#ANYWAY WOW THIS GOT LONG

[raviollies]

Hey! I love what you've done to characters and Lorelei is now living in my head rent free! Raha and Blythe are amazing and adorable!

It's very inspiring the way you keep yourself together even when everything falls apart! Keep it up!

If my question is annoying or if it bothers you, you may not answer on it.

Originally I followed you when I saw your Ireena and Blythe art. It amazed me how much both of them and Ireena in particular got fleshed out!

In my dnd game and tbh in many other games, players don't get invested in Ireena's journey, they don't fall for her and don't care for her sadly. That's why many DM's usually replace her with a player character, in order to raise the stakes. In half a year I will be running a new cos game, for the group of three and I am honestly considering to replace Ireena with the PC, but don't really want to (especially fearing how the game might go, if the player will turn into strahd-simp).

Could you please describe Ireena's character in your game? Perhaps her bonds and flaws? So other DM's and I can do a better job of her portrayal!

Thank you for the kind words! Here is an updated Lorelai WIP for your to pay rent

(and Blythe and Raha are very married yes)

So rather than referencing my game, as I am not the DM, I will provide my own suggestions as I was planning on running CoS as well. Spoilers for the campaign

I will also suggest against a Tatyana PC. Everyone is very much free to write and interpret the character however they want but to me it is very important that the Tatyana reincarnation does not want Strahd. In fact I would remove the interaction with Sergei too. Having her instantly forget herself as this new person in favour of Tatyana erases the entire point and kind of proves Strahd right in him refusing to see Ireena as her own person.

The way I would approach Ireena; she is her own person. She grew up with her family that wasn't Tatyana's. She lived a life that wasn't Tatyana's. She's met different people. It doesn't MATTER if she's a reincarnation of someone else, after all everyone in Barovia is a reincarnation of someone else. It's very important to establish that the main crux of the issue is that Strahd does NOT see her as Ireena, but Tatyana. He does not know Ireena. He only knows Tatyana. I would even have him call her that rather than "Ireena".

Ireena's story would be one of becoming independent and confident in her identity. To no longer be just Ismark's sister, Burgomaster's daughter, Tatyana's reaction, Evil's bride --- she is Ireena Kolyana. Nothing more, nothing less. I would start her off as unsure of herself, and being hesitant to take up space and over the course of the story become more confident in standing up for herself, with an eventual climax of expressing extremely clearly to Strahd that she is not Tatyana. She never was. He doesn't know her. That that person is gone, and she will never be back. He can chain her, do whatever but that will never make her Tatyana nor will it make her love him or know him. She is a woman who is constantly assigned identities by other's, but she want's to just be Ireena, she wants to do her hobbies, decide on where she wants to go, what books to read, what food to eat.

The relationship between Strahd and Tatyana is irrelevant. It could have been real, or a figment of his imagination, but the point is that...she is gone. If he had a soul of someone else, would it be fair for them to lay claim to him?

As for personality wise ; I would write her as sheepish at first, she is someone taking their first steps into adulthood in a way, outside the comfort of their home, their village. She should be curious and wonderstruck, curious and wishing to explore every nook and cranny. Because of that she would be unfortunately naïve to the problems that arise in bigger cities as Vallaki. A village and a town are very different - a big thing she's be stupefied by how impersonal everyone is. Rural villages often have people knowing everyone, it's commonplace to help your neighbor because you KNOW them. Vallaki is different...people go about their day and do not care, after all there is so many people. You physically can't know everyone.

She is down to earth and finds camaraderie with someone simpler than a noble, providing practical suggestions and being very handy with most tools and identifying local flora. On a flipside, I would say she struggles when dealing in very formal settings where it's less about honesty and more about saying a lie by omission to get what you want. When interacting with Vargas or Lady Wachter, she's visibly uncomfortable and stumbles over her words; they speak in such a way to purposely confuse her, like a lawyer would. Not only that but she most likely would refuse to do anything morally questionable, her heart is very pure!

So in all, a kind hearted, down to earth little lady who values honesty, hard work, and family but is naïve, stubborn and socially awkward. She will support and protect the party, even to her detriment but she will not stand with them to commit Crimes (so RIP if your party is murder hobos)

[possamble]

Needlessly close reading and long commentary on chapter 57 and how the audience actually has an extremely limited view on what Marcille has been like over the course of her life.

