothetical example but i was like what if???? What If???????#i also like the hc that she’s trans which i’ve seen a few times#in some versions in my mind her parents were okay and in some versions they were awful and in some versions it was so complicated.#i think tara has heard one story and parker or hardison have heard another and nate has never heard any story. he’s never asked.#she is here now and that’s all that needs knowing. and sophie devereaux is her real name in any way it matters.#eliot has also never asked and she asked if he was curious once and he just asked if she was curious about What He Did and that was answer#enough for the both of them. just a mutual agreement not to ask and it actually solidified their bond.#i think she struggled for a long time about whether to tell her new family The Real Story but in much the same way we never hear her birth#name bc it’s not Her anymore… she never gives The Real Story. bc it no longer defines who she is. she’s so much more than whatever happened.#lvg
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myokk · 4 days ago
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✨MASTERLIST✨
(fanart, longfics, oneshots)
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Welcome to my blog!!! Here is my masterlist of ALL of my little sketches, artwork, writing, and general brainrot related to Hogwarts Legacy💘
🌿 - Madeleine / Maddy / myokk
🌱 - AO3
🌿 - likes and follows come from my main blog, @oerflink, because this is a sideblog (🥲)
🌱 - Eloise Babbit, my MC and basically the whole reason for this blog🫶 I don’t necessarily view her as the game’s MC, as my fic is quite canon-divergent and she is sweeter than the evil gremlin I played in-game😆💓 [link to her character sheet]
🌿 - my art tag🫶🫶🫶 here you can see basically every drawing I've done since joining the fandom!
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Writing:
Before It Felt Like A Sin (AO3 / tumblr - ongoing)
Sebastian Sallow x F!MC, canon divergent, longfic, wip, dual pov Eloise/Sebastian
Summary: Eloise never wanted to be different.
And yet, her differences are what have defined her life up until this point: growing up as a squib in one of the most prominent wizarding families, being exiled to muggle society, and then attending Hogwarts at the age of sixteen.
She finds herself thrust into the life she should have been prepared for from birth but was denied. As she navigates this new life and her new precarious position in her family, she must come to terms with the fact that maybe what she dreamed of her whole life isn't turning out how she ever expected it would.
Tags: slow burn, angst, magical theory, mythology references, pureblood culture, occlumency, legilimency, hurt/comfort, family dynamics, eventual romance, eventual smut, sacrificial magic, blood magic, dark magic rituals, implied/referenced child abuse
[coming soon] - an excerpt from the Ominis longfic I’m working on💘
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Oneshots:
clumsy (AO3 / tumblr)
pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC
word count: 9,1k
rating: E
summary: sebastian is clumsy.
or: two stubborn brats make things more difficult than they have to be.
cw: fluff, mutual pining, idiots in love, two really stubborn idiots in love to be exact, sir cadogan guest appearance, anne and imelda are the gremlin best friends every girl needs, smut (18+ ONLY), oral (f. recieving), no y/n
legilimency (AO3 / tumblr)
pairing: Ominis Gaunt x F!MC
word count: 1,7k
rating: m (language)
summary: (His parents and Marvolo insist it’s a gift handed down from Slytherin himself, just like the Parseltongue Ominis despises. It is not. It is a curse.)
or: The Gryffindor student has caught on that Ominis can read her thoughts and decides to get her revenge.
tags: ominis is a natural legilimens, he is entirely too introspective, fluff, no y/n
remembering the snow (AO3 / tumblr)
pairing: Imelda Reyes x Poppy Sweeting
word count: 3,3k
rating: G
summary: Imelda remembers the first time she saw snow.
