#and he talks about it in a diary of his

[karamazovposting]

Considering tattoos became fashionable between European aristocrats in the late 19th century and Tsar Nicholas II himself had a massive dragon tattoo on his right arm (that he got done during a trip in Nagasaki in the early 1890s), it's not completely anachronistic to imagine Dmitri Karamazov as having one or multiple tattoos.

Do whatever you want with this information, I'm just saying.

[pencilscratchins]

to everyone asking when i’m gonna post art again… hey guys i recently acquired six incredibly large clown paintings so i’m sort of booked at the moment

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A fierce duel commences!

[zvahlne]

headcanon: shadow knights can't cry.

it takes him a long while to notice. he had never considered himself much of a crier. it wasn't that he thought there was anything wrong with crying. he was just one to keep moving, keep doing, show the people around him and under his care that it would be alright, no matter what had happened. some might accuse him of bottling for this, though whether it was selfless for others (so they wouldn't worry; so they could cry while he carried it) or selfish (so he wouldn't have to think about it, wouldn't have to feel it), up for debate. either way, he would disagree, and had whenever someone close enough to him to notice the pattern mentioned it (usually cadenza).

...the last time he remembers crying was with cadenza. it was about joh.

he didn't cry in the nether (no water can last long there; how could he? your eyes could never get wet enough. every blink in the nether is stinging).

he didn't cry when he was brought back, not for his sight, not for ungrth (more surprising, but he was in shock. nothing felt real in those days, and after, he had things to do, people to care for).

it's when he loses 15 years and he comes back to his father's death and can't shed a single tear that he finally thinks he really ought to be crying. but he isn't. he can't?

he goes to ungrth's grave and he thinks of ungrth and he thinks of hayden and he thinks of joh and he thinks of garroth and he grits his teeth, he digs his nails into his palms, he gets a headache from how tight his brows furrow, he feels an ache so intense in his chest he's gasping for breath, but his eyes are as dry as they've since the day he died (he wants to cry, he should be crying, why isn't he crying?).

his life is taken from him, replaced with facsimile. the man he trusted more than himself betrayed him, and is now lost a dimension away. he's lost fifteen years, his father passed without him present, his friend's grave has been desecrated, the places he lived in and loved and protected fallen and rebuilt, all in his absence, all to be discovered all at once. he loses nearly everything, he watches helplessly as he loses even himself. and yet...

laurance can't cry.

[oddly-casual]

Born for girlhood. Forced to be stupid guy.

[fionnalovesanimeboys]

Lakan was so cute talking about his wife. Yes he is little messed up in the head but he is actually softie for his wife <3

[hanzajesthanza]

one thing about cahir is that he does not run away from shit. even when he really really should. he is brave and noble to the point of idiocy. isengrim was like ok i am taking you back to nilfgaard to probably be executed for treason and cahir was like “ok” and didn’t even fight back and let them tie him up and put him in a box because he knew he fucked up again and that was the consequence. i’m not calling him a bootlicker because he literally rebels against mentioned evil empire and fights them on the battlefield, but there is something funny about him entirely accepting evil and unfair authority even when it means his demise. he loses the deal he’s made with emhyr like “ok. you can break me on the wheel now. because i failed.” it wouldn’t be honorable to chicken out of his fate, so he won’t run. because he doesn’t want to. it’s all about honor with this guy. i mean regis barely asks milva who is this man, and cahir interjects to straight up tells regis his entire full name. even though that’s sensitive information and he is literally on the imperial wanted list at the moment. like no one fucking asked dude. cahir is literally the kind of guy to respond to a lukewarm online comment with his full name and address (which btw is in vicovaro). because he wears his honor and his name like a badge. he could have stfu as geralt accused and berated him, but instead he defends his honor by fistfighting a witcher (an injured and disabled witcher, but still a witcher who he has witnessed fight and kill coldly and calmly with superhuman agility and speed). and finally, we all know how he met bonhart. like no fuck you it’s my destiny to die by your blade. cahir was just comfortable with speedrunning death. i love how fascinating he is as this deconstruction of chivalry and knightly masculinity.

because sapkowski also tangles with this idea of “the knight” in the hussite trilogy and he also talks about it in historia i fantastyka and świat króla artura (a little bit) about how historical knights were essentially bandits sanctioned by law, and the romance and chivalry was a literary invention, and cahir gets to do both, because he’s just combining these elements of the modern, real world and fairytale. but unlike everyone else, who goes from fairytale to real—although cahir is set up as the black knight and this Evil Guy Hunting Innocent Princess, which is very fairytale—cahir goes from real to fairytale, because the invasion of cintra is so very real, and cahir’s journey is to leave behind this reality of violent knighthood, to become a kind of virtuous literary knight instead.

because i love how his persistance and determination in his pursuit of ciri, which is initially set up as evil and villainous, becomes part of his honor. because it’s his persistance to follow her down as he was tasked with as the black knight, which transforms into the noble pursuit of her as in a rescue as a truely knightly endeavor. which is just as powerful and insane as the darksided version of it. geralt tells him to fuck off multiple times and he even gets jumped and he still pursues geralt’s company because the only thing that matters is to find ciri. and i feel like he had even more persistence when seeking her for good, rather than when he was working for evil. maybe because this time it was personal and not a punchclock motivation. and that noble calling to find ciri held out even when geralt’s fatherly devotion lost hope. in tower of the swallow, he wouldn’t believe in her death even when he sensed it as much as geralt did. because that’s the same overconfident youth we saw in blood of elves, smirking when emhyr discussed this second chance with him. like no i don’t care what anyone says, even my own premonitions or the emperor i serve. we are gonna find this fucking girl—

like just really a masterclass in how to take a character from villain to hero, keeping his same motivations and obsessions and self-image, and at the same time make it relevant thematically with the whole story, setting, and historical and literary connections that have already been established.