I am once again thinking about how pre-dungeon Marcille is so quiet and stoic that she seems like a completely different person. How jarring chapter 57 is for the audience. Like you have Marcille, who has been just the most blindingly expressive person with resting baby face

And then the chapter drops a title page of Marcille hearing from Falin for the first time in four years and it's like.

Who is that. Genuinely. Would you even realize that's Marcille without the context clues?

And then the chapter just keeps coming in with the sucker punches.

We have SEEN Marcille meet strangers. It was never with this understated of a smile.

literally who the hell is this. the few times the audience gets to see some Signature Marcille Faces that they're used to is when she finally gets to see Falin again

when she's testing out her new spells

(and when Laios and Falin are fantasizing about her being their damsel in distress, funnily enough)

And then finally. Finally you get to a fully recognizable Marcille when she fucking DIES and comes back to life to geek out about necromancy.

We know she loves magic. We know she loves Falin. So it's not so surprising that she wouldn't be able to keep a mask up when thinking or talking about the things she loves. But why the mask in the first place? Where does it come from? It's tempting to think that, maybe, Falin's departure just hurt her so much that it turned her into a quiet person.

But that's only half true. If you go back, the first instance you see of this incredibly mild personality is actually introduced much earlier, in chapter 17.

What if she was always like that. What if her default after her father died was to hold people at arm's length, to never really emote past being polite and friendly. What if Falin was the first person who was able to bring her out of her shell, and when she left, Marcille just went back to how she was.

And when comparing her detached demeanour with someone else...

It's not exact, but wouldn't you say there's a resemblance? Wouldn't you think she might be trying her best to imitate what she saw of her own mother working as an accomplished mage?

It would certainly explain why she's hiding behind her portrait in her nightmare, at least.

We aren't told that Marcille has been distancing herself from everyone around her using a mature and dignified personality she modelled off her mother. But we sure as hell are shown it, I think.

[weirdglassthing]

GRIMMORNING NATION RISEEE. Criminal lack of grimmorning on this site so I’m making it my personal mission to spread my propaganda

Ignore whatevers going on with torbek, even I don’t know. I just drew some lines for his body and called it a day

[beetleoops]

You keep getting married to Beetlejuice

This fucker loves to party (and he loves you), so you are having weddings constantly

You officially get married in private, with only Lydia, the Deetzs and the Maitlands there. You take it easy so he can adjust to being alive, but Delia still throws a pretty fun party- if a little...odd. Still, it's enough for Beetlejuice to learn his alcohol tolerance isn't NEARLY as high now that he has a heartbeat.

"Babes!! I cannot fuckin wait to get married to you all over again." He's half asleep, laying his entire weight on you, reeking of booze, smiling like a dope. "Uh-huh. Me too, Beej." You pat his back.

(Also, turns out now that he sleeps for real, he snores. you think its cute.)

Once he's human (and more or less used to it), you have a more traditional wedding with your friends and family all there, and throw an all night reception and after party at a bar - beej loves the energy and is cheering on your grandparents to throw ass on the dance floor all night

"Fuck it up Agnes! Hell yeah!" (This is probably not your grandma's name. Actually, is that even your grandma?)

This goes over not great, but better than expected; everyone has a good time. You do too, of course. You are drunk and wearing white and laughing so loud, and when you aren't dancing, Beetlejuice can barely keep his hands off you. Hell, when you ARE dancing Beetlejuice can't keep his hands off you.

you go to Las Vegas for the honeymoon and get married again - Beej insists on the most tacky wedding possible and you agree.

You get married by an Elvis impersonater in a sticky little chapel on the strip. You wear a suit, and he wears a tight, short wedding dress with a veil and pumps.

"third time's the charm?" You ask, when Elvis finally says to kiss the groom. " Oh no, babes. We're hitting the drive through wedding chapel next."

"Deal!" And you dip him before kissing him square in the mouth.

You keep getting married to Beetlejuice, because you both want to make fucking SURE it sticks.

[violent138]

Batfamily member's civilian identity becomes some serial killer's target because it fits some profile. Cue said murderer going after this member of the Batfamily, earning a very shocked and mildly exasperated set of swear words and then getting their ass kicked. The Batfamily member doesn't even bother calling the cops, just tosses the would be killer in the back of their car (which has bloody gloves in the seat and weird files on people), leading the murderer to conclude they're in the presence of a much worse serial killer.

