#just thinking about how many muses on here would have different text color if TUMBLR WOULD ALLOW IT

[selfmenticide]

oh tumblr.. how i wish you would just add a color wheel option for text colors so i didn’t have to become a html wiz every time i wanted a different color other than the limit options given..

[bigfrozenfan-fanfics]

Chapter 09 - Sisters

Links: Chapter overview, Character list, Map, Glossar Rating: M over all Publishing cycle: each Friday on (link)

Remarks: all my chapters contain carefully selected music tracks. It’s your own decision if you want to use them or not while reading. The purpose is to musically support the respective mood of the plot. If you can please use a browser for reading (not the Tumblr app) due to the text formatting and music.

As Halvard slowly walked back to camp with the other men, still thinking about Yelana's news, he wanted to see what was going on in the camp at first and looked for his family. Linnea and Honeymaren were supposed to look after the toddlers of the camp during the Norting. But he only saw his wife, who was clearly having trouble with the little ones. Where was just his daughter? He was starting to get angry and looked in their kota first.

~~~

“Get up, Honeymaren, come on! You're still sleeping. You had only one important task this morning,” someone called out in an angry tone and shook her rudely by the shoulder.

“Hmm ...?” Honeymaren slowly opened her eyes and blinked. She saw the respectful figure of her father standing above her, now with his hands put on his hips, and his face indicating nothing good.

“Where were you last night? What's the matter with you?”

She got up slowly and struggled with her tiredness. “Nothing, I was just ... on the beach at sunset and fell asleep. Didn't wake up until after it was nightfall. Sorry.” She yawned and tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes. “It won't happen again, papa, I promise.”

Her father shook his head, “Come on, daughter, your mother is wondering where you are. She's all alone with the naughty boys from the camp and you were supposed to help her mind the little ones today.”

“Why didn't you wake me up?” she asked, looking at him from drowsy eyelids.

“That's what we did this morning when we went out. However, you didn't hear us obviously. Otherwise you always get up right after us ...,” he said, looking at her without understanding, “What's wrong with you recently? Come on, get dressed and then get out.”

She looked after him as he walked out first. Then she put on her clothes and followed him.

She walked wearily between the kotas and already heard the laughter of several small children from a distance even before she saw her mother and the cheeky gang. She stopped and watched for a moment. Linnea looked a bit overwhelmed as she tried to keep everyone under control. Honeymaren finally walked on and clapped her hands loudly. The children's heads spun around and two of them ran towards her laughing and calling her name. She didn't feel like it; she thought, but seeing her mother like that touched her conscience. It was time for an apology.

~~~

Ryder was on his way back to camp and had a brooding expression on his face. It had been his first time at this kind of meetings and he wondered why everything has to be kept from the Arendellians. They were their friends now, and he liked Kristoff above all, because he was like him and let Sven talk the same way he did with his reindeer. But he was not allowed to tell them anything about the Great Ting and what was exposed in it. This made him feel sadness and at the same time frustrated and guilty. How could he tell Kristoff that they were all in great danger?

Ryder was so lost in thought that he was startled when someone suddenly spoke to him. He looked up in surprise and realized that instead of going to the camp and to Kristoff, he was now standing in front of his reindeer herd. One of the two young boys who had been looking after them in the meantime said, “Hey Ryder. Why are you looking so downheartedly at? Are you sick or something?”

Ryder put his usual smile back on, “No, no. There's nothing wrong with me. I was just thinking. You gonna be okay with the herd?”

The two nodded and the other said, “Sure, everything's fine. Why?”

“I just wanted to say good morning to Kristoff but was all in thoughts and made a wrong turn.”

They looked at each other and then at him again and laughed. “Made a wrong turn?”

Oh, man, that was embarrassing now; Ryder thought to himself and rolled his eyes. “Well, it happens, right? It's probably never happened to you guys before.”

“Nope,” they said, as if from one mouth.

Ryder took turns looking from one to the other and he couldn't help but notice this little grin on their faces. Well, this could become cheerful, he thought and said, “All right. You take care of everything and I'll be off again.” He turned around at the last word and walked back into the woods with big steps. They already had an answer on their lips, but could only look after him irritated. Ryder grinned and whispered, “No, boys, not with me. Not today.”

~~~

Elsa had been walking all morning across the camp and had looked around. Many were not on the road, there were mainly women at work, and younger Northuldra to be seen, no men. Elsa wondered about this for a moment, but was distracted, because she was constantly greeted friendly and even the children knew her name. Elsa was amazed and greeted everyone back with a smile. Why does everyone here know me, if I am not from here; she asked herself. What had Myrtha told her? She was a good friend of the Northuldra. But even the little children here addressed her with 'Hello, Elsa'. There was something the healer kept from her.

She mused, remembering that Myrtha had hesitated at first. Then she recalled the letters from Queen Anna that she had read, very personal letters to her, with many things she didn't understand. Not yet anyway; she thought. She absolutely had to find her sister and talk to her, she was certainly still here somewhere in the camp.

Elsa looked around and then went back to her kota on another way. Finally she saw people with clothes looking different, sitting in front of a cold fireplace, her sister with her back to her. She could recognize her by her strawberry-blonde hair, now when she remembered her evening visit. The man opposite her was dressed similar to the Northuldra, but looked somewhat different. And then there was this little guy who had frightened her so much that night. Now in the daylight he did not look so scary to her anymore at all. He even seemed to be quite funny and somehow she felt such a strange feeling of closeness, but could not tell what it was exactly.

She walked towards the small group that was talking lively and stopped behind Anna. The man's jaw dropped when he noticed her and stared at her. This little white guy also seemed very surprised.

“Kristoff? What ...,” Anna asked and turned around. The next moment she jumped up and hugged her sister not a second later. “Elsa!”

Elsa felt taken by surprise, but withstood the reflex to retreat. Maybe that was her usual greeting; she thought and put her arms gently around Anna. She felt herself being pulled into a firm and intimate embrace, and Anna didn't let go so quickly.

After what felt like a minute, Elsa finally cleared her throat and immediately got more air, when Anna held her at half an arm's length and looked deep into her eyes. Their gazes fixated each other and in some way it seemed that they wanted to explore their bare souls. With anyone else this moment would have been unpleasant for Elsa, but here and now something special came into being between the two of them, something that somehow seemed familiar to her. She could feel it clearly and see it in Anna's deep blue eyes.

None of them spoke a word. Anna looked a lot like her, she could see that now. Since she had seen her own reflection in a brook yesterday, she now also knew her own countenance. The main difference was of course the color of her hair and she was also a bit smaller than her. But otherwise she almost saw herself standing before her. They just stood there and explored each other with glances. Until finally somebody said, “Guys ... um ... we're still here too?”

They separated and Anna sat down again, but pulled Elsa down, next to her. She didn't mind and so now she sat beside her sister on a log in the camp and felt all eyes on her.

“Well, that was a little weird for me now and you all look like you have a lot of questions for me. But believe me, it's the other way around, because I still can't remember anything.”

A tense silence arose and finally Anna took the floor and said, “We'll help you, Elsa. Just ask us anything you want to know.”

Elsa looked at her, “I know that you are Anna, my sister, and the Queen of Arendelle, and that I come from there. But they are not my memories, I was only told this. That’s all I know for certain, I do not remember anything else. Even after I read all your letters, nothing in them felt familiar.”

Anna nodded understandingly and slightly touched Elsa's arm. “Perhaps I'd better introduce the others to you first. This here is Kristoff, my fiancé,” she explained, pointing at him with her other hand.

Kristoff didn't seem to know how to handle this situation and greeted only softly, “Hello, Elsa.”

“And this is Olaf, he's ...,” Anna faltered. How only could she explain this, she wondered. “He is ... well, he's a snowman, and ...,” she didn't know what to say without reveal Elsa the whole truth.

But Olaf, however, was unaware of such concerns and, as straightforward as he was, came out with the facts. “You magically created me, Elsa. Without you, I would not exist.” Anna's head fell on her chest, her hands in front of her face. Now it was out. Oh, Olaf; she thought.

“I did what?” Elsa asked stunned and stared at him in disbelief. Then she looked at Anna and then at Kristoff and put on a wry grin. “Sure. Honestly, guys, I may have lost my memory, but you can't be serious. Magically created! Plus a ... snowman, whatever that is. Then what am I if I could do such things?”

“You've had this ability since you were born and you're the only one who can do things like that,” Anna finally admitted. “This blessing was a gift.”

Elsa's mouth still remained open and for a few moments she could not say anything in reply. Then she recovered from the shock and said, shaking her head, “I can't believe it. Please pinch me so I can wake up again.” Anna took it literally and pinched her upper arm hard.

“Ow!” Elsa rubbed the spot and searched in their faces in front of her, but everyone looked at her only curiously. “You all really mean it.” Everyone nodded silently. “A gift ... why and from whom? How can you give something like this as a gift at all? Besides, I feel perfectly normal and have no idea how to do that.”

“Well, Elsa, that's one of the many reasons why I'm going to bring you back to Arendelle,” Anna said, smiling affectionately and stroking her cheek tenderly. “Home.”