Her parents always started the story telling her that she cried and cried and cried.
or: a character study on Imelda and how she grew up because I love her & she doesn't get enough appreciation :)
tags: character study, fluff, romance, first kiss, emotional hurt/comfort, I just wanted to write a sweet story & explore Imelda as a character
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Illustrated scenes:
(aka where I illustrate little scenes from my longfic and oneshots💓)
🌿 - the summer before Sebastian and Anne’s first year at Hogwarts🥺💓
🌱 - Sebastian hates Eloise’s guts😳
🌿 - Eloise is really, really bad at chess😔 (this scene always makes me laugh SO MUCH)
🌱 - right after the pensieve scene🫶🫶🫶
🌿 - Eloise and Sebastian’s first kiss😇😇😇
🌱 - some angst after their first kiss😇😇😇
🌿 - sebastian overthinks things a lot😔
🌱 - an excerpt from my oneshot, clumsy💘
🌿 - another scene from my clumsy 🫶 I really love writing Sebastian’s pov & this was just so much fun to paint and write😫💓
🌱 - Eloise and her mother😔
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anghraine · 3 months ago
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I had a longer, grumpier post about this that I've been drafting (it's past midnight but I'm delaying lying down for COVID+asthma reasons), but I actually do also find the raw quotes about Elizabeth at Pemberley pretty funny. Her impressions of the expensive interior are like:
It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect.
The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine,—with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.
Mrs Reynolds could interest her on no other point [than Darcy]. She related the subjects of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture in vain.
they were shown into a very pretty sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room, when last at Pemberley. “He is certainly a good brother,” said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth's impression of the land:
The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent. [...Pemberley was] backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.
The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen.
They entered the woods, and, bidding adieu to the river for a while, ascended some of the higher grounds; whence, in spots where the opening of the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr Gardiner expressed a wish of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. With a triumphant smile, they were told, that it was ten miles round. It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene: it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it. Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs Gardiner, who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was, therefore, obliged to submit
On reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon, whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows, opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts which were scattered over the intermediate lawn.
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hopeswriting · 29 days ago
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daily life arc miura haru. does anyone know who i'm talking about. do you guys remember her. i still can't believe what happened to her 😔
#katekyo hitman reborn#khr#khr text post#miura haru#the fandom confessions blog reblogged a confession about the girls and how it's kind of a shame they're always given more depths through#the badass/girlboss who now knows how to use weapons route#and it made think of haru because like. of all the khr girls imo she's the one that route actually makes sense#both narratively and character wise#like if her characterization stayed the same post daily life arc and she was given decent focus and room within the story#post future arc or somewhere along i could have totally seen that happen and would have bought it no questions asked#like look me in the eye and tell me she wouldn't have gone 'so you're telling me you're dealing with the honest to god mafia?#okay so when do /i/ get a gun too so i can handle myself and give you guys a hand??'#i mean. she literally slapped then punched tsuna upon their first meeting because how dare he corrupt innocent children#and then challenged him through a duel wearing armor because how dare he not see the wrong of his ways#then tsuna saved her and she was /immediately/ like 'oh you're KIND and care about the people around you? okay nevermind i'll just become#the future vongola decimo's wife'#also she was literally right there when they attacked the tomaso's headquarters#and was also there to witness tsuna's 'first kill' and was like 'it's okay tsuna. i'll wait for you to come out of prison' lmao#she's so unhinged#she's so funny#she's ready to throw hands at all times no questions asked#amano free my girl she can do everything the boys are allowed to do too 😔
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averlym · 11 months ago
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fairest of the fair