Tldr: Outsider POV fic where a Batfamily member earns the undying adoration of an actual murderer and it's a slow, convoluted process to getting the evidence to arrest them while also protecting their secret identity.

[teeth-draws]

Chase suffers in love but the other Norms still let him come to their little photoshoot

[rockethorse]

The basegame wedding dress has a pregnancy morph??

[coolnonsenseworld]

Samurai and Ninja in crappy pics because December here is under a constant cloud and I just want y'all to see them all golden and cute without learning how to take aesthetic pictures 🥴 💙❤️😆🥰

linktr.ee/Mezzy

[ilonacho]

cock shame

[scifur]

[hplonesomeart]

When you…when we….when I uh….uh…it’s the day :)

[yeetusthemighty]

The creechur

The silly (crazy? I was crazy onc-)

So I got inspired to finally post this guy because of this post by @z4n3jul13n (cool person you should look at their stuff)

full version with my doodles under the cut

(I have a whole au based off of this guy)

[saltlickmp3]

☕how the writers delt with river song

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP THEY DID MY GIRL SO DIRTY there are so many. good river song moments. and there are so manythat make me want to tear a strip off steven moffat like every goddamn episode with her they have to make some obnoxious sex joke or some Honey Im Home type shit & i understand this is like. A Moffat Theme & i dont always hate it but goddddd its so reductive like there is so much!!!! that could be done with her character !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is overshadowed by haha what if she was sexy like STOPPPPPPPPPPPP.

like silence in the library was a really good character lead in & i like her!!! as a character !!!! even the overly flirtatiousness unfortunately that would work on me but even aside from that. she is a good character let down but the sheer pull-it-out-of-your-ass writing of her backstory. like?? she could regenerate cos she was conceived in the tardis okay thats really cool much weirder stuff has happened when it comes to tardises & making babies but then WE SeE THIS FOR LIKE. ONE OR TWO EPISODES BEFORE THEYRE LIKE WHOOPS THAT DOESNT WORK ACTUALLY COS SHE'S DEAD UHHH SHE BETTER UHMM IDK SAVE TH E DOCTOR OR SOMETHING WHATEVER> COS HER ENTIRE LIFE HAS TO REVOLVE AROUND HIM. HASHTAG MARRIAGE AMIRITE like even the fact that her entire life was shaped around him isnt a Bad Idea it just feels like no one considered the tragic impies (implications) of this, & simultaneously doing amy so dirty in the process as well like??? she loses baby mels & then discovers she was her (never previously mentioned) childhood friend but then she uhhhh dies & turns into this woman you already know and them????? barely eveer mention it again???? holy shit?????????????????????? amy & river is a freaking horror story but one that the writers seem imcapable of dealing with because sOMEONE is too busy making obnoxious jokes about married life

a lot of thsi is specific to the General Vibes of the eleven era stuff as well which was in general so so weird about women & while its not like twelve or any of teh other doctors are expemt from this eleven is a massive dick to people quite a bit & a lot of this falls on river b/c he is seemingly (iirc i havent seen some of this stuff for a while though it Haunts Me) almost careless? with her? like a sort of 'welllllll she's here now so it was all okay in the end :)' sort of attitude ignoring that she went through A Fuckton Of Stuff before she was even a concious human(mostly??) being

even the husbands of river song is tragically guilty of some of that stuff like. she's seen some wild shit & she should have known it was twelve wayyyyyy way way quicker. like i understand why she didnt for plot reasons but she is in fact very intellegent like. she's allowed to show that. unfortunatley sometimes women cant be smart & have their boobs out at that same time I GUESSSSSSSSS

also the nine & river audios from earlier this year? i really like archipelago i listened to that a couple of times & i thought it was really powerful but AGAIN the writers make river So Fucking Obsessed With Romance like. you'd let it go by that point. nine had literally just proved he's the most aro guy in the universe (good for him) and shes stillllllll flirting at him. which. imo she wouldnt do anymore because, shock horror, she does actually like him as a person & values his company and you would think you would be friends wit hthe guy YOU ARE GONG TO MARRY OR WHATEVER. NOT THAT THEIR MARRIAGE WAS PARTICULARLY ROMANTIC EITHERIM GONNA BE SO REAL. obviously sex is important to her & good for her but yikes. it doesnt need to be mentioned so often.

