#And the fact this game allows to make my own main character 👀

[the-grand-gemini]

Big obsessed with all of the BG3 villains. The themes of the cycle of abuse/trauma in all of the main cast makes me feral over how the villains unfortunately do not/did not get the opportunity to be "saved" by Tav (if doing a good playthrough) and by experiencing the heros journey.

I could talk about Ketheric and Orin, but after reading @bearhugsandshrugs fic it got me deep diving into Gortash's character. It's amazing and everyone should read it especially if you're weak for Tav/Gortash like I am 👀💦

Trigger warning for abuse mentions below the cut.

Let me start with stating this is NOT an Enver Gortash apologist post, he's evil and he's done terrible things. This is just me yelling into the void about character foils.

Childhood abuse:

In game we really only get to know his history through background information that we can scrape together if you search through the city and the House of Hope.

We don't get any details on what exactly Enver went through as a child. We can assume neglect/possible violence from his parents given his mother's words and the fact they sold him. We get to know that he was beaten when living in the House of Hope, but not what other possible horrors he could have experienced there (not including just the trauma of witnessing the other debtors and Hope), what age he was, or for how long (if anyone knows more timeline wise I'd love to know) he lived there before he escaped. We don't know how he escaped either, if he had help or did so on his own.

I'm no child psychologist, but abuse has lasting effects as we can see through all of the main party. Victims of abuse tend to have difficulty moving past certain emotional stages in their life. Aka a person abused in their childhood may have issues maturing emotionally without therapy, etc (again I'm not a psychologist). There is a strong possibility that "Child" Enver is still probably holding the reins emotionally while adult Enver isn't even aware of how his past affects every action and reaction he has at all times.

I can't imagine how living with Raphael during ones formative years being healthy in anyway, but we can definitely see some of the learned behaviours he's picked up from the Cambion. A focus on possing/presentation, a suave persona, torturing/using people for his own gain, a general lack of empathy, deal making, similar attire with devil motifs...

Unhealthy coping mechanisms:

Speaking of attire, Enver's coat not allowing Fear to be cast on him speaks volumes to me. Imagine the absolute horror of moving from one situation of abuse to another much worse one in the hells as a child/teen and probably being in a state of fear/anxiety at all times. Enver wearing a coat that doesn't allow him to feel fear gives me three main thoughts:

1. He is doing everything in his power to avoid that specific emotion and therefore prevents himself from thinking about that period of his life. Meaning he is not confronting his trauma the same way the main party is forced to throughout the game.

2. Narratively does the coat prevent him from feeling any fear at all? Or do we just go with the game mechanic that ensures he cannot be made afraid by the fear spell? If it prevents him from feeling fear at all (which I think is narratively more interesting and you can take this headcanon out of my cold dead hands) how does this effect his every day decisions? Fear prevents risky decisions all the time, it's one of the emotions that actively keeps people alive. Psychopaths usually don't experience fear the same way an average person would. Given his many horrific actions (the Iron Throne being a key example) I wonder how much his forceful removal of fear has done to his perception of rational thought. If you aren't afraid of consequences what's to stop you from doing anything at all? Selling a loyal body guard to the hells, torturing an entire faction of people in order to manufacturer your own personal army, stealing from an immensely powerful devil aka mother fucking MEPHISTOPHELES??? He presents himself as calm and collected in conversation. He appears as if he's the most rational of all three villains when he's really just as awful when we look into what he's actually been up to vs seeing Orin and Ketheric kill people on screen.

3. Where did he get the coat? Did he make it himself or was it a boon from Bane? A promise to a devout worshiper that he would never be made to feel afraid or beneath anyone again?

Another abuser - Bane:

Speaking of Bane... Another user (please tag if anyone can find the original post!) mentioned a line Astarion says where he states that he prayed to all the gods, but none answered. OP wondered if Enver, trapped in the hells and desperate for salvation, called out the same way... only for Bane to be the only god to answer. I'd die to know specifically when he was introduced to Bane and made to be his chosen.

We know Bane is considered an evil god and we even find that if we kill Enver and then use speak with dead that Bane is torturing him in the afterlife for failing him.

Given this abusive relationship is Enver a foil for Gale, a man groomed from a young age by a goddess and left with the consequences when his actions did not meet her expectations?

Is he like Shadowheart, someone who was given no alternative and made to believe they willingly chose their god only to learn they were deceived and never had any other options?

Like Wyll he's cast out by his father (or in his case both parents).