~~~

---

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a comment if you liked the story, I would be pleased to read your opinions, even criticisms. If you want to be tagged as soon I publish the next chapter please let me know.

Tagging: @karma26 @whether-near-to-me-or-far @annaofthenorthernlights @igotelsapregnanthelp

[redstaratmorning]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Astarion

Ahoy there me hearties! It is time to embark on yet another long voyage into the seas of discovery and character exploration, to fill in the details of the blank map with speculation and musings alongside the occasional sea serpent drawing! Tonight we are once more focused on Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3, and we set sail with navigation logs that include Scents And Sensibilities, or more specifically how both taste and smell might impact Astarion as a vampire and his perception of the world. The second major topic of speculation would be the one that gave this post its title: amnesia possibilities with speculations on the influence of torture and starvation for induced memory loss. This is of course all speculation based on early access content, so beware of spoilers upon the horizon! Content warnings include discussion of food items, consumption of food, consumption of rotting food, graphic descriptions, maggots, insects, emetophobia, vampirism, blood, dark backstories, abuse, torture, horror, and other themes typical of the Baldur’s Gate 3 setting. Spoilers for both Baldur’s Gate 3 and some spoilers for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: Justine included. Google story details of the Amnesia series at your own risk, these tags are intended to be reflective solely of mentioned elements in this essay, not of all potentially disturbing content in those games.