like its the whole 'inherent tragedy of waiting for a time traveller' stuff which i do eat up every time meeting her in silence of the library & knowong that there is so much more there - VERY COMPELLING !! really good character intro augahagaauuaajaaajahhahahahhhh but nooooo her Entire Fucking Goddman Life has to revolve around being manipulated & The Doctor AS WELL AS !! the completely uncalled for ohhhh im a PSYCHOPATH ( <- unfounded & demonstrably untrue lowkey this is saneism right. thats an ableism there yes? ) thing they alllwaysssss have her say like well!! shes not !! theres 'youre talking about commiting a murder'/'no im not, i'm actually commiting a murder' which i like & is funny & she would say that and then theres teh vauge oooohhhhh im so Freaky & I Have A Gun or whatevr like augsugsaihuahahaouoauauoouauoauoauoauuo

also twelve & river had freaky t4t bi4bi aroallo sex after the end of husbands of river song but no actual dw writer is enlightened enough to see that because they have to flatten her into The Doctors Wife & she would have had a far better dynamic with 12 than with 11 (not that i'm biased) i wish they got more time togetherrrrrrrrrrr also you should listen to the bekdel test (diary of river song audio with missy)

[dramatic-dolphin]

Oh man, I am waaay on the other side of the "pronounce names correctly" debate. Not because I don't think you should, in general, attempt to pronounce names correctly, I do. But I'm trying to get people to stop trying to pronounce my name correctly.

I happen to have a name that's (for foreigners) Hungarian on Hard Mode. I'm talking umlauts, digraphs with y, just all the good phonemes that don't exist in most other languages. I've spent a lot of time abroad with people from various parts of the world, and I can tell you from hard empirical data: nobody can say it. And I'm cool with it! I just tell them the English equivalent and it's fine.

Mostly. Some people, especially those who are trying to be culturally sensitive, have a Really Hard Time™️ accepting that a) they are not getting it right b) continue to not get it right despite asking me to demonstrate over and over. And I appreciated it at first! How thoughtful, this attempt to engage with my culture. Cue several months of unsuccessful attempts, at the end of which they were (mostly jokingly) accusing me of faking it. Almost verbatim: "if we recorded you saying your own name and played it back to you, you would say it's incorrect".

(I get it though, the pop sci explanation that I've never bothered to fact check is that as you grow up, you're more attuned to characteristic frequencies of your mother tongue, so when another language comes along with different frequencies, you are quite literally incapable of distinguishing them. So their attempts may sound the same to them, but it sure doesn't to me. I tell them I have this with "bet" and "bat", and that sometimes puts an end to it.)

So yeah, attempt to pronounce everyone's name correctly. Unless they have asked you multiple times not to.

YES YES YES. sometimes you don't want to hear your name butchered over and over and again. like it can be funny when the entertainment is the hungarian gyöngyi and the czech přemysl trying to pronounce each other's name (actual thing that happened at an event my mom was at, everyone thought it was hilarious), but like. at some point it gets TIRING.

god do i hate those people who are like "well at the introduction i wouldn't stop trying until i could pronounce their name correctly!!" newsflash you were not pronouncing it correctly unless you also did a deepdive into the phonology of the language right there. what actually happened was that scene went on for so long and got so awkward they said "haha yeah that's correct!" to stop you from trying again. PLEASE stop. it is very awkward.

the pop sci explanation is sorrrrt of right, you're not really ever incapable of distinguishing phonemes, or phonologists would be out of a job! but your brain does become attuned to the subtleties that are important in your language and discards other phoneme differences that aren't used in your language because who even needs that. it's possible to learn to speak a language like a native and understand all the subtle differences so deeply that they come as instinct. it just takes a LOT of work.

(but- learning your native language took even more work. you're at an 8yr old's level of umderstanding in the language you're learning? well, how long do you think it took the 8yr old?)

also, relatedly, if someone - usually someone who's chinese in my experience - tells you their name, and then adds "but you can call me [english name/name in another language]!" it tends to be because they LIKE being called that name and possibly even prefer it to you butchering their name. they understand that you will butcher their name, because the language - which may or may not be chinese - is notoriously hard for outsiders.