Like Lae'zel he's worshipping a deity with false promises, how can he believe he'll rule the entire world like a god himself when Bane the god of TYRANNY would see no other at the top but himself (Was he secretly planning to use the crown like Gale to usurp Bane or just pandering to us)?

We know he and Karlach are absolutely foils for each other given that he is her abuser and like himself Karlach was forged by her times in the hells only to survive on her own merits.

Those are my thoughts! Would love to know anyone else's on the walking red flag that is Lord Enver Gortash.

If Enver lost his memories like the Dark Urge would he be given a chance to redeem himself through his actions? Could he with his knowledge of infernal engines fix Karlach's heart

Would Enver have ever become Lord Gortash if not for Bane...?

Anyways if anyone wants to yell at me about Enver, Orin, or Ketheric please feel free to do so! I love characters who fell through the cracks because they had no one there to help them only to crawl out themselves and burn the world.

[garrettwrites]

Hi, how's it going? Anything new and exciting in your life?

I see you're obsessed with vampires, who are your favourites? 👀

Sorry for the 3day delay I had to think on this. Picking favourites is hard. Reminder that I welcome all sorts of asks! Especially vampire and Worldbuilding ones!

Life's hard, gotta study the hell out of roman fish productions while simultaneously making art for social media and my portfolio, but what's life without a little stress.

Onto your question (which I ended up rambling on, sorry), lore wise I have two absolute favourite pieces of vampire media:

VtM: Bloodlines (2004 game). My love. I like how they write vampires and set their powers, clan divisions and hierarchies. The aesthetic of the game is also early 2000s late 90s, which is nostalgic. It's more fantastical than straight forward, a vampire DnD in fact, so it offers a lot of liberty and flexibility for whatever story you want to tell. It also works well as inspiration for original works, since the more you look into it the more you can pick what to use for your own vampire stories.

Second one is the netflix series Vampires (2020). It's french. It is an... incredibly fresh take on vampires. The series unfortunately only has one season with six episodes. It follows the life of this poor vampire family, but the twist is that vampirism is biological and vampires are born as such, and can die of old age (they just age much slower). Their weaknesses, their biology, their social structures and the way the series explores them through the eyes of a teenage girl slowly coming into her vampire disease (because it is kind of an illness), the way the series IS NOT AFRAID of pushing forward extremely embarrassing moments (such as the girl, still unable to control herself, biting the boy she loves IN CLASS and being viewed as a weirdo for it - refreshing when many writers are afraid of such realistic moments due to how cringe they may come across as for general audiences.... It's pretty solid. The scenes with the girl's mother walking into the sun covered in scarves and pieces of cloth is also really good, more series should do that - makes sense that a vampire would still go outside during the day, they'd just need to look absolutely out of place while doing it. Which they should. Vampires don't belong in daylight.

Honorable mention: Interview with the Vampire. Of course. Especially the new TV series. I love the psychological exploration of vampirism in there. However, I think the series is good because of the characters themselves rather than the blood sucking of it all. Vampire wise I don't care much for the lore, it is there to solidify the fact they're all monsters.

Extra 2: Unironically? I know this might sound cringe, but if you ignore the main storyline and exclusively look at the lore... Vampire Diaries is kinda good. The writers clearly did their research and included ideas from all over the world in their social structures, vampiric powers, etc. One of my favourite aspects is how they utilise the concept of "vampries can't enter a house without consent" to its absolute fullest. There's even a character who is turned into a vampire, and gets locked out of his own home because he lives alone and no one is in there to allow him in. Hilarious.

CHARACTER WISE...

Lestat is definitely one of my all time favourites. He symbolizes what a vampire should be for me, but is still multi faceted enough to be a person rather than a caricature.

Olrox from Castlevania: Nocturne (animated series). I miss drawing him. I wrote two whole ass fanfics about him, but they were romantic rather than focused exclusively on him.... A shame. I think he's pretty interesting. Depending on where Nocturne goes, he might surpass Lestat in the future. He's charming, but dangerous. Tragic yet with a chance of rising above the rubble. He's also native american, and possibly a god - all really fresh concepts. I really love Olrox. Top tier vampire dude, sorry Alucard but you're just not as cool.

Talking about Castlevania... Carmilla. She's not even that original as a character, but she's what people nowadays call a "Girlboss" except she's actually well written. You feel for her. You love her. You hate her. And she's a vampire that knows she's a monster and wants to keep being one. None of that "oh naur I'm immortal but must... commit the sin of drinking blood" bullshit. She, much like Olrox, steals every scene she's in.

