#bastards of the realm

[the-littlest-laney]

i don't want you to go without me

ruby and jet

[zillychu]

sometimes you black out and just an entire Persona 5 AU in one night

did I ever settle on a design for phantom thief! Siffrin? no. anyway,

NOT fully mirroring the P5 plot!! it's a bit different! a few were hit with the obligatory anime teenager beam

Siffrin gets arrested for allegedly attacking someone with a knife! this did not happen. while trying to help someone, he in fact got knifed in the face and lost an eye.

the adoption system is about to drop their ass since they're nearly an adult and no one's too happy about the aggravated assault. fate drops him at Nille's doorstep, who takes pity on him but insists she's only housing his ass for some extra cash. Bonnie acquires another felon a sibling!

showing up to school looking like shit (anxiety, no sleep), with an eyepatch and a natural silent intensity, no one really questions if he's stabbed someone. everyone's pretty sure he's killed someone actually.

Mira and Isa are charged with helping the new local mass murderer get settled, and they slowly start to uncover the real Siffrin hiding under all that apprehension. Odile, the school nurse, is all kinds of queer so she's got these kids' backs. as the story progresses, they each have their own character arc around biting back on authority (Isa gets the courage to transition, and Mira stops straightening her hair)

what about everyone else's outfits? that's the fun part! SIFFRIN IS DOING ALL THIS PHANTOM THIEF SHIT ALONE

well not totally alone. they've got a weird cat now. they can talk (Siffrin wishes they didn't) and has a concerning amount of knowledge about the metaverse for being an amnesiac! (this worries them too, they just try not to show it)

the OTHER fun part is that Siffrin is doing half this phantom thief stuff in the metaverse, half in the real world. good news is, he has the magic metaverse stuff irl! bad news is he has the magic metaverse stuff irl. yeah it helps keep him from getting caught, but law enforcement starts rising quickly to military arms when you start breaking physics while also being a theater kid about it.

the meat of the plot is surrounding Siffrin's struggle to fit two lives into one, and how his friends are WAY too perceptive to keep this up forever. but they have to, because they've only barely convinced their friends to accept them. if they knew he was some evil freaky magic terrorist (he's not, but like, who would believe him when he's doing seemingly evil freaky magic terrorist things!), they'd turn him in, they'd be scared, they'd HATE him!!

btw there is no rival for Siffrin. he's his own rival. lets give the "I'm terrified I'm manipulating my friends" twink actual mind alteration powers and see what happens :))

[rad-roche]

playing OFF! can't do it in long sittings (the game is blown up on my monitor and reading the text hurts my eyes) but i'm really enjoying it. cool to see it after playing a lot of things it's clearly influenced. here's my favourite guy so far

[anonymous-dentist]

The Corruption isn’t evil in the same way as it isn’t actually good, either. It’s a living organism akin to, say, a fungus. It just wants to live and grow and spread, and that isn’t necessarily evil; it’s impossible to judge it by human senses of morality because it isn’t human.

But it is important to remember that every single member of the former Kingdom of Null besides trLukey was either killed by the Corruption and its Calamities or corrupted and turned into Keepers. And, with the Keepers, we’ve only seen the few who survived with their minds intact. Most lost their minds and were locked away for their own safety, and all of them lost their physical bodies and their voices.

And then there’s what happened with the dwarves and the giants. From what I remember, the giants became corrupted and killed off most of all of the dwarves on the server, making it two for two in civilization destroying.

And then there’s what it did to a certain few outworlders, trPangi especially. It probably sought him out as a host because he was kind to it before the End Fight, but attempting to bring it into the ‘family’ ended with him absolutely miserable before losing his memories and him debatably more miserable up to the point of him getting cured. It erased his memories and took out his eye. It tried forcing him to kill trLukey and trAimsey enough times that even Lifesteal Pangi was terrified of hurting these complete strangers. The way he described it, the Corruption was trying to erase him and turn him into just a puppet of it.

Granted, trAce and trAsh are pretty chill with the Corruption, but Ash doesn’t remember anything but being corrupted and Ace is corrupted down to his very soul. The Corruption treats them both well, but also? Huge potential of it doing what it did to Pangi and making them accept it?