So with the starting fact of how closely the senses of taste and smell are in real life, what does this mean for Astarion and other vampires in DND when it comes to how things smell versus how they taste? Referencing another of Pjenn’s fine posts regarding everyone’s favorite local vampire spawn, Astarion has a line regarding consuming a treacle tart from Auntie Ethel’s cottage: “Hell’s teeth! Was solid food always so foul?” [click here for a link to said post]  Now this could just be because Auntie Ethel is a hag and cooks horrible food, and according to tumblr there are poisonous apples to be found at her place as well. [Alas no post citation to confirm the poisonous apples.] If Astarion’s reaction isn’t due to Ethel being a terrible cook, and is more to do with the fact that he’s a vampire, then that’s a horse of a different color. Presumably, through speculation based on his surprise and lack of disgust prior to consumption of foodstuffs, standard humanoid foods likely still smell or at least smell similar to how they used to smell to him when he was alive. An apple still smells like an apple, as it were. It may just be that instead of Astarion feeling hunger at the smell of an apple, it might be more akin to smelling pleasant like apple-scented perfume or such though for him...curiously, that would suggest that he did not try or more likely could not try to eat anything of the sort under Cazador’s rule. On that note, it would be a certain flavor of tragedy for regular humanoid foods to still smell appetizing and edible to Astarion but taste like ash in his mouth, or worse. But how does food fit for vampires smell to Astarion? Namely, blood, of course. Though one might wonder at rare steak or other cuts of meat still bloody to the taste—could he eat beef tartare and enjoy it, for example? Sashimi or other raw seafood? That’s straying into headcanon territory though. Back on topic, in the one camp scene where everyone is feeling ill with the beginning sensations of ceremorphosis, he mentions “I can smell the blood in your mouth” on one dialogue branch. It could be that the two are standing awfully close together while discussing matters, and/or the MC’s bleeding a pretty significant amount and the scent is quite noticeable, or Astarion’s got a pretty keen sense of smell, or a combination of the above. It probably smells pretty good if it tastes as good as Astarion’s reactions and comments would strongly suggest, and if we’re going to go wild with fun fantastical interpretations, I’d put forth the idea of Astarion being able to smell the difference between different people’s (or animals’) blood at close range. If Larian puts the following datamined not-present-in-game-yet scene in, the former idea would tie in very nicely with how Astarion speculates on how the different companions’ blood might taste, from this datamined text post once again kindly provided by Pjenn. [click here for text post link, bottommost “tastingparty” section] Transcription of some of the possible lines in question (not in the game at time of writing, and possibly may not appear in the final game): “Take Gale, for example. He strikes me as someone whose blood is rich, refined like a well-aged brandy.” “Take Wyll, for example. A man of the people, very palatable, like a sweet cider.” Above lines chosen for their more descriptive wording, thus why the other party members (both current and future as of this time of writing) are not added in the above examples. Astarion is quite colorful in his descriptions of how he thinks some of the companions’ blood would taste, based off of their personalities. So what does everyone’s various MCs’ blood taste like? There could be delightful variety based on the details of the various MCs’ personalities and personal life histories, I’ve seen some explorations on the dash here and there which is delightful, and I’d shan’t say no to seeing more. It is a beautiful opportunity for character exploration regarding the MC, Astarion’s perception of them, the reality of who they are (and perhaps Astarion shifting said perception of them), and all around a great potential moment to have some fun writing descriptive prose if one is so inclined. One internet search later, I will say that it appears that reddit and other google search sources do seem to suggest that in real life the blood from various different species of animals looks and tastes different from one another, even without going into factors such as age and health’s impact on blood. If we as normal humans are able to tell the difference in that, it seems reasonable to think Astarion would be able to do that and more with supernatural augmentation as the basis for that line of thinking. What do people smell like to him? Different from one another one might suppose. Is that part of what informs his imaginings and wonderings about how their companions’ blood might taste? Individuals tend to smell unique to some degree, due to body chemistry among other factors. One would expect blood to be a factor in that, seeing as that’s how many hormones and such get sent about the circulatory system—which might mean Astarion (and our potential future weregnome companion) may have more of a time having to deal with the whole party foregoing soap for better or for worse, unless Gale or Shadowheart have a Summon/Conjure Soap spell, or perhaps the MC is a ranger who can find a soap plant. Not a great time to have a sensitive nose potentially, though foregoing soap and thus additional layered scents like floral infusions and such might be beneficial. One can only imagine hunting might turn out better for the entire party’s dinner-scrounging efforts by not alerting the local wildlife that there’s someone about who smells like a potpourri bowl...though that’s another idea, does Astarion volunteer to go hunting moreso for the party in order to be able to drain blood from the kills? One would bleed and gut a carcass anyway as part of the processing, so who would know if he drank it dry versus bled it out with a knife from a tree? Moving on though, imagine what it must’ve been like the first time after he rose up from being turned and he smelled another living person’s blood, only to feel his mouth suddenly start watering. Was he confused? Repulsed? Horrified? Startled, but accepting? There’s potential ripe for the picking to interpret that in any number of ways, including conflicted and complicated in multiple directions all at once, which his actions and emotional depictions might suggest so far in early access. Imagine the torment of being ravenous every night—and I am personally impressed that Astarion actually can keep his mental faculties and presentation together well enough to seduce someone given potential speculation of his physical state,—and knowing only a meager portion of the most putrid, rotting rat flesh awaited him back at Cazador’s mansion, while he had to interact and seduce with people who smelled just so good to his vampiric senses. Consider the added twist of the knife in Cazador’s torment of Astarion with the fact that one can consider saliva to be filtered blood—if one headcanons Astarion as actually being quite physical with his seduction up to and including kissing of any kind. Consider also, the fact that if Astarion has shared a kiss with one of the unfortunate victims-to-be, he might have more of an idea of what they might taste like but must also now sit and SMELL their fresh-spilled blood right from the vein, right there in front of him, and watch while Cazador enjoys his own supper, while being forced to down a disgusting rotting carcass under threat of punishment. [in-post content warning: Graphic description of rotting dead rat carcass, food, maggots, etc in the next paragraph] Did Astarion throw up the first several times? Cazador would’ve surely punished him for so “rudely” rejecting a dinner all set out especially for Astarion and everything. To get to the point where one can consume let alone look at and smell a plate of rotting food,—specifically a dead rat with the fur still attached, the guts bloating up and putrifying from within, that very well might have live, wriggling maggots in it,—and not vomit? It must be one hell of a potent cocktail mix between primal hunger-driven desperation and fear of punishment applied over a prolonged period of time for Astarion to actually be able to consume that, let alone look upon it. This essay by the by will not be doing any in-depth exploration of the overarching situation relating to the victims’ point of view, as I feel that’s been implied in previous meta posts by both myself and others on Astarion, in the “Clearly The Other Victims Have It Bad Too And No One Deserves To Suffer Cazador” thread of implications.  We are however acknowledging that all of this experience for everyone else, aside from Cazador, is Fucked Up And Very Very Bad. Continuing past acknowledgements of the large moral cluster of ideas over yonder, let us move forward into the “present” time when Astarion has joined the party, and no one is as of yet aware that he is a vampire. Consider the scenario where he can smell their individual scents, but it’s nothing he hasn’t handled before, even if he seems to be...curiously free of the immediate need to get back to Cazador right away, while still wrapping his head around this bizarre new reality of walking in the sun. The inescapable reality of how different everything looks bathed in the all encompassing colors of sunlight, compared to moonlight and lantern light. Be it the blinding yellow, white, and blue of the noon time sun, or the violent golds, oranges, reds clashing against the violently deep blue shadows of night’s approach during the fall of twilight, or the brilliant and mellow pale grandeur of all the world’s color coming to life as the dawn breaks forth...it has been so long since last he saw any of that. Do you think he sat up specifically to watch that first dawn, while the other companions slept? It’s a beautiful thought. But I would follow that with the unfortunate potential consideration that he is starving—and when hunger eats away at one’s mind for long enough and in a demanding enough fashion, it can be remarkably difficult for a person to feel much of anything save very faint echoes of emotions or on the other extreme end only the strongest emotions, and more often than not those emotions are very likely to be the negative ones. Just about nobody’s happy when they’re starving after all. Astarion may very well feel awe at seeing the dawn again, but how deep does that feeling go, when instinct is screaming and gnawing at his very bones to insist that he is hungry? Famished. Starving. Appreciation for beauty is a privilege that is hard to enjoy at all in any degree of depth when the basic needs are wailing inside one’s head so loudly.  