Jonathan Reid from Vampyr (2018 game). A very... text intensive game. But I like reading, so I don't mind. He's a doctor, and was a soldier during WW1. He's the main character of the game and you can take his path in multiple directions. He's a favourite of mine because I like the concept of a doctor vampire, plus I genuinely love Vampyr.

The cast of The Lost Boys. No explanation needed,

Least favourite vampire: Astarion because 1) he took over my dash, can't talk about vampires anymore without that man being there and 2) people can't tag his fucking name properly and I'm over here trying to find minotaur content (AstErion) and I see that kind of muscular kinda lean white haired small fangs elf taking over the tags. Please people. Learn how to tag.

[soggytaxidermy]

General 4 and 5 for the tav ask 👀👀

oh boy it’s been a while since you sent this - oh well, I still appreciate it! I have two main tavs - Damakas, tiefling wild magic bard-barian, adaption of one of my normal dnd characters, and Lharast, seldarine drow devotion paladin/fiend warlock, my durge. 

4. What sort of general actions raise or lower their approval?

Damakas: One would have to try very, very hard to get on this brick wall of a tiefling’s bad side. Damakas likes to believe that everyone’s intentions are as good as his and is an even stronger believer in second chances. After all, he was a cultist. Doing generally positive things like saving people and lending your hand without payment quickly gains you his approval, as does passing persuasion and performance checks. However, he’s also way too curious for his own good, so the player earns approval when they make some not-so-thought-through decisions in exchange for, well, finding out what happens next - for instance, reading the Necromancy of Thay or allowing Auntie Ethel to try to remove the tadpole. Like most companions, he dislikes threats and unnecessary violence. Should the violence be called for though, he will enthusiastically crush a head or otherwise dismember someone for you (this would be an option during certain cutscenes or if you take someone as a prisoner back to your camp). One should avoid asking him to do this too often, however.

Lharast: The player meets him as a masked knight in Underdark during the second act, and at first, his likes and dislikes are very vague. Sometimes he approves of extorting civilians, sometimes he doesn't. Your douche behavior rarely goes far enough to warrant his disapproval as your heroics do his approval. Only after completing the first part of his quest and getting him to unmask do things get clearer. Lharast is generally good aligned but approves of most deception checks, even against allies, and of using detect thoughts and other mind-meddling. As a paladin of Ilmater, Lharast greatly approves when you offer to heal sick or injured nps or take punishments destined for someone else. While he does a lot of things strangely against the values of his oath, the strangest is his complete approval of using the tadpoles to downright dominate others if necessary, and “necessary” appears to have a pretty loose definition according to his book. He disapproves of refusal to help people (asking for money first is ok though), dealing with the Flaming Fist, and summoning hirelings from Withers, for whatever reason. 

5. Are there any instances where your tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player actions?

Damakas: For starters, if the player chooses to attack the grove/kill the tiefling refugees, he immediately turns hostile. If he’s not killed in the battle, he can still be encountered later in the game, but he can never again be added to the party. Another instance is if you have him do his special kill on a truly innocent person and he finds out, he will be appalled and leave out of sheer guilt and grief. But, the circumstances matter - if the player discovers the person’s innocence alongside Damakas, he’ll still be stricken, but can be persuaded not to leave. However, if the player lied to him to get him to do it, there’s no going back.

Lharast: There’s a lot of ways. I’ve yet to fact-check this to see if it works, but in my npc lore for him so far, he was Minthara’s husband a couple hundred years ago, and that divorce - well, it was never really official. Since he’s met in act 2, if the player helps him with Minthara in their party, he will never end up removing his mask, and instead the covert version of his quest begins. He eventually takes you aside and tells you who he is and asks you to help him stab Minthara in the back, when the time is right. From that point, the player could tell Minthara, causing him to leave permanently. Alternatively, if Minthara is already out of the picture, bringing him back to Moonrise undisguised lands him in hot water, and if fumbled, leads to him getting taken back and mindraped beyond repair as punishment for desertion, as he was once high ranking among the Absolutists. Lharast doesn’t die, the player will probably just wish he had. The player could also fail at handling his patron, Malkizid, whereupon Malkizid essentially takes over Lharast’s form and replaces him in the party for a short time- albeit withholding the full strength of his archdevil powers. The other ways to get him gone are probably triggered by events later in the game, but since I haven’t actually gotten to play through those act 3 events yet, I can’t say for certain.

thanks again so much for the ask! and once again sorry it took so long to answer, I guess I just had to leave you in suspense for 10 days lmfao

[meltedhorror]

Let's go! What do you think about Enoch from OFF and Spamton? How you describe them to yourself? 👀 (ps and random fact. Did you know that butterflies can eat meat? Fascinating isn't it?)