[garrothromeave]

i can't imagine how difficult it would be to grasp the idea that you owe so much to a man who you've never properly met or spoken to, yet he saved your life and sacrificed his own to give you another chance with the last person he had left. i wonder how often garroth thinks about aaron

[eepwtf]

kai parker is so ethel cain coded specifically family tree (intro), and family tree.

here’s why:

he was the prodigal son turned pariah, cast out by a family that worships its lineage while letting its rot seep into the roots. he’s the black sheep born under a curse of silence, his existence a scar across their bloodline. his sins are their sins, and they have exiled him not for his evil, but because he wears the mask of their darkest truths too openly.

kai is the cain to their abel—damned by birthright, blood marked on his forehead, driven into exile to wander the wastelands of his own making. he is the boy who killed his family to escape them, but the irony burns bitter: he carries their voices in his head like ghosts, whispers of what he was supposed to be and what he became instead. his hunger for power is the desperation of a starving man clawing at the ruins of a house that never let him in. he doesn’t just want to destroy his family; he wants to devour their gods and spit their broken bones back at them.

like jesus rejecting his father, kai denounces the family that cursed him, the coven that deemed him unworthy, exiling him as a siphon witch, a parasite in their eyes. but no matter how far he runs or how loudly he screams, he cannot escape the blood that binds him to them.

the rejection fuels him—his rage at being cast out, at being made the black sheep and abomination of the family. yet deep inside, where he refuses to look, there’s an ache—a child’s hollow grief for a love he never received, for the mother’s blood that still pulses through his veins. he carries it with him like a wound that festers, a reminder that no amount of violence or cruelty can ever cleanse the filth of what he is, what he was made to be. he is the sum of his family’s sins, the dark echo of their legacy, and no matter how much he tries to wash it off, to transcend the label of “abomination”, it clings to him, dripping from his fingers like the lives he’s taken.

anyway! thank you for coming to eepwtf’s ted talk, i could go on about this for ages.

[kurithedweeb]

Here's the real question I gotta ask myself.

Of those I imagine have their swords sheathed at their hip, which ones, aside from Laurance, do the thing where they casually rest their wrists against the hilt of their blade while resting all their weight on one hip and making a very good point and/or emotionally devastating someone with a few simple words?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dungeon Meshi: The RPG

[chaiu]

the past few days with roryyyy @scph1001

[spock-adoodledoo]

permanent starter call for apothecary side character enjoyers specifically tianyu likers

[sootends]

trans people listen to this song. shit made me cry

[daemon-is-perfectly-unhinged]

Rhaegar: I love you, but... you're not a man of the people.

Aemond: Of course I'm not a man of the people-- I'm above the people.

[neos-schlond-poofa]

UGH GARROTH HAS BEEN ON MY MIND LATELY BUT MAINLY HIM IN MY REWRITE which i REALLY need to organize one day but. i feel like aphblr appreciates hearing about rewrites a lot so. ill just ramble a bit.

i accidentally made one of garroth's core themes in the rewrite fatherhood.

firstly, he was the most positive male figure that vylad and zane had in their lives. as he got older, he felt more and more protective of them, he didnt want them becoming like his father, the same man that garroth is the splitting image of. he cant repeat the sins of his father, he has to make them better.

but then vylad literally dies and zane becomes an evil priest. so great. he failed.

and then he has to be in an arranged marriage?? not cool. so you know, he fakes his death, so does his arranged marriage fiance, and now theres a huge war, and hes hiding in a run-down village with the help of his former friend from a neighboring village. and he becomes close friends with the lord's secretive wife. she doesn't go out much, she much prefers to stay inside and read her books.

and one day, it blossoms into more.

garroth hates this. a secret relationship with the lord's wife? but, he loves her. and she loves him. their nights are filled with conversations of guilt.

and then, she tells him that she's pregnant.

they stop seeing each other, she hides her pregnancy from the village, her husband is enthusiastic. he's unaware of what's going on, and nine months pass and their child is born, the citizens of phoenix drop blissfully living their lives, not knowing a future lord had just been born. an illegitimate child.

garroth can't care for his son, and he never even learns the name. she stops visiting him, and it hurts him.

but althroughout this time, a young man named zenix came across phoenix drop. probably around eighteen years old, no more than twenty. scarred and traumatized from something he never told garroth about.

and so, garroth takes him in, and treats him like a son. he trains him to become a guard and garroth feels content. he's finally succeeding at this. he's helping someone become a better person! he's an important figure in someone's life!