And he can smell his companions’ blood, even when they’re not bleeding. He has also smelled their blood spill out into the open air too, during fighting. How does that eat at him, how does that sharpen his appetite so? Does it make his stomach twist in pain to smell what his senses are clamoring for and labeling as food so close, so near, as he slowly loses his mind waiting all day for the party to break camp so he can try to slip away and hunt? Does he catch anything? He does find some animals canonically in some encounters, but there is no guarantee he will find enough without expending strenuous effort, assuming he finds anything at all on a given night. And his luck does run out eventually it would seem. One night he just doesn’t have any reserves left in him to go hunt down another animal, to take another gamble that’s stacked even higher against him with how badly off he is. Does he feel an uncomfortable chill set in, cooling his blood and rendering his flesh even colder than his normally low body temperature standards as his undead form slips just a little bit closer to a semblance of true death, whether or not he can starve to death as a vampire? Do his hands shake? Can he think at all as thoughts fade in and out from hunger-induced weakness? Can he think through the haze of sensation and awareness if he breathes in through his nose, his open mouth, inhaling a lungful of the smell and taste of living blood right there? The smells that he’s grown familiar with over these last few days? The companion origin for Astarion definitely seems to spin it towards needing to know if he can resist Cazador’s orders now, but consider this thought: imagine the progression of realization that Astarion might have as he considers the idea that he could resist Cazador’s rules, with the lack of magical-compulsion to return to Cazador’s side right away. That if Astarion himself is no longer bound by those supernatural, unyielding, magically-enforced laws, he can also drink the blood of thinking creatures. He can drink the blood of people. He can drink the blood that he’s been smelling the enticing scents of this entire time. The blood that is right. There. And he is starving. Imagine how that must feel, that pupil-dilating moment of realization as muscles tense and the next breath comes in as a sharp inhale at the instantaneous, primal understanding that you can have food, real food, good food, right then and there when you feel like you’re dying for something, anything to stop the hunger from eating you alive from the inside out. And all you have to do, is take it. Humans in real life can potentially have very predatory responses to hunger at times, especially when it comes to hunting down prey animals, and when it comes to spotting an easy meal when one is working on empty reserves. Imagine how that can scale up for a vampire...and for Astarion, this is the first time he’s been free to actually choose to act on those instincts. Cazador’s rules have always been the backbone holding him in place as surely as the mindflayer prison pods kept everyone well and truly trapped—until our merry lot was broken free. Now though? The only thing standing between Astarion and his sleeping, delicious-smelling companions’ blood, is his own will and choice. That has to be equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. He’s never been free like this—free, with vampiric needs clamouring for his attention. Free, as a vampire, spawn or otherwise. But does he want to? I would actually suspect he feels conflicted about that on multiple levels, given a possible line Auntie Ethel might say should you fight her. ”You’re one thirsty night away from betraying everyone!” [One of Auntie Ethel’s taunts when using Vicious Mockery during her potential fight, linked here in astarions-ears’s post.] On the one hand: the power to take what he wants, what he needs, is at his fingertips. Much like how the power of the tadpole is. It could help him protect himself, be stronger, do whatever he wants...just like the tadpole power. This whole situation is a mess of temptation in the long term for Astarion in so many ways. On the other hand though...I suspect based on that line from Ethel above, assuming it makes it into the final version of the game, given that it’s used during a casting of Vicious Mockery, I would say there’s fair grounds to assume Astarion does have at least reservations about betraying the party, at the very least with the hesitation given rise from self-serving desires such as wanting to have a group of people in his corner. I would say though, it wouldn’t cut so deep, and wouldn’t be so vicious a mockery, if he didn’t care that it was betrayal. I think it safe to say that if he truly didn’t care in some shape or form, Ethel would’ve ended up mocking some other aspect of Astarion’s personality or insecurities, likely something along the lines that everything he does is futile as he will still end up killed or enslaved by either Cazador or others (such as the party and MC having so much sway over his life and choices), rather than needling him about betrayal of all things.  Another reservation he might have from lack of experience is that he’s never hunted other people for his own food before. He might never have hunted for someone personally of his own free will before this point, either. That little nuance could be a hook on which he hangs onto for dear life—or unlife—in order to keep what remains of his perceived identity. Who does he want to be, and among those details, what must he be, in order to survive? What can he avoid doing? Does he want to be what he perceives as a monster? Is he hoping not to become a monster, to validate that he isn’t one already, based on his conversation after you catch him trying to steal some of the MC’s blood? “I’m not some monster!” There’s also the line from the post-Raphael first meeting, “If I keep the tadpole, I risk turning into a monster.” which all seem to imply that Astarion draws a line between what he thinks is and isn’t monstrous, much like in the first meeting with Astarion where if you tell him about the tadpole, he laughs bitterly and goes, “Of course it’ll turn me into a monster.” Isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase? It implies so much fertile ground for speculating on what he thinks of both his own vampirism, and what precisely makes someone or something a monster. The MC has come into Astarion’s life at such a fascinatingly crucial point in time, beyond just Astarion’s sudden new freedom, however fragile, from Cazador. Because of that freedom, this is also the time of exploration and self-definition for Astarion to decide who he is, and who he will be, a coming-of-age if you will, which is hysterically ironic and well-played by Larian Studios in my opinion given that he is almost assuredly going to be the chronologically oldest member of the main party. This dovetails so very neatly into the MC’s already obvious potential influence on how Astarion views his condition, other people, the world around him, his own self and morality...it’s really just so rife with potential. This particular part is nothing too new, just added detail and layering on top of previous musings in past posts, but there are elements of interest to examine I think. Personally, I was inclined to guess Astarion as being older, even as elves go, based largely on the fine lines one can see upon his face when he’s emoting, some elements of his attitude and dialogue—(“A fine effort, but I’ve seen it all. I was walking this land while your ancestors were learning to crawl.” - said if you fail a skill check during his recruitment scuffle)—but looking at some of these other elements has me reconsidering that. Perhaps he was more on the young adult side of the elven age range, rather than middle aged prior to being turned? If he can retain scars as a vampire under the living conditions Cazador subjected him to, perhaps he also has stress-related aging tells, since it seems from other DND materials (Curse of Strahd I believe has a vampire locked in a basement that’s largely starved of blood if I recall correctly? I am uncertain of the details regarding the situation unfortunately) that vampires can at least show physical deterioration when it comes to being starved for blood. It would be an entertaining take in my personal opinion to see an older character having a coming-of-age growth type arc, since those are almost always strongly associated with a relatively narrow range of ages from teenaged-to-middle-twenties-ish protagonists and characters. Whichever way Larian goes with it though, it is looking quite promising just based on the overall quality of the various game elements so far. To build on that possible theme interpretation though, there is another element that I think ties into Astarion’s uncertain age as well—how much he remembers of his life before Cazador, and how much life there was to remember to begin with. One might generally presume that the older a character is, the more time they’ve had and thus more opportunity to learn, to be exposed to life experiences, to garner wisdom. Often, this also tends towards a certain amount of cementing of a person’s outlook, personality, and other core traits along with potential varying levels of self-awareness regarding those elements. It goes without saying that people do still change sometimes dramatically other times gradually over the course of their lives, but typically the more easily-influenced vibes commonly go with younger and/or more naive character builds, though not always of course. Without addressing significant or otherwise notable exceptions, specific nuances or variations though, there is something of a vague expectation and template starting-base that older characters and personalities are typically more “put together”, “collected”, and less likely to be outright mutable. Astarion though? As a character in an RPG that is built upon the foundations of choices, in a DND world where choice IS the defining feature in both character expression and storytelling? His core will remain as himself I’m sure, but by the very nature of the game attempting to make this an enjoyable experience for the audience, odds are very good that Astarion will be heavily influenced in his outlook into a set number of branched endings based on what the MC chooses to say and do. But I have some potential suspicions now that Astarion might actually be a touch more malleable in some parts of his outlook and manner beyond the influence of just the aforementioned elements above. Consider the following lines Astarion currently has in Early Access, including one mentioned previously: “Hell’s teeth! Was solid food always so foul?” [Said in the previously posted link above when eating a treacle tart for presumably the first time, stolen from Auntie Ethel’s before illusion is lifted.] “I’ve seen so little of the world. Still, there’s time now.” [Looking at a globe, post linked here, from Pjenn’s blog] “I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies. Was that normal?” [If you kill Mayrina’s brothers and Auntie Ethel disappears into thin air. Video from Danaduchy on youtube linked here] “Probably wise. No one gets that old and crooked playing by the rules.” [Same conversation as above mentioned in the video regarding Auntie Ethel if the second option “I’m not sure. We should watch ourselves around her.” is chosen in response to Astarion’s question.] While one could certainly retain youthful or what one might call immature or dramatic inclinations even through to one’s golden years, I am on the fence on how far Astarion’s presentation is strictly personality-based versus influenced by a possible lack of diverse life experiences. Nature versus nurture, as it were. The first of the above quotes seem to suggest he hasn’t done much traveling, and may have some wanderlust in him (potentially hinting at moon elf wanderlust leanings?), but then why wasn’t he out traveling? Why did he become a magistrate? There is much life to be lived in great depth and diversity when one