#hi! im alive and back and etc.#six the musical#six the musical fanart#katherine howard#thinking of that post going 'i think eventually you become the person you needed most' and like maybe that's the thing with my art#this started out as a redraw and <improvement meme> i think i've finally reached the stage where i'm making the things that my younger self#aspired to create. like i can do this now! i've reached That level of technical skill! tiny me would be so proud. it's very gratifying#redraw from august this year actually. i've made a surprising amount of improvement HAHA maybe it was the adamandi stuff getting me#back into digital rendering. i think that obsession has quietly slipped away but yknow. one never truly leaves a fandom. just less intensit#also speaking of old fandoms! we're back with the six stuff haha. as of writing i'm in the midst of blog revamp- figuring out how to chill#multifandom status doesn't mean ditch all the old stuff ! but i do feel much freer and less stressed. i think hiatus has been good for me#notes on this piece particularly: redraw about cutting hair and thinking of the lyric above. also lowkey &j ref + pinterest poem excerpts#of female suffering. and maybe a dash of amanda heng let's walk inspo. this work is really just full of contradictions..#1. the mirror and cutting hair as an act of self liberation 2. the & is part of the lyric but also a nod to &j (in another iteration it was#pink but the white looked better) and like. &j is really all !!! girl power!!! etc. and i was like hmmmm. also matching pink shiny aes#3. the frame as a cage; the mirror as a self reflection idea (ie. saville's propped insp) but also as a sign of vanity. 4. sparkly costume#and pretty pose- read one too many poems about women feeling like they have to be pretty even in their suffering. something i wanted to#explore. and also in 5. the show itself... all you wanna do is. despite all the dancing and pink and sparkly the content of the song is#darker. and even though it's a story of her suffering it's still presented as a shiny fun pop song and ajshdhfhfh ok... 6. the lyrics fall#outside the frame. sort of a caught inbetween. sort of a trapped in the narrative and yet#within the frame it's all. vaguely handwavy breaking free vibes. like i said contradictions?#7. cutting off the long ponytail vs the pull my hair lyric at the end. yeah#8. the blocked off & looks a bit like scissors. positioned to cut right at the neck#anyways yeah irl remains hectic! but if i get around to more doodles they'll appear here :)
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wonder-worker · 3 months ago
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Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations, all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.
#elizabeth woodville#nobody was doing it like her#I wanted to add more things (eg: propaganda casting her as a transgressive figure and a threat to established orders; the way we'll never#truly Know her as she's been constantly rewritten across history) but ofc neither are unique to her or any other historical woman#my post#wars of the roses#don't reblog these tags but - the thing about Elizabeth is that she kept winning and losing at the same time#She rose higher and fell harder (in 1483-85) than anyone else in the late 15th century#From 1461 she was never ever at lasting peace - her widowhood and the crisis of 1469-71 and the actual terrible nightmare of 1483-85 and#Simnel's rebellion against her family and the fact that her birth family kept dying with her#and then she herself died right around the time yet another Pretender was stirring and threatening her children. That's...A Lot.#Imho Elizabeth was THE adaptor of the Wars of the Roses - she repeatedly found herself in highly anomalous and#unprecedented situations and just had to survive and adjust every single time#But that's just...never talked about when it comes to her#There are so many aspects of her life that are potentially fascinating yet completely unexplored in scholarship or media:#Her official appointment in royal councils; her position as the first Englishwoman post the Norman Conquest to be crowned queen#and what that actually MEANT for her; an actual examination of the propaganda against her; how she both foreshadowed and set a precedent#for Henry VIII's english queens; etc#There hasn't even been a proper reassessment of her role in 1483-85 TILL DATE despite it being one of the most wildly contested#periods in medieval England#lol I guess that's what drew me to Elizabeth in the first place - there's a fundamental lack of interest or acknowledgement in what was#actually happening with her and how it may have affected her. There's SO MUCH we can talk about but historians have repeatedly#stuck to the basics - and even then not well#I guess I have more things to write about on this blog then ((assuming I ever ever find the energy)#also to be clear while the Yorkists did 'eat themselves alive' they also Won - the crisis of 1483-85 was an internal conflict within#the dynasty that was not related to the events that ended in 1471 (which resulted in Edward IV's victory)#Henry Tudor was a figurehead for Edwardian Yorkists who specifically raised him as a claimant and were the ones who supported him#specifically as the husband of Elizabeth of York (swearing him as king only after he publicly swore to marry her)#Richard's defeat at Bosworth had *nothing* to do with 'York VS Lancaster' - it was the victory of one Yorkist faction against another#But yes the traditional line of succession was broken by Richard's betrayal and the male dynastic line was ultimately extinguished.