Sorry I took so long to answer! I saw this ask and then just kinda,,,, forgot to answer it lmfao- Also that is a really cool fact! I had no idea about that!

This man? I love this man. Big scary director, evil, absolute bastard

Honestly tho I really like Enoch, he's so cool- And has a lot of cool fanon stuff too! I personally prefer the darker hcs, I just think that fits him a lot more AND it's much more closer to canon. I also just really like his design.......... rounde man..................

He's big on the propaganda against his workers; Work hard and you'll get what you're addicted to, don't fight the spectres and let them kill you, do what you're told and you'll hopefully be fine.

Of course he words it differently though, giving his employees a false sense of security. He's corrupt, but he does it because the addiction makes his workers happy, and it gives them something to work for. It wasn't always this way after all.

Honestly the entirety of Zone 3 is just so cool though, I think that's my favourite part of the game. Just a lil fucked up factory, what's not to love about it? And we also get the elsen that works the boiler room

I'm rlly tired so this art fucken SUCKS but oh well

Spamton!!!!! Is he!!!!!! A lil man!!!!

I really like him, he's actually the reason I played Deltarune in the first place because I just really REALLY liked his design; Forget everything else about him, his design is where it is AT

His personality and backstory though????? just aA, so fucking cOOL AND I LOVE IT, I am a fucking sucker for unhinged murderous characters that would probably kill me without hesitation, so sign me the FUCK up

Now, of course everyones allowed to have their own interpretations of things, I just don't really vibe with the "uwu scrungly squeak toy man haha funnee". I really prefer the way darker and edgier takes on his character - As he is in canon.

Yes, he's comedic and shit, but that's not the main thing about him; He's dark and edgy, a broken program still trying to cling to relevancy and of the mindset that no one really cared about him, when that couldn't be further from the truth seeing how the Addisons talk about him in the end. The only one who cared in his mind was Mike, and we saw how that went when Spamton put all his trust on them.

I guess I just really prefer him as a serious character rather than a meme man, that being said of course he's still funny to shitpost about

[leftski-art]

First off- Love your art. Big, hard yet somehow soft and warm. I can't really explain but I feel like all your characters smell great and give serotonine-filled hugs.

I would just love to know your drawing process. All your lines and colors are so clean, so straight, so nice. How do sketches look? Whats the walkthrough. Tell me your secrets. I beg of you.

Thank you! It’s a running joke among my D&D group that my characters give the best hugs, so I’d say your feeling is right ^^

Secrets can be found below 👀

The tools I use are as follows

a small Wacom Intuos tablet

Clip Studio Paint (sketch, lineart, flat colours, shading)

Photoshop (textures, backgrounds and lighting effects, colour correction, abusing the Liquify tool to try to fix anatomy mistakes)

Sketches

My sketches usually look something like this and involve a lot of scribbling and experimentation and use of the Transform tool until I end up with something I like. I kinda just feel out the shapes as I go and am constantly redoing and adjusting things.

The different colours are just so I can differentiate between the different elements and it doesn't all just become a giant scribbly mess when I'm trying to line it after.

Lines

As for my lineart, half of it is just a result of practice. I've been doing lineart + cell shading as my main style for over ten years now so I like to think I've managed to acquire some decent line control in that time.

The other half is a good stabilizer and pen pressure settings on the brushes I use.

Before Clip Studio Paint, I used Paint Tool SAI for my lineart because I could never get line results I was happy with in Photoshop, but not only does CSP have phenomenal stabilizer settings, its vector layers feature (which automatically turns your lines into vector shapes regardless of the brush you use!) has also made the process way easier by allowing me to edit and adjust my lines after the fact.

The one tip I can share when it comes to lineart is to take advantage of momentum. I never draw directly on my lineart layer; I make a new layer above it, draw on that one, and then merge it down every few minutes. This lets me use momentum to carry my brush strokes and then erase the parts that overlap without worrying about messing up the stuff I already have, resulting in smoother lines than if I had tried to precisely draw a straight line the entire time.

In the example above, the green line is on its own layer and can be easily erased without damaging the black lines around it.

I also tend to use a smaller brush for interior/detail lines and thicker ones for the outer edges of a shape just because I think it looks nice.