and during this joyous period of his life, the lord is killed, and his wife is missing. the village was never told about the child, and chaos erupts. garroth and zenix must take control of the town as people begin to leave. garroth mourns the son he never got to connect with.

one day on patrol, a lady runs into the village, seemingly insane and claiming that a weird hooded figure was watching her and so she chased them. garroth and zenix helped her out, and out of the kindness of her heart, decided to repay them by completely helping the village out. this lady who barely even had any memories, who couldn't read or write that well, who was still learning about the history of the world, had taken the struggles of the villagers and put them into her heart, channeling their frustrations into constant work to rebuild the broken village.

it's going well, until, all of a sudden, a villager is attacked in the night and is near death. she saves him, and garroth decides to investigate what happened.

and then he is shot.

by his "adoptive" son.

pain of all types soar throughout garroth's body. he failed again. whatever he did with zenix, it wasn't good enough, and this was his karma.

and yet, he lived. and the knowledge of his failures followed him around as he tried to do any action for months. he hoped it would get better.

then one day, aphmau discovers a child at her door. a baby, one that can't even crawl yet. she discovers a note; his name is levin. she cares for him and brings him around the village, and garroth, in spite of his previous failures of being a father figure, vows to help the woman he loves raise a child, that unbeknownst to him, is his own biological child that vylad saved.

garroth has his suspicions as levin grows, but brushes it off and takes it to be a coincidence. he helps zoey, an elf aphmau had become close friends with, raise levin when aphmau went on her journeys. he taught him how to call aphmau mom!

aphmau has a journey one day and that day turns into weeks. garroth and laurance, his closest friend, search for her and discover she has adopted a ghost child and found another guard. a guard the similar age of zenix.

garroth is hesitant, but warms up to dante, and he and laurance act like father figures to the young guard without intending to. it comes naturally for garroth; laurance just follows his lead. and of course, garroth helps with aphmau's new child. he's making a difference again, he's helping!

and then, an illusion fools him and he falls into a depression. it hurts. he shouldn't be like this, he is supposed to be strong. he is the head guard. yet here he is, letting his emotions get in the way.

he wouldn't mind if laurance and aphmau got together, but to see them do so in private? knowing very well his feelings for both of them? it hurts. they must know what they are doing, there is no other way.

a mysterious lady comes by and offers to help garroth. over time, his memory becomes blurry until he ultimately blacks out. he lacks any autonomy now and attacks laurance. he causes his closest friends to be transported to a dangerous alternate dimension... all because of his own emotions. and to make matters worse, that lady wasn't just someone to help. it was someone hired by zane. the first person he failed to save.

the lady is killed and laurance's words cut through the spell cast on garroth. he has no idea what is happening, but he knows its his fault. he did something bad. and when a portal appears, he urges for them to go on as he fights off zane. he couldn't leave zane there; someone had to stop him from escaping, becoming more powerful, or even achieving what is basically immortality.

the minute that passes in the dimension until his rescue is daunting. flashes into another world where he reunites with aphmau give him hope, but they stop. and he loses his faith. there is no more zane could gain from being in this dimension, if anyone were to open the dimension, they would easily be able to attack him, no unprepared person would dare to do such a risky thing.

and so, he lets zane hit him. a deep cut in the back causes garroth to scream in pain, and he's close to dying.

aphmau returns. she heals him in their world, and he lies about his intentions, and returns to fighting his brother.

little does he know, laurance and aphmau had a few too much to drink one night recently, and made decisions they regret. they won't dare to tell him until much later, they can't risk hurting him, especially in such a vulnerable moment.

the guilt eats them alive. it is worsened by laurance's growing shadow knight urges. they're becoming borderline uncontrollable. its a living nightmare. he can't imagine hurting aphmau, no. he loves her. and he realizes that if she keeps worrying about garroth, she will hurt herself.

he comes to a decision.

he finds a way to open the portal and saves garroth, but costing the lives of himself and zane in the process. garroth is unconcious; he sees a glimpse of laurance, but is unaware of his death until he wakes up. he doesn't believe it, he wants to run, but he can't. his body aches. he's trapped.

aphmau visits him once before retreating to her bedroom for the next few weeks. they both go silent. they couldn't imagine losing laurance, yet here they were.

as garroth gets better, zoey allows for people to visit him. and there, he sees dante for the first time.

he's gotten much older.

there's barely visible wrinkles and blemishes on his face. someone he viewed as a son has aged beyond garroth and it's hard to handle. was this how laurance felt?

and then he sees levin.

he gets it now, this was his son, and he missed his life too. he failed. it hurts all too much, how dare he let his emotions get the best of him. if he had just talked to someone, maybe everything would be okay now.

aphmau eventually drops the news to garroth once they both got better that she's pregnant, and laurance is the father.

he's not mad.

he's broken over the news.

not over the fact that the two people he loved the most got with each other, but the fact that laurance will miss out on seeing his own child grow up, the same way garroth had done with levin.

garroth makes another vow to aphmau. he promises to help raise laurance's kid. he will be there for them.

he won't fail this time.