[idlesuperstar]

current sexual orientation: tweedy, warm, intelligent, wry, ping-pong playing, whisky-drinking, poetry-quoting, motorbike-racing, gloriously red-headed here-on-earth-I-am-your-defending-counsel Doctor Frank Reeves [Roger Livesey: A Matter of Life And Death, Powell & Pressburger, 1946]

[lesbians4armand]

On Armand + Atropa belladonna

To begin this post, I'm sure I've mentioned somewhere my ongoing belief that the poison that killed Armand was Atropa belladonna, colloquially known as Deadly Nightshade. Where I posted this exactly I'm not sure, It could have been here or on either my main or private Twitter accounts. Either way, it needed more elaboration, so I'll write about it here.

For those unfamiliar with this infamous poison, Atropa belladonna, more often called Deadly Nightshade, Belladonna, or Devil's Cherries, is a flowering plant native to Europe and Western Asia, and naturalised in many parts of North America. They are well known for their light purple bell-shaped flowers, their pointed green leaves, and their highly toxic pitch-black berries.

My interest in these plants has been a long-standing one, and I even plan on having the plant tattooed on me, but another interest arose recently when I was thinking about the history and usage of these plants.

It's well established in the Vampire Chronicles that Armand died from poisoning, mirroring his own fledgling Daniel's death to alcohol poisoning centuries later. Of course, what truly caused their deaths and turnings was being made into a vampire, that's what ceased their mortality, but it does not change that they were both still already dying of poison, and although we know Daniel's poison was alcohol, Armand's remains a mystery.

What begins my theory of Armand's poison being belladonna, is the name itself. While belladonna has had many medicinal uses throughout history and even in the modern day, the most famous use remains its namesake- "Beautiful Lady" in Italian. During the Renaissance, the time in which Armand lived, died, and was made a vampire, this plant was hugely popular among noble women of Italy, particularly in Venetian courts, where these ladies would drop the juice into their eyes, as the toxins in the berries cause the pupils to dilate and the eyes look larger, which was considered a beauty standard at the time. (Interestingly,one of the tropane alkaloids found in belladonna and other plants in the Solanaceae family (Atropine) is still used in modern optometry for the dilation of the pupils.)

Immediately, there is a direct link to Armand's death. With belladonna being such a known and widely used poison in Rennaisance Venice, It is by no means unlikely that it was the poison that eventually caused his mortal death.

But other details in the Chronicles point to this as well. Belladonna was widely used by upper-class Venetian women during this period, but it was not a Venetian woman who killed Armand, it was an English Lord. But who was it that was a noblewoman, who had intimate knowledge and use of poisons, and the host of this very Lord? Bianca.

It's almost guaranteed that Bianca had access to and used belladonna, both as a poison and as a cosmetic at this time. This lord could have easily acquired this poison from Bianca through theft, asking for it, or having been given it freely. Bianca at this time was both a murderer and a courtesan, and with belladonna's widespread use as a cosmetic, it may not have seemed unusual to her to be requested the poison by a guest.

One setback to the theory is that Belladonna is primarily deadly when ingested, and Armand's poisoning was not caused by ingestion of the plant. However, it can still be absorbed through the skin, and if the essences such as the juice of the plant were coated onto a blade that was then used to cut someone as Lord Harlech cut Armand, it would enter the bloodstream anyway and likely be fatal-as it was.

It's described in TVA how the cuts where Harlech's blade had caught Armand began to swell, a side effect of topical belladonna not often seen in poisonings vis ingestion, yet no less real, as belladonna exposure on the skin can cause severe contact dermatitis, as well as its other more known symptoms also found in ingestion poisonings; dizziness, blurred vision, hot flushes, vomiting, fever, delirium, etc. All are also described within the book.

Overall, the time, place, symptoms and associations all line up to make Armand's death read as belladonna poisoning, regardless of what poison may have been Anne Rice's intent, if any specific poison at all. There is also of course the poetic irony of the associations between belladonna and beauty, and Armand's own beauty being somewhat of a curse to him. How perfect it would seem if his death was caused by beauty too, not just his own and how his murderer desired him, but the very poison that was the weapon being a symbol of beauty too?

(Another detail that could be interesting to AMC show fans is that another of the tropane alkaloids found in plants in the Nightshade family such as Atropa belladonna is hyoscyamine, which is used in medicine to reduce spasms in patients with Parkinson's disease, which Daniel suffers with in the show. This is a lot more minor, but interesting nonetheless that the association with nightshades is found in other places in TVC and adaptations)