stays in one place, true. But we really know so little about Astarion’s past before Cazador, all in all, and that intriguingly puts him back in step with most of the other companions at this point of backstory reveal, I’d say. If we include Cazador’s influence, I’d say we’ve seen quite a bit more of his story than most of the others because there’s a lot more visibility and immediately-threatening emotional tension in his story, even when compared to Gale’s, surprisingly, followed by Wyll’s, Shadowheart’s, and then Lae’zel’s as of what I personally have seen of their stories (my knowledge may be lacking, even as far as Early Access content goes.) To be fair though, Astarion is the one who thus far shows the most visible, dramatic expressions of fear and trauma regarding his backstory than all the rest, so that would be a major factor as to why it feels like we’ve seen more of his tale, among other factors. Regarding life experiences within a more geographically limited area though—that puts some of Astarion’s comments as even more markedly odd to me. Specifically those comments of his after Auntie Ethel poofs away into thin air, should the party slay Mayrina’s brothers for Ethel, “I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies.” Perhaps his specification is the helpless part, but even if he was spending time with powerful old ladies, who asks “is it normal for the elderly to disappear into thin air like that?” He must have met some older people, ladies included, as Baldur’s Gate is not a strictly elven city, according to the wiki its demographics are mostly human but widely diverse. [Link to wiki page here.] This is especially strange if he’s of a noble background and was ostensibly working with other government officials, one would expect a range of ages with plenty of older individuals present both in his work and social circles, even if only in passing. That’s just not adding up, especially if it’s a genuine question, which his expressions and tone of voice during his inquiry in addition to his responses afterwards to the MC’s various dialogue options all seem to suggest if not confirm. If that question was coming from a young character who hasn’t seen the world, one would assume they were just incredibly sheltered. What does it mean coming from Astarion? What’s even stranger is that Astarion is the one who baits the MC into a trap using a similar disception upon meeting—”Hurry, I’ve got one of those brain things cornered!” One would think Astarion would recognize a ruse like that as one of the oldest tricks in the book: pretend to be helpless to get someone else to do the dirty work for you. Such a trick often is pulled off well especially when the pretender is either a) pretty/handsome, b) innocent looking (young or otherwise), c) dressed in a uniform or clothes that have helpful connotations for snap judgements in one’s favor (e.g. wearing good-aligned clergy garments), d) helpless looking (young, old, specific subgroups depending on culture, disabled, etc), or has other elements to their advantage there. If Astarion doesn’t recognize that particular ruse, which he doesn’t seem to, that has additional implications going on for him. If he did recognize the ruse, one would expect his reaction to be much more in line with Shadowheart’s. If he recognized it and was hiding it, one would think he wouldn’t want to play stupid, if only for pride’s sake—for all that Astarion has done things that have unquestionably humbled him, his penchant for verbal wit and criticism (various insults aimed at the MC and others regarding their intellect/stupidity) and touchy ego makes playing stupid seem like a very emotionally taxing and potentially painful thing for him to do, and thus not worth the mental/emotional effort in what looks like a very low-stakes situation. He seems too impulsive and reactive to be planning out a long-term con of hiding his intelligence, he makes far too many quips to pull that off at this point. Assuming Astarion does indeed not recognize the ruse beforehand, some of the possible implications for that could speculate on his overall awareness of his techniques when it comes to deception and manipulation. He definitely can spot it on occasion based on a narrated internal monologue line presumably from his origin— *I gave her a hard look. Never play a player.* [Linked to the audio of this line here from scionsandsinners’s blog] That he spots it in the potential origin line above, but presumably not with Auntie Ethel, might suggest that his experience is likely limited to within certain restricted lanes of behavior, likely seduction were one to guess based on what we know of his backstory and some datamined emotional directions/descriptions for voice acting, along with speculation based on his in-game behavior and demeanor. That would potentially push him moreso towards appearing when being manipulative to be doing so out of either self-perceived need (e.g. defending personal interests, inquiring after information of interest, etc), learned response, social norms, and other short term motivations that are more situational than long-term planning. I admit I’m still personally not of the opinion he’s playing a long-term game, and is playing it by ear as he goes—both honestly and not-so-honestly, as mentioned in previous posts on the subject. [Mentioned past essay post of mine linked here] In regards to short-term machinations, I think they’re all largely emotion or survival driven, as far as we’ve seen. I would include the voice acting direction for the romance scene where it’s noted that this is a power game for Astarion and that he’s an old hand at seducing others. Specifically from the synopsis: “For Astarion, this is a game of power - one he’s played many times before in the taverns of Baldur’s Gate, trying to lure people back to his master. He’s an old hand at seduction, very self-assured at first, but the player might not go along with the script he expects them to follow.” [Link to Pjenn’s post here.] I’ve seen intriguing, angsty, and fun takes on what this might mean all around tumblr, so allow me to offer up an additional one that might either compliment some of the already circulating pre-existing ones, or stand on its own depending on personal preference. Consider what power means to Astarion in the context of seducing someone specifically when it’s to lure them back to Cazador’s mansion under orders. It truly isn’t power in the sense of anything one might consider meaningful even under broad definitions. It’s a short-term deception, appealing to someone enough to get them to do what he wants for a short time, likely just enough time to flirt and then bait them back to Cazador’s estate (we’ll be skipping over speculation of anything else Astarion and company might get up to between point A and point B in this essay for simplicity’s sake, though there is much to consider on how it might impact his behavior and outlook there.) One of the specific words of interest I would say is the use of “script” in there. I’m sure others can hear it too when they listen to his dialogue during the party romance scene, but it really does sound like he’s putting on a tried-and-true act that might come across as a little over the top in romantic-dramatic-flair. One potential inference that can be gleaned from this might be some of Astarion’s expectations regarding how people perceive him, and most specifically how people perceive him in a desirous way. I will admit, Astarion’s romance scene makes me laugh, I'm impressed he and the MC both can avoid laughing at his lines in-scene, no disrespect intended. To me, he sounds like he ripped those lines straight out of a torrid romance novel, the kind where women might have a momentary description of heaving, delicate bosoms barely constrained by their bodice laces, while the men have had their shirts ripped open to display rippling muscles in a moment of romantic daring do. It makes me wonder if someone will go with a modern AU idea of BG3′s main crew that includes Astarion moonlighting as a much beloved romance/erotica writer under a nom de plume—the man has lines and characteristics that would shift well in such a verse-transposition. With that comparison in mind, I would suggest that Astarion is very, very used to playing the role of the illicit lover, the tempter of passions and other archetypes wherein he is the one confidently enticing people to cross the line of propriety with him for the implied, unspoken promise of a night filled with unparalleled ravishment. It might be he is fully, intentionally playing up to people’s fantasies about the passionate lover who falls madly in love with them at first glance. The fantasy of being so madly desired, as put forth by some romance stories. Then we have this other portion of the acting direction for the scene, “... very self-assured at first, but the player might not go along with the script he expects them to follow.” Isn’t that interesting? “Very self-assured at first,” why only at first? What changes? Does he have little doubts springing to mind then, because the realization that he knew, but didn’t really know until this moment when he feels the difference, that this isn’t just another routine night like all those other countless nights over the past two centuries where he had to tempt some poor, unfortunate soul back to Cazador’s waiting clutches? That this is someone he’s picked to spend the night with, solely for his own motivations, with no one else pulling the strings? Is it another moment of the realization of freedom, wherein he feels a touch terrified? Suddenly there is no script, there is no expectation of what he’s seen happen time after time after time after time to each person who’s looked at him the way the MC is looking at him now. Is it anxiety? Is it trauma? Is he feeling a moment of distant, cognitive dissonance that this time, this time, this person whom he’s picked, won’t be dead at the end of this? That he doesn’t have to hold them at arm’s length with the they’ll be dead soon or worse mentality he may have had previously...but can he afford to care? Does he dare? Whether he does or does not, it could be such a scary little moment of epiphany, that he even has the option to do so without immediate, horrendous repercussions. But can he really care, even without Cazador looming overhead as an immediate threat? Even if Cazador is slightly more distant now...there’s still the matter of the tadpoles. There is so much uncertainty potentially. Could this be the last chance he gets at having as close to a normal night of fully consenting, fully aware, mutual passion with another person as he can ever have, as a vampire spawn? Astarion could be interpreted as a character who is very strongly ruled by his emotions, in particular his fears and his desires. Does it befit his fears or his wants more to engage as he does in the romance scene? I’d guess moreso his fears, but it’s a fun back-and-forth he’s got as a character, zigzagging between those two extremes. He fears trusting as denoted in the dialogue from him if you fail the persuasion check asking him to trust you and to talk about who he dreamed about, but since you can persuade him...does that mean he wants to trust? If he speaks truthfully in this following scene, he does trust the MC to some degree out of necessity and/or the want to trust, as mentioned if you use the illithid powers in the camp bite scene where he’s revealed to be