Process in General

Honestly, my process is just a lot of trial and error. I draw a line, undo it, draw a line, undo it. I sketch several hairstyles or outfits on different layers and then swap between them like some weird dress up game until I decide which to keep. I experiment with adjusting the hue and saturation of flat colours until I find something I like. I’m a very “make it up as I go” kind of artist, and really, creator in general; and rarely is the finished piece the result of any sort of plan.

That being said, I do have a general order in which I do things:

Sketch a bunch of random things until I find something I like

Merge all sketch layers and reduce the layer opacity until it’s very faint

Make a lineart layer above, then a layer to actually draw on above that

Draw the lineart using the techniques mentioned above (I often jump around and line different sections randomly), fixing any wonky parts of the sketch as I go

Make a separate layer below the finished lineart for each differently-coloured element (eg: hair layer, skin layer, pants layer, etc.) and fill with fill bucket*

Tweak each layer’s colour until vaguely happy with it

Make a layer below all other layers, select the entire interior of the lineart, fill it with black to fill any tiny gaps left by the fill bucket

Make a layer above all other layers, set it to multiply, draw shadows with a light grey-blue-purple colour (I shade one element at a time by selecting the area and then drawing within that selection on the shading layer)

Repeat step 7 with a layer set to Overlay and a light-medium grey for highlights

Open the image in Photoshop and apply gradients, patterns, lighting etc.

Notice all the mistakes it’s too late to fix and start second guessing the entire piece, say “screw it”, save it as a .png, and post anyway!

And I think that’s about it.

Sorry if that was confusing, I’m not sure how much previous knowledge of these programs you have or how much detail I should go into, but I hope maybe some of it was interesting and/or educational lol

I also have a short process video here that shows the steps one at a time that might help you visualise it better

- - - - - - -

*In case anyone’s brave enough to try using this as a tutorial and isn’t sure what I mean here:

CSP lets you set the lineart layer as a reference layer and still fill the colour on a different layer as though the lines were present on that layer. In other programs you may have to select the area you want to colour on the lineart layer manually with the magic wand tool and then move to the corresponding colour layer before filling it in.

If you use a program where you have to select the area manually, you may want to keep all your tiny detailed lines on a separate lineart layer just so you don’t have to spend time selecting all the small gaps between them. Alternatively, you could just fill it by hand with a brush.

[b1a4seeyou]

Eight people I'd like to know better

Tagged by @masatohijirikawas ! Thankies, boo!! ;w;

Name/Alias: Eunhwa/Eun! I like the meaning behind it uwu

Birthday: 15th May (a day before Toriumi's holy heck)

Zodiac: Taurus!

Height: .....165 cm qkwhwlsjdlkc

Hobbies: My hobbies are pretty much everywhere. XD. But I guess singing, gaming and uh... does... cleaning count??

Favourite colours: RED!!!

Favourite books: *stares at my entire comic collection* Can these count? ;w;

Last song I listened to: Not gonna lie, I replayed a few old Vocaloid songs lately but Vocacircus' The Start is pretty much recent! Plz do give it a listen! It's a masterpiece 👌

Last movie I watched: I'm not even sure myself jwpqjskcn

Inspiration: NNGGGGHHHH. I'm not sure but I can say that my best friends are my inspirations! They achieve a lot of higher rank stuff irl and social media, and I really look up to them! Hearing their stories about what they did gives me the boost to keep going for the things I wanna get through so maybe, we all can be in the same level and achieve things together! (o 0 w0)o

Dream career: Umm... haha, Idk yet. *games all scattered* Oops, sorry, I didnt mean to- *writing drafts flying away* No, wait, this isnt mine haha. This is just work- *short game concept ideas all over the place* Okay, okay, but hear me out. This is just temporarily. *code samples sticks to your face* NNGGGGHHH. Okay, okay, okay!! I did plan to be a game developer one day and currently taking a course based on it. ;; But like I said, it's just a temporary kinda target. If it doesn't work out, I'll probably open my own cat cafe and drag my friends into it wosjdonfkc

Meaning of my URL: Once upon a time during my Kpop obsession phase, I was too obsessed with the group and decided to create an account to meet fellow people. Turned out good but didnt expect to be in this phase now wkdbdofjvk. Also 'seeyou' was actually one of the member's fan name, I just feel like combining them. XP

Oh boy, eight people. Mmmmm... Tagging uh @shinanigansen @mewtwo24 @jessrine @mp100 @multipeaceout14 and uh just anyone who hasnt done this! Just tag me as your tagger uwu