#and it just decides to up and die today

[yingxtkm]

My tablet definitely heard my conversations with my friends because why the hell did the pen die today right as I’m about to get up and draw…

Guess we’re going back to good ol’ cavemen traditional methods for the next few days until my new iPad comes in 😀 sigh

[typheus]

literally the mere thought of having to draw his old design was enough for me to finish 9 other drawings ive been avoiding for 2 years... and i ended up completely overhauling his design cause i just did not want to draw him that badly lol

[lavellane]

act 1 solasmancer arc is sooooooo much sexier when headcanoning that they had their first kiss during the redcliffe nightmare future scenario. solas immediately dies and then lavellan returns to the present unable to be normal about him forever <3

[love4hobi]

im so stressed

[todaysromano]

07.25.2023

Today, Romano rose from the grave. He is now trying to figure out what's happening in this world.

[pardonmydelays]

so sad that i missed the livestream today, but i'm unfortunately still sick and my body just gave up when i woke up at 5:30.

[elegyofthemoon]

day one completely ouo)b✨ i can already see im about to learn a bunch but it helps that everyones pretty nice and helpful ! and i did a lot more than i was expecting bc i decided to push myself a bit more so WOOHOO FOR BEING COURAGEOUS

[rhys-ravenfeather]

80s/90s kids' cartoons be like:

-The Leader

-The Jokester

-The Muscle

-The Brains

-And The Girl

[lesbiansanemi]

Bad day. Horrible awful terrible bad day

[arolesbianism]

While I may not be allowing myself to post spiraling upwards spoilers, I see no issue with posting art of a bunch of folks who are dead before the story starts and one Conetalon who isn't

[neim-batteries-not-included]

What if I made an in-character sideblog. Of like some second age (gods still around) disaster. Because I am so bad at posting worldbuilding stuff but I know I could do that. Do some art for it. What then. Would anyone be interested because I can 100% do that. (Will possibly just do it anyway because Why Not).

[rxttenfish]

.......... yaknow, i don’t bring it up enough here but

merfolk are kind of, instinctually, extreme pacifists.

they will avoid physical conflict as much as possible and have an exceedingly high tolerance that makes them slow to show even small signs of anger, and will avoid fighting far beyond the point that any other species would have started swinging. their problem-solving is highly encouraged to be done socially (which is kind of part of why they get labelled as Easy To Sleep With, fucking someone is an easy solution to a quarrel and one that gets encouraged) and to be done within their social systems.

and this is all BECAUSE merfolk are such studded-out apex predators.

there was a point in their evolution where they ended up in a sort of evolutionary arms race against themselves, and there was a lot of existing evolutionary focus on them being deadly predators to large megafauna that hunt together in groups, and the issue that appears when you have all of this going on, is that you totally eliminate any “safe” options for fighting. any fight between merfolk is likely to be lethal to BOTH parties, and to get their social groups and communities involved, and soon it’s spiraled into a MUCH larger issue with a MUCH higher body count. merfolk have big teeth and claws and armored scales and the only thing that’s really especially good at getting past those armored scales is another merfolk, so if they ever use said teeth and claws on another merfolk and mean it, it’s not going to be a small injury. even moreso because then they’ve likewise placed themselves at the mercy of someone else who is just as capable of doing the same damage to them.

merfolk have stories that are shared in their cultures that act as a warning against undue violence, and the only outright aggression that’s okay to show is in defense of their relationships and social structure. sure, pups are absolutely encouraged to wrestle and to play with each other, and even adult merfolk have a huge drive for play, but all of this is in service of teaching them how to control their bodies and how they use their bodies, and providing an outlet for aggression that ISN’T violent in nature in order to keep the peace (alongside more traditional, keeping their senses sharp for hunting and swimming and other mundane activities).

unfortunately, it also tends to slant the statistics in a certain way - merfolk will instinctually look at one person who is picking a fight, with another individual or with a larger group of merfolk, and have a bias towards seeing that one person as the one in the wrong, regardless of the reason why. similarly, they will see a group enacting violence, and have a bias towards seeing that as justified, regardless of the reason why.

this is a major reason behind the conduct of the merkingdom - keep the peace and focus on aggression via diplomacy and other forms of “soft” power to force opposing powers to surrender to them. because they were ambush predators too, there’s an existing idea that the leadup to the violence should be long and they should do everything they can to stack the deck in their favor, with the violence itself being brief and sudden and completely overwhelming. miranda’s merfolk name (and her birth/real name) actually references this, as she’s named for the ideal of “a war won in a single move”, or another overwhelming success that entirely destroys an enemy.

if the land knew more about the merkingdom and were more familiar with their tactics and politics, they would FAR moreso associate the merkingdom with plots and backstabbing and under-the-table deals than anything, because the merkingdom doesn’t necessarily value an “honorable” war in the same way, since ALL violence is both inherently unhonorable and only justified by the fact that it was done to protect or further a group. doing everything they can to sabotauge and ruin and play the social game better is just par for the course for merkingdom politics, part of the accepted course of action that they’ll all follow. it’s effectively the same as the small-town gossip scene, just on a much, much larger scale.

of course, miranda’s temperament is.... a little different. mostly because of the social climate that exists between royals and her trauma and the expectations there are for how royals are to behave — miranda is a LOT more.... fighty and bitey than your average merfolk, and this increased aggression would be VERY obvious if you placed her next to a non-royal merfolk. however, it can actually be rather hard for landfolk to pick up on this, because again - most of it presents socially. miranda is far more likely to come off as mean and rude and bitchy before she’s seen as having anger issues, and it’s because merfolk standards are so different from landfolk standards. even miranda defaulting to having her guards take care of violence for her isn’t unusual - again, leveraging group violence as a justification for what she does. royals in general are far more likely to intimate, bully, torment, and abuse than they are to start actively picking fights, and they are still very much at the far end of the merfolk aggression scale.

ironically, miranda occupies a similar place to aaravi within merfolk culture, but no one besides her knows anything about merfolk culture, so everyone else misses this.

[burke-juliet]

shadow and bone netflix killing off david before he got to marry genya and be part of the triumvirate is my villain origin story

[good-beans]

WE DID IT

[lanshappycorner]

I bought myself a little treat.....

[piratadelamor]

self isolation as a form of self preservation is going to end up killing me someday