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urfavedumbcunt · 4 days ago
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Putting her shirt on and having my brain go fuzzy bc it smells like her >>>>>>>>
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ooctlt · 7 months ago
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I really like this blog most of the time, but sometimes you take reasonable earnest asks that are trying to be thoughtful, and are such a dick about it.
Like if it's the characters being dicks, fine. But you could say something in the tags or post to indicate you're not just viciously mocking someone for trying to engage.
I still haven't submitted an ask since seeing your response that led to comments along the lines of "anon should go die in a hole" for asking, pretty reasonably, why harrow would want to stay with people she didn't seem to like or want to be around or interact with.
(i know, because she does like them and does want them around but doesn't know how to show it) but it's an ASK blog. How do we hear that from her unless someone ASKS
i understand it might be surprising and a bit hurtful to see an ask answered with the characters being mean/flippant, and for that i do apologize that it wasnt made clear that it would be a common thing in this blog. id like to issue the disclaimer: there is always the possibility that the characters here will not take your question well. they might answer rudely, and instigating behavior is not only encouraged but expected on both ends. this does not reflect my personal opinions as the artist; there are over 250 asks even after i constantly compile duplicates, and i will answer the asks that i personally like.
i will assume you are referencing the two most recent posts where gideon acts rudely and i repost an old panel: for the former i thought anon was really sweet for being so heartfelt and encouraging, but gideon isnt the kind of person who needs to be told shes brave for doing that by a stranger. it was a simple act of survival. and harrow is still very much in the passive deprogramming phase. the latter response was meant to kickstart (spoilers) what i will call the "dicks last resort" arc, where i clean out the inbox and share more simple, low effort, but potentially rude responses*. this is because i have roughly drawn almost daily for 87 days straight, and would like to recuperate without being burnt out because i love this blog and i love art.
this leads me to my next point: some of these answers will be curt and short and rude, because they are easy to draw. if i only prioritized the "good" asks or to make certain ask responses kinder, or longer, it wouldnt be a daily blog. it would be a monthly blog where 5 asks get answered among 100s. i didnt anticipate people asking about harrows piercings, and i considered shutting it down by just having harrow say she likes them etc. but i did want to give more insight into harrows character even if she wouldnt say so herself, and that took roughly 3 full unemployed nights. if i treated every ask in good faith the same way i wouldnt have time for anything else, because they take more effort and have to be seriously considered for the future. i can retcon their favorite ice cream or play off griddlehark fighting - it takes more to keep track of a narrative about people talking Around their issues
* by rude responses i mean "this will affect the 679ers negatively, much like making your sim 🧑‍🤝‍🧑➖➖ someone" there are a few asks planned to hurt in the same way one drafts a bad end in a visual novel, and this type of interaction is encouraged. of course if you dont want them to get worse dont send asks telling gideon she should flirt with MILFs (you cant send this ask now i already said it), but i encourage the banter.
TL;DR this is the "characters think you are weird for personal questions" blog. i am sorry i didnt warn of the ask-response banter, because i also enjoy drawing these characters being dicks. i do like when aggravation and conflict leads to character development. "how do we get earnest answers unless someone asks" sometimes you will never explicitly get that from them, and thats what the dead ends are for: to let you know to try something else and read between the lines
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hollownest-whore · 9 months ago
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I'm pretty sure I've already made a post about cannibalism in hallownest but it still fascinates me the difference between a person bug and a food bug. You could say sentience but a good amount of bugs that are simply scurrying around have thoughts (dreamnail) and once tumblrblazed by the Radiance every bug tends to have narrow and simple thoughts, something else I froth over
The Deepnest bugs (are implied to) eat people, or do they eat bugs, is it out of disrespect of their humanity, or the culture. There could be a natural foodchainare aspect but maybe PK influence disrupted the structure. Are nosks people? I'd love to know what's up with nosks
Bugs were capable of thought before PK (tribes and communities existed before him or WL took power and the Radiance mothtribe seems very advanced) so it could have been a way of life where "cannibalism" had no definition. Imagine the furious debates PK got up too about citizenship and laws, god I love that silly colonizer worm
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 11 months ago
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No time to play. You are being sent away.