If anyone has heard of The Last Of Us, they know that there are types of fungus in the real world capable of biological ‘mind control.’ Is that evil? Not really, that’s just how those organisms have adapted for survival.

But when the Corruption has been shown to be capable of this kind of mind control- in a literal sense this time, how can we trust what it’s saying through trBad that it really isn’t that bad? It isn’t evil, yeah, but that doesn’t mean that it’s as harmless as it wants people to think it is, either. Whether it means to be or not, it has hurt people. Entire civilizations are dead. While that might just be a means of survival for the Corruption, it’s also a bunch of reasons for people like trLukey and trAimsey and the dwarves to hate the Corruption and what it does. People they loved are dead or seemingly being puppeted around by a sentient world-destroying parasite who, in its loneliness, has adapted itself into becoming something that will destroy the entire world in order to stop feeling so alone.

[els-moonleaf]

Chivalry and Burrich

aka nothing to see here, just a couple of bestiesss.

[smoky-solitude]

Oh Patience my love. Thank you for giving Fitz unconditional love and support, for showing through actions that he matters, even though he forgets at times. He saw it here. He sees it now.

[motherofcavy]

Fitz constantly has moments of affection/attraction towards Kettricken in rote, and always attributes that to his Skill link with Verity. But honestly, I think he does have some real romantic feelings for her, if not as pronounced as his feelings for Molly or Fool. For one, he has those moments even after Verity goes into his dragon. For two, Fitz is a super unreliable narrator and so unemotionally intelligent. He might be suppressing or denying those feelings reflexively out of loyalty to Verity.

It makes Kettricken's unrequited love for Fitz even more tragic. Already, there is no potential relationship for them. Even though of course Kettricken would fall for Fitz! He was her first friend in a foreign court, he saved her life, they endured so much and shared so much in common (Mountain heritage/philosophy, Wit, austere and practical, in tune with nature, Sacrifice, similar in age). But she was married to Verity. Verity: who came to love her, but first saw her as a child and a burden. Verity: who spent less time with her than Fitz. Verity: who didn't understand what it meant to be an outcast at Buckkeep. Fitz and Kettricken both come to love and practically worship Verity and he hangs over their every interaction. And isn't that a pun, that "truth and honesty" defines their relationship? Kettricken is much more emotionally intelligent than Fitz and probably recognizes her feelings for him, and knows it can never be.

And, if Fitz does have some romantic love for his queen, how does that reflect in their respective relationships with Dutiful? Fitz treats Dutiful like he treats Kettricken. Respectfully, and formal to distance himself from them. Dutiful is able to vocalize how that hurts him, but Kettricken doesn't truly try to close the gap between them again. She probably is just as hurt by his distance, but accepts it as a sacrifice. Fitz has to compartmentalize his feelings for Kettricken and Dutiful, because he cannot be Dutiful's father, and he can't be Kettricken's friend. They are his kin, but not family.

Kettricken also treats Dutiful like she treated Fitz. "Accept, and endure,". Obsessed with sacrifice and imposing that suffering on Fitz and their son like a gift. Holding them to impossible standards. Praising them for their ability to endure. But, she is able to give Dutiful what Fitz never had. He had the privileges afforded to royalty, yes, but more than that. She protected him, and loved him unconditionally. Like how she was never able to protect or love Fitz.

[soyboywenzie]

i think we as a fandom need to talk about the fact that the targtower children’s resentment and disdain for rhaenyra is not just the work of viserys lack of parenting but due to everyone else too.

it’s from otto doing everything in his power to stop rhaenyra from getting the throne so his blood can get it, not because he thinks aegon is or would be a good king, not because he thinks his grandson deserves it, but because his blood would take the throne, not rhaenyra’s, not daemon’s. HIS.

it’s from alicent’s every conversation on screen with aegon revolving around rhaenyra. how, in ep.6, his mother stops his session to tell him he needs to be better to his brother in public so we can be a united family against her, how if rhaenyra takes the throne, she’ll have no choice but to kill them to keep her throne, how in ep.8, alicent is mad at his continuous behaviors but only this mad because rhaenyra is about to be in town.