a vampire. He has likely been alone among the crowd of Cazador’s other spawn, given the lack of mention of anyone else, friend or otherwise, in his banter with Shadowheart regarding if there was anyone waiting for him back in Baldur’s Gate and other general conversations and discussions. That’s rather concerning truth be told, to go two hundred years with what might be a complete lack of positive or healthy social connection. Another thing Cazador has ripped away intentionally, it would seem. Does he want connection, meaningful friendship or otherwise? The fact that his approval rating has an impact on his manner of address of the MC or other selected origin character seems like it could be read as a suggestion that he does show whom he likes and dislikes openly in fairly standard socializing behaviors. That he does want to spend time around people whom he likes, who like him back. What would’ve been terribly clever of Larian (said without being able to compare all the different levels of approval shown via dialogue general greetings from the different companions), is if they had a character whose greeting was still amicable, polite, and most importantly friendly even when their approval of you was low. What if such a theoretical character’s greetings never changed, or changed very little aside from some variation at higher approval levels? That could be a great little twist of game mechanics to show either Something Isn’t Right, or that the character is a great liar, through meta knowledge on the player’s part of comparing all these disparate little details to compare and contrast. That kind of tell could be used to show that a character lacks either a degree of empathy and care for the main character, or that they are keeping the MC at arms’ length regardless of what the MC does (barring some potential high-approval impact and side-quest-completion that leads to influencing such a character, who might otherwise be a betrayer, into remaining loyal.) Seeing as Astarion lacks those major tells as of yet and that he does engage honestly either through persuasion or eventual revelation (such as if you fail the first dream-convo persuasion check, you find out from when he wakes up from nightmares regarding Cazador “reading poetry” what his dreams really were about), one could assume he does, in spite of all he’s been through, despite all the reasons he’s been given to fear, all the repetition beaten into his head to never trust another person ever again or to ever be trusted ever again... ...in spite of all that, perhaps a part of him still wants to reach out and engage with others. That some part of him still wants to interact as most if not all people do, in an emotionally meaningful and honest way. He says to the MC that he thinks they want to be known—and as I’m sure many of you clever lot who are in the shipping business alongside the rest of us have already thought or written out into fic, it very well may be that Astarion wants to be known too. Not just in the romantic or impassioned-love-affair manner of speaking, but simply for who he is, with both the MC and the rest of the group too. Accepted. Does he enjoy the little quips and barbs (assuming he actually is allowed to drink humanoid blood) such as from Shadowheart regarding his vampirism? Does that feel like a new, pleasant normal to him that he likes after a while? A joke between friends? Like the line “You know? I’m a little proud none of you were stupid enough to trust him!” [Linked here from scionsandsinners’s blog] while definitely still sporting his current insultingly low bar of expectations, it could be a nice potential build towards actually getting attached to the group on the whole as friends. Did he have that before he turned at all? Did he want that before? It seems likely given what we’ve seen of his raw emotional drive, that his potential desire for meaningful connection however obscured behind quips and barbs, that those elements were always a part of him in some way, shape or form. Does he remember, though? Or is it potentially something he’s forgotten, to some extent or other? Does he remember vaguely what friendship was like as another hollow memory among many, after so many years of torment wearing away at his mind? Do his friends from life if any still live? That could be bittersweet, if he did leave someone behind from when he was alive, that we might meet in Baldur’s Gate. He calls that Before—that time when he was still alive, before he lay dying and accepted Cazador’s offer of eternal life and was thus turned into a vampire spawn—so long ago it’s ancient history. “Everything before that is so long ago it’s ancient history and everything that came after…well uhm–I’d rather not reflect on it.” [Link here, from scionsandsinners] In some lines, tentatively guessed as post-vampire-status-reveal casual dialogue regarding his past before Cazador, relating to his days as a magistrate, he says he can’t remember what happened too clearly. “I…can’t remember much, truth be told–centuries of torment will do that to you.” [link from scionsandsinners blog]  According to google searches on the internet for DND rules regarding the turning of vampires and vampire spawn, they do seem to retain the memories of their life even into undeath. Astarion certainly could be obfuscating and lying about how much he remembers from back then...but consider this alternative as a possibility: What if he isn’t? [Spoilers for some of the Amnesia game series ahead, specifically Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the DLC Amnesia: Justine.] What if he does have a certain degree of memory loss? Enter the comparison of Daniel and Justine both from Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the game’s DLC. Astarion, unlike the main character for Amnesia’s main campaign Daniel, did not technically volunteer for memory loss...unless one counts agreeing to take Cazador’s deal as volunteering, specifically without full and knowing consent of what he was getting into. Daniel in comparison knowingly and willingly ingests a potion to erase his memories, and leaves a note to motivate himself and thus the player to follow the course of ensuing events that make up the game. Justine does so in a similar fashion to Daniel, but her memory loss is intentionally temporary, whereas Daniel seems to have meant for it to be of a more permanent fashion. What if part of Cazador’s intentions regarding torturing his spawn, including Astarion, was to break down memories of happier times until those spawn could only remember that they had ever been happy once, not the actual memory, not the actual feeling—only the bitter, hollow forgetfulness and knowledge that they had known, once? Starvation is devastating in many, many, many ways. Ways that are so rarely fully explored in fiction beyond the feeling of extreme hunger. Few, after all, would consider the impact of malnourishment or a constant caloric deficit upon mental faculties unless they have observed it, experienced it, or studied it. It is possible to suffer actual physical brain damage from starving, so one must ask is it so surprising that the ability to think, comprehend, and process information, memory or emotion also falters when under the very real physical stress of prolonged famine? The brain eats up at least a fifth of the baseline caloric intake required for the average person’s bodily needs. It does not compromise well for less without the person in question suffering consequences for most if not all individuals. We know Astarion has not had more than enough to barely survive under Cazador, and the quality has been well below subpar at best. What if, after all he’s been through, with the exhaustion of constant fear and extreme pain, of unending ravenous hunger, and so much more...what if Astarion can’t remember much of before at all? What if he has forgotten chunks of his past? He does remember large, broad brushstrokes yes, the shape of ideas and what he once knew. The home he might long to see that he has not laid eyes upon in centuries [mentioned in the conversation with the Ornate Mirror if Astarion is the one talking to it (or does it require he be the chosen main origin?) I have no source available at this current time alas.] How much of that home does he remember in full? I’m sure he can recall some details...but are they the abstract knowledge of those details of what he knew they were like, or the actual memory?  Can you imagine the added layer of pain for an elf, if Larian is working with any of the racial features involving trancing, or the Reverie, if it’s built based off of the 2e DND Complete Book of Elves excerpt as mentioned in the following linked thread? [Posted by Remathilis, key word phrase is “The Reverie” or “The reverie is akin to sleep”, linked here] Specifically if these elements are at play:  “The reverie is akin to sleep, yet is very much unlike it. When elves enter this state, they vividly relive past memories, those both pleasant and painful. Like the dreaming of humans, elves have no control over which memories rise to the fore when they relinquish their bodies to the reverie. Occasionally, elves do actually dream, but this is not a frequent occurrence and mostly occurs only when they truly sleep.” “Although the reverie provides rest, it is primarily an important memory tool that helps the elf maintain a strong sense of identity. Since their lifespans are so great, elves must periodically recall the events in those hundreds of years that were integral to the making of their personality.”  This is from older versions of DND rules it’s true, but if it still applies, and applies to Astarion? This man has had over two hundred years’ worth of memories full of suffering and torment that, if he’s having traumatic PTSD nightmare episodes also helping to induce a higher frequency of recalling his torment at the hands of Cazador both during those centuries and afterwards, are potentially shaping his personality not only through the channels we can recognize in both fiction and the real world in psychological and physiological terms, but also supernatural or magical influences due to his being an elf and potentially shaped by the influence of what memories his reverie might dredge up. And the larger the number of traumatic, dark, fearful memories he has, the more likely he is to encounter them, especially if they’re coupled with a constant, ongoing fear of knowing these memories will be made anew each night unto infinity if he is stuck bound to Cazador’s service forever. Who wants to bet Cazador knew about this aspect of elven psychology/biology? Or at the very least speculated it, as far as having elven vampire spawn went? It will be interesting to see if there are other elven vampire spawn among Cazador’s underlings—either for the route of Cazador taking a particular extra pleasure in breaking elves because they are supposedly harder to influence in such a manner if he had others before Astarion, or if Astarion was the first elf Cazador turned, then perhaps Astarion received particular, special attention for being seen as an added challenge due to being an elf. Alexander from Amnesia however had to use a slightly defter touch to manipulate Daniel, having not so concrete a hold over him as Cazador over Astarion. But the torture of others, of fleeing to Alexander’s or Cazador’s promise of safety from an impending horror or threat of death, followed by a descent into the