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#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#yu ziyuan#jiang yanli#jiang cheng#wei wuxian#Do you know how hard it was to *not* do a 'Sold To One Direction' spoof comic? It took nearly all my will power.#Mostly because it misaligns a little too far off from the canon events and vibes.#But sit with me for a moment. Consider it:#“BEEP BEEP BEEP. I threw my pillow at my alarm clock. ”Wei Wuxian get your lazy ass downstairs!“ Yu Ziyuan yelled.#I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see my grey orbs staring back at me.#I put my long straight black hair in a ponytail with a red ribbon.#I went downstairs to see my adoptive mother holding a bottle of vodka and a cigarette.#'Listen up whore! I need money to pay the bills so I sold you. Your new owners will be here any minute so go pack!'#I stormed upstairs. There was no way I was going to let her sell me to a creepy old man!#I decided to run away. Since I'm not like other girls I don't have very many friends.#My gay friend Lan Zhan was mean but he lived like a block away.#As I opened the door I saw Wen Chao blocking the door. 'Ello Love. We're your new owners!'#I rolled my eyes and pushed him. 'Aren't you from that stupid Wen Sect? There's no way in hell I'm going with you!'#Hey again. It's me the OP of this blog taking a pause. I haven't actually read this story before aside from the memes#and I am honestly reeling from how this watpad fic chapter ends. What do you mean one of the one direction boys chloroforms her???#Chapter 2 is so much worse#Why is there such a strong focus on the *eyes* of every boy!!!#This fanfic is a horror story actually. I came into it trying to make a funny parody but I got in over my head. Dear God.#It's me again. Several minutes have passed and I'm on chapter 4. What the FUCK is going on here?#I feel like I opened up pandora's box hoping for a fun little treat and got the plauge upon me. Dont read this fic.
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shorthaltsjester · 1 year ago
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i do not want to dig a hole but i am too much of a laura bailey pc enjoyer to not make this post so:
selfishness ≠ a lack of kindness 
selfishness is a theme that has come up with all of laura's main campaign pcs. that doesn't mean that her characters are always making selfish choices or that they don't care about the rest of the people they're with or that they're not good. it's just that, for the most part, the first thing they're thinking of when they take action or make choices is themselves. 
in jester and vex both it is more typical and obvious selfishness. vex's developed because she needed it to keep herself and vax alive and as safe as possible and it grew into a behaviour that she had to actively work to avoid. it's evident in her greed, her theft of the broom, her reaction to her own death which relied heavily on i'm okay/i survived to which keyleth reminded her that she wasn't the only one who had to witness and reckon with her death. in jester's case, she grew up in an environment that literally trained her to make every decision based on two things - her mother's opinion and her own. so, when she's out in the world without marion for the first time, her choices are those that will benefit her and her actions are those that consider her own thoughts and not really many others' (aside from the traveler's). 
it isn't a criticism of either vex or jester to say that they are characters who act selfishly. in fact, i'd argue that to claim otherwise does a great disservice to exactly how immense both of their character arcs are. because the nuance of both jester and vex is that they are selfish, and they also hold extreme room for self-sacrifice and empathy. vex is much more brash than jester is, and jester is much more trusting than vex, but both of them are characters who begin with selfish impulses who grow with them. neither ever truly shed those impulses, but they use them in new ways, typically transforming them into impulses towards things that are in the best interest of the party. 