the talk before his coronation is explicitly about how much his father wanted rhaenyra on the throne, how he had twenty years to change it and never did. it’s about alicent telling him not to not be swayed by judgements to kill rhaenyra, how above all the terrible she’s done, she still his sister. yet no one has ever acted like she is.

it’s from aemond’s eye being taken out and it ending with his mother yelling at rhaenyra about duty and sacrifices, how she can do all and never get in trouble, how she does as she pleases and is happy, yet she, the queen, is dutiful and isn’t. aemond’s eye is used to get back at rhaenyra, his mother is mad that his eye is gone but it’s more because RHAENYRA’S sons took it then it being taken at all. how he has to soothe his mother even if he’s the one bleeding.

it’s from criston cole bullying and tormenting rhaenyra’s sons because they are rhaenyra’s sons. It’s about them being lesser because they came from her indecency, them being worse because they came from her. her sons being lower than them because of them being a direct connection to rhaenyra and him feeling mad about not being the one she choose.

the targtower children entire world revolved around rhaenyra. it wasn’t just viserys who preferred her, everyone did! rhaenyra’s stepmother would rather fight her than love them! their mother’s sworn sword would rather mess with her children as an act of vengeance than genuinely be interested in them, their grandfather’s every political move was to stop her husband from being near power. love or hate, those children never had a chance to see rhaenyra on their own before or after Driftmark.

their father, her father, loved her more. their mother, her stepmother, hated her more than she cared for them. their grandfather, who has no connection to her, would rather deal with politics through them against her than for them. their mother’s sworn sword, who was rhaenyra’s sworn sword first, hates her more than he likes them.

these kids, again, never stood a damn chance!!

[blueswritingblog]

Me: yeah I like fantasy books, but like, in a very normal way. Not too much. I’m not like, a total nerd, or anything.

Meanwhile, my room:

[the-littlest-laney]

the venn diagram of characters that i’m obsessed with and characters played by emily axford is a circle.

jet rocks

[djevelbl]

Oh my god she's actually reaching out to talk aCE GET YO ASS OFF THE WHITEROOM FLOOR AND ANSWER THE MC DM--

[kolumnist-art]

I haven't posted in a while, but lately I haven't much time for drawing. So I stole my Targaryen Prince Jon from my previous fanart and dressed him up in his canon look 😅 So here is…

Jon Snow, the Bastard of Winterfell ⚔️ 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch.

Who do you ship Jon Snow with? ❤️

[colors-of-my-heart]

if Richie was alive and present for the summoning

Tinky: ohohoho boy a Spankoffski, I’m going to have the whole set in my toy box!

Richie: oh fuck get behind me Pete this guy’s got the fucking prison realm

[lumoctopus]

ohhh this bastard tango is throwing the blame at anyone he can even fellow kingdom members

bbh made up that hes missing quartz and tango is implying it was maybe clown

[trappedinacomputer]

Part of me thinks Bad was trying to get that pardon to give to Owen in exchange for something else

He has goals and plans ...

[laraluu2]

I wish I could let everyone who likes kcd and was wanting the same slow burn character driven writing know that they should absolutely try reading the book series Realm of the Elderlings. As a fan of that book series I think KCD really latched onto me.

The setting is fantasy (more of a realistic medieval fantasy like GOT) but the premise is the main character is a bastard and he grows up from 6 years old dealing with that fact and that most everyone knows him for that. So if you've felt the need to engage with media where Henry was acknowledged from a young age I really recommend it. The series is very very slow burn too and spans over 16 books. It starts with Assassins Apprentice and there is no noble romance but there is a slow burn relationship that is one of the most heart wrenching things I've ever read.

(It is an absolutely heart wrenching series in general and the main character goes through it each book as just a warning)

The opposite is true too if you like Realm of the Elderlings I think you would enjoy Kingdom Come Deliverance. (Its a little more silly than the books but is really focused on realism and slow slow progression)