dark, unyielding despair of what Daniel or Astarion have done to survive? They do have potential parallels enough to make for a possible AU exploration in fics, certainly. One question that arises in this scenario of comparison though, is how much is Astarion aware of? How much of Cazador’s insidious influence does he recognize, in particular the more subtle parts that have seeped in over the years? Consider then the added layer of stark, blinding contrast, that he now has new memories, of new people, new experiences, in particular ones that are not torture or the anticipation of said torture, and it’s all in the daylight. Memories of daylight the likes of which he’s not had in two hundred years. Consider the mere color contrast from the lighting difference of daylight versus night time, like in the line where he asks  “Was the sky always this blue? It’s magnificent…” [Link here to the audio, presumed triggered after vampire status reveal] If he dreams in reverie and the memory that comes to mind is set in the daytime...would he feel a bit safer in hoping that it will be a safer, better dream, than if it’s set in the night time? Consider how much of a horrible, terror-inducing surprise it might be to dream of a sun-filled garden, only to see an idealized version of Cazador show up, a la the tadpole. That has to be the meanest surprise-twist Astarion could have for a dream setting there. But on other nights if he does not have memories of Cazador or tadpole dreams plaguing him, does he dream of the camp, the companions, the MC, the actions their group has undertaken? What does he think of those dream-memories? Are they only relatively restful compared to the other dark memories lurking in his head, or are these new daylight-filled memories actually objectively restful for him? Perhaps one additional group of reasons he’s willing to join up with the party, is to get away from the memories. With people, there is the added unknown factor of complexity and chemistry, of lives and histories not his own added to the mix of any situation they come across. Of interaction. Of not being left alone to his own thoughts and nightmares. This group’s members aren’t victims meant for Cazador’s fangs and thirst, nor are they Cazador’s spawn, fellow damned souls and torturous devils both who alternate suffering upon the rack and potentially being the ones to turn the rack’s wheels for whoever is tied down upon it that night. Mayhaps Astarion wants to remember more of the things he’s forgotten in the darkness of all the years he’s suffered under Cazador—to make new memories of things he would associate with living, with being free. To fill in the hollowed out abstract memories with fresh, new details of life lived in the sun, in the here and now. Is he aware of just how much he’s forgotten? Even if he isn’t fully cognizant of the full tally of all that he’s potentially lost...it must still hurt to have an idea of how much he’s lost even if he’s only partially aware. In this, he might hold more comparison to Justine from Amnesia’s DLC moreso than Daniel, depending on what choices Astarion makes if he’s the chosen origin, or on the MC’s choices if it’s a custom origin playthrough—with Justine, her choices are all setup and intended to be an exploration of who she is as an exploration of character, to find out if she is capable of mercy and compassion still—while exercising a great deal of monstrous cruelty for her own amusement. With Daniel there is still the solid comparison of thematic elements in that his quest is a desperate pursuit of revenge while trying to outrun a great evil, all while acknowledging that he himself is horrifying as well. Justine’s story would parallel Astarion far more so on the dark path through Baldur’s Gate 3, naturally, whereas Daniel, if one selected the Revenge Ending at the end of Amnesia, has more in common with Astarion’s tentatively projected good route—revenge, while also ending a greater evil than himself. The parallel with Daniel may possibly even include a comparison to Amnesia’s Good Ending depending on what direction Larian takes Astarion’s story in. I doubt Larian would have Astarion become self-sacrificial, but I could see him potentially becoming much more inclined towards helping his friends and party members on a good-aligned path, as he seems at least not entirely unwilling to engage in do-goodery, particularly if bribed enough. There’s also certainly the idea of comparing Daniel being “tainted” as Alexander put it by the Shadow to Astarion’s potential point of view on his vampirism, given some of his expressions at times in emotional scenes relating to it. Then also the comparison of all the horrors Daniel has inflicted upon people, as have Justine and Astarion, and the fact that after the amnestic-influence of their specific story elements in this build, they are ultimately all able to be influenced towards better or worse endings dependent upon more immediate influences, namely the people surrounding them, and less so from long-standing influences of their past such as tradition, upbringing, and other core elements of identity that memory so often brings to the table, or at least helps formulate the detailing of. Justine admittedly does not really have “better” endings, but her horror story’s core could be interpreted as “was truly a monster at heart all along” from start to finish. Will Astarion prove to be similarly corrupt at his core, something that had always been true deep down regardless of Cazador’s influence on him, ultimately sowing harm and ruin upon the world and people around him, like Justine? Or will he turn out to be leaning towards being more of a good-inclined, flawed character with a bloodstained history he regrets and seeks to overcome, like Daniel? As a disclaimer though, Daniel is not a Good-aligned personality. He did many horrifying things to preserve his life, and Astarion certainly has done terrible things canonically under Cazador’s direction, though we still wait to see what Astarion did back when he was free to choose. With the attention to detail Larian Studios is applying as is to just what we’ve seen in Early Access, I would expect a fairly nuanced backstory for Astarion with murky morality, based on what we see of his opinions and character traits now. Another idea just to let loose an additional fox among the chickens: Consider the added layer of potential morality conflict in the scenario where Astarion might actually have very well been pursuing his idea of justice as a magistrate— coupled with his low opinions of others which he may have had before Cazador turned him, along with his racist/discriminatory comments and behaviors (re: Gur, Goblins, Gnomes, Kobolds, etc), likely suggests he could very well have been very biased in his perspective on how he meted out justice. I would not be surprised if Larian Studios kept the story idea that he was selling criminals off, but I also would not be at all shocked if they added details where it made what Astarion was dishing out closer to overly-harsh street-justice—he makes a fine murder-hobo adventurer as it is when the watchword of the day for many an adventuring party is “Murder Is An Acceptable Solution If Words Aren’t Working.” I also wouldn’t bat an eye should we find out he was as judgmental and cynical before Cazador as he is now, albeit perhaps with a different bend to his outlook from life experience influences. This all really ties in well with the usual game build of everyone starting at level one, as brand new, green adventurers—barring past adventuring experiences for backstory like Wyll, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart do or potentially have—at the start of their journey, off to explore the world and grow into the world-savers (or world-enders) they’re destined to be in a given campaign. Astarion fits this very well on many levels, among them given the fact how new everything is to him with this sudden change of the rules altering the very fabric of his existence. He has to deal with figuring out how to deal with his vampirism under his own agency and all the ensuing complications that come with that, has to figure out how to socially interact with others in all new ways, has to level up to go on his personal quest to save his own hide and eventually his friends’ and the world—it’s all so new and different, even the things he’s experienced before with such a drastic perspective shift and a change in power. It ties right back into his tagline so nicely too if that ends up being a possible theme of his, the whole memory-loss/memory-informing-his-identity element of being an elf: “ Astarion prowled the night as a vampire spawn for centuries, serving a sadistic master until he was snatched away. Now he can walk in the light, but can he leave his wicked past behind?” Can he leave those memories behind and forge himself into a better version of himself, if that is what he wants? What choices will Astarion make, if he does indeed have warped memories due to Cazador’s corroding influence to the point of some degree of memory loss? How will this flood of new sensory and social experiences change him as he goes forward? Who will Astarion choose to be, at the end of the day when they reach the road’s end? Will he let those dark memories twist and shape him, or will he try to make new ones among new friends, and follow their lead back into the sunlight? So many potential questions! Speaking of potential good-versus-bad-paths, this line isn’t in the game yet, but I feel it suggests Astarion might have a certain tolerance or perhaps even willingness to at least consider going out and saving the world, beyond lines we’re all familiar with already at the Tiefling celebration party: “Don’t you think we have other priorities right now? We need to save ourselves before we can save the world.” [Link here from Pjenn’s datamined post, dialogue theoretically occurs after a currently locked-off from Early Access encounter with a drow servant of the Absolute in the Underdark] It makes for a lot of intriguing possibilities, I dare say, all of which could make for marvelous variations in core character trait builds and influences for different interpretations of Astarion as a character. So many choices and gradients to play with, he and all the rest of the main cast have such nuance, it’s fantastic. The cast of characters all so far seem to have a wide variety of wants and motivations, and Larian seems like they might be quite determined to blur the line and inspire more rich exploration opportunities regarding perceived morality among many other potential topics of discussion—we have good characters with on-going flaws and darker motivations, evil characters with recurrent virtues and sympathetic appeal, and quite a few in-between when non-party-member NPCs are included in the mix. I do think Astarion along with all the rest of the party fit into those kinds of complicated-morality situations we’ve seen play out and be hinted at so very nicely, and it will be such fun to see how they grow through these experiences! It’s marvelous writing, directing, animation, acting, and just straight up work all across the board it looks like from over here. Anyway, thank you all for coming along on this literary ramble with me, I hope you had a fine time and that you all have a lovely day or night as befits your current timezone. Happy tidings to you, and stay safe everyone, and see you next time! :D