you may have noticed the lack of imogen in this post about laura bailey pcs and that's because of two reasons. one, we are an unknown amount of time into her story, i can't analyse her development the same way i can vex and jester's. two, imogen's selfishness isn't the blatant quasi-self-aware selfishness that we see in things like jester complaining about her lack of money to caleb or vex stealing a broom. instead, imogen's is very internal, like a lot of laura's character work with imogen. it is a bit similar to jester’s in the sense that it comes from a lack of awareness moreso than vex’s practiced behaviour, but imogen’s is a lot more tied to inherent beliefs she has about the world and the people in it.
as a consequence of her powers, imogen sees people's thoughts as their entirety, she holds it above their actions to be the truth of who they are - to act against what they think or to say something that doesn’t cohere with what they’ve thought is akin to lying, so for her to act empathetically is to act in tandem with what someone else’s thoughts are, not how they act, which is typically not all that wanted. the same as vex’s greed and jester’s naivety, this is a trait that makes narrative sense and it’s one i find quite compelling, especially when read in the vein of someone struggling through trauma that has made them assume that the world is against them. imogen’s cynicism is coherent cynicism, i can’t say that in a similar situation i wouldn’t have the same predisposition towards the world.
the part that is particularly self-interested comes in if you look at how imogen has actually been treated in the campaign (quite well) in comparison to the cynicism that she’s developed from her past (something that speaks to a world out to get her). certainly, a bunch of shitty things have happened to imogen in the time we’ve known her, but the same can be said for everyone in bell’s hells and pretty much everyone in exandria at this point in time. but, in a fight to save the aforementioned world, imogen’s focus was getting her mother back on her side. which, while very consistent with her character and a choice that i enjoy, is a very selfish one. the fun thing (to me, obviously) about imogen is that she has, more than most, an insight into the opinions of others and she also tends to seek others’ opinions out and genuinely engages with them and supports their choices. but she still very much acts towards what she thinks is best. it’s one reason i enjoy looking at the dynamic between her and orym as one between foils, as orym tends to be stalwart in his beliefs and doesn’t care too much for other’s opinions if he’s already sure of his own, but his actions tend to favour collaboration and protecting others.
as i mentioned earlier, imogen is a harder case to look at because she is still in the process of her story. however, the circlet is clearly influencing how she interacts with the world and in the wake of the solstice, the hostile reaction towards ruidusborn people has started to become more and more apparent and i’m interested to see what route that ends up leading imogen down and how it will influence her relationship with the rest of bell’s hells. (for better, i think, based on recent conversations, but if it's for worse i will be just as seated and excited).
all of this is just to say, please stop assuming that claiming a character has a trait you think is a bad one is criticism or a hate post. in light of the fact that i know that people who don’t believe this will continue to not believe this, i’ll encourage anyone confused about the ability of a character to be good and kind and selfish all at once to look to what the text itself says, specifically scanlan’s words to pelor when asked what vex means to him:
“Her name is Vex, and she is greedy and mean sometimes, and she can steal a lot. She’s a little bit not the greatest person, but her flaws highlight everything that is right about her, which is she does all these things to protect her friends and her family. She would give her life for any of us and for anyone who was truly in need. And she’s not perfect but she’s the most perfect of all of us.”
would you look at that... an ability to be a multitude of things, some in conflict with one another. i know that's hard for fandoms to believe, especially about female characters with agency, but i promise its true!
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stuckinapril · 9 months ago
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I’m finally biting the bullet and contacting a therapist today after being ambivalent ab it for so long… this hellsite has its many disadvantages but one thing I can say is it has truly helped me be less scared of pursuing therapy. Silver lining etc etc
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anghraine · 3 months ago
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Speaking of GW1 and GW2 ... I've had plenty of complaints over the years about how GW2 has chosen to handle and retcon human-centric GW1 lore, the framing of the human gods, etc. That said, I've recently been appreciating that GW2 has retained a particular element of GW1's treatment of humanity and their gods that I've always really liked.
Humans in the GW universe are not really generic everymen, as humans so often are in fantasy settings. Nor are they so wildly varying and unpredictable that there's no sense of humanity having its own distinct flavor like the other playable species do. In many ways, they occupy a vaguely "elvish" position in the world—they've been on this world for a very long time and used to be a major power, or rather, made up many major powers with various warring factions that sometimes found common cause.
But in more recent eras, many of the ancient human civilizations have dwindled and/or suffered various atrocities and/or lost their minds. And culturally, humans tend to have a strong affinity for the mystical and even more for the divinely mystical, which their political power in previous eras was directly tied to. The vast majority of humans in this world are faithful worshippers of a human pantheon of six gods (formerly five).
Not all humans are magical or religious, to be sure, but a lot of them are, to the point that this seems their most distinctive cultural quality. Minor NPCs tend to have background dialogue invoking the gods ("By the Six!"), or referencing one of the gods (often but not only the goddess Dwayna, leader of the Six). The main human NPC of the core game, Logan Thackeray, continually references the gods, as do most of his military fellows.
Most interestingly, though, if you choose to play a human, you will automatically be a devout adherent of the faith of the Six regardless of any other choices you make. In addition, human PCs are blessed by one specific god among the Six whom you choose at character creation.
This mostly has minor flavor effects in practice. A priest of the god you chose permanently hangs out in your home district, and sometimes other priests of your god can perceive some mark of their deity's favor when they look at you.
Howeverrrrr, when I say "their deity," I don't mean that they exclusively worship the god they've dedicated their lives to, or that "your god"—the god whose favor you enjoy as a human PC—is your god in any remotely monotheistic way. Humans faithful to the Six are faithful to all the Six until one of the gods falls to evil. And when that god becomes the villain of the second GW2 expansion, various human NPCs are shown going through a crisis of the soul regardless of whether he was their particular patron or not. Having a more specific personal tie to one of the gods, or being particularly blessed by one of them, or being specifically devoted to a life of service to one of them, does not in any way prevent humans from devotion to the rest of the pantheon.
Mechanically, this means that no matter which deity you choose as your particular patron, your human PC starts the game with the ability to pray to Dwayna, goddess of life and air and healing. When you pray to her, a blue image of Dwayna materializes, heals you, and vanishes. As you level up, your human-based skills will extend to prayers to the other gods.
Praying to Lyssa, goddess of illusion/chaos magic and water and beauty, confounds foes by inflicting random conditions on them and random blessings on you. Praying to Kormir, goddess of spirit, order, and truth, will free you from negative effects like immobilization. The final prayer you can use, iirc, and the most powerful, is the prayer to Balthazar, the god of fire and war who ends up going super evil. If you're playing a fragile class like an elementalist or mesmer, praying to him is actually great, because he blesses you with two fierce hounds made of flame who fight alongside you and soak up damage. (Praying to Balthazar does feel a lot weirder in retrospect, I'll admit.)
In any case, the point is that you can pray to ANY human god and receive a brief visitation from that god, because the entire human pantheon are your gods even if you're only special to one of them. A similar dynamic is at work for NPCs as well. A recurring NPC in the core GW2 story, for instance, is Rhie, a priestess of Grenth, god of cold, darkness, judgment, and death (he's not evil, just goth). Even by priest of Grenth standards, Rhie is greatly favored by him, and as a result is able to perform powerful rituals dealing with the boundaries between life and death. But there's no expectation that this means she should abjure the other gods in any way, and she certainly does not (in fact, she provides a Human Religion 101 rundown about the gods in general in her first appearance in the human storyline).
And it's so common in fantasy, I feel, that polytheistic cultures are conceptualized as giving adherents a wider choice of gods to be the one they actually worship for real, often with the implication that worshipping one god in the pantheon naturally translates into hostility or apathy towards other gods in the same pantheon. And so I do enjoy playing a religiously devout character who has a special patron deity blessing her and who is emphatically polytheistic throughout her entire original storyline.
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sippybug · 2 months ago
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flatlands pretty good
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