[squidcalamarium]

An open letter to three people

I would write this (and post it) on some other social media platform, or even write it out in a google doc, but that all feels either more vulnerable or impersonal than I want this to be. I understand that posting about my Feelings on tumblr isnt really all that private, but here all I am is what I say I am, and that matters more than anything really.

Anyway

This is going to be really long.

Five years ago, when I was 15, I identified as agender and pansexual. I was struggling a lot with feelings of "greyness" accompanied by intense bursts of anxiety, and both would make me cry. I cried a lot. I cried a lot for years. I still cry fairly easily but thats beside the point because I dont cry As Much, now. I dont cry as much as I used to, and it's not as painful as it used to be, because I have you three.

I was 14 and scared of myself when I met my first real best friend, at a mutual friends birthday party. I used to struggle with accepting a lot of things about myself, before I met her. Before I met you, I was disgusted by the way I looked. Not because I thought I was fat, though I struggled with that some, no, the main reason was my skin. I was raised believing the darkness in my skin was something to be ashamed of. Not ever directly, my grandmother would never ever tell me, her perfect granddaughter, that her skin tone was shameful. But it was in everything around me, from the age of 8 to 12, that taught me that being Half of something that's supposed to be Opposite of another, is wrong. The distinction between Right White and Black as Sin.

You helped me see past that. You helped me be able to look back at pictures of myself from when I was in elementary, middleschool, yesterday, and not have to look away. I was a really cute kid, looking back. I dont have to fight myself when my mom posts pictures of me from years ago on Facebook anymore. I know I'm not ugly. I know I never was. Now.

It struck me when I was 14, a year after getting to know you, that I didnt think my skin was ugly anymore. That I could like features about myself again. I cried when I realized that. I started to explore myself in other ways, after that, because I could finally look past how I Looked into what I Am.

I tried out genderfluid for a while, scared to admit I wasn't a Girl. At 15 I tried out agender, and like I said above, that was probably a product of my hormonally increased depression. It was also because I was scared to admit I Was A Boy. It's easier to say I'm nothing than it is to say I'm something.

It's hard, learning to accept one aspect of yourself only to struggle immediately after with another.

I dont remember much about this stretch of time in my life, and my timeline is incredibly blurry. I remember when I first met my two best friends, but I dont remember when I first met my girlfriend. Probably because we just weren't very close at the time. It was middleschool, after all. We met through a mutual friend and never really got to spend any time together until highschool. Anyway, back on topic. I think I was about to talk about how I learned to Love again.

For a Very long time, I was scared to even say the words "I love you" out loud and in a coherent manner to another human being. Saying "I love you" felt like a weakness, something vulnerable that once said, would be used against me. It had been, before, but not by you. Which you? All three of you.

Love, too me, used to be something sacred and delicate that could be ruined if I said it to freely. To say it would be to give someone the opportunity to hurt me, and no matter how many times someone said they loved me, I couldnt say it back. I was like this for so long, and it hurt so much.

Love, too me now, is still something incredibly special, but also something that should be said freely. Love is a feeling best felt shared. Love isnt just Romantic, and it never has been. I love flowers in fall, I love the feeling of summer rain, I love the color pink, I love the Concept of goblins, I love my hair, I love my girlfriend, I love my best friends. I love being able to say "I love you" without feeling like I'm pulling rocks out of my lungs. I love being able to say "I love you" without feeling the blood grow heavy in my skin and fear suplex my heart.

I love knowing I'm loved just as much as I love them.

I love knowing no one is going to fight over who I love more. Knowing I love you all differently and just as passionately. Knowing I dont have to be scared of being abandoned.

When I learned how to love without being scared, and how to trust in others, I was able to accept more about myself. I was around 17 when I accepted the fact that I'm a man. I'm not a girl, I'm not nothing, I am genuine to myself. I struggled a lot with accepting that. I was scared of myself.

Before I came to that conclusion, and went a little bit wild, I met my other best friend. He helped me find peace in myself.

I was not in the best place, when I was 16. I almost did a lot of things when I was 16. I dont think I tried to kill myself, but I also dont remember a lot of my teen years. He would know better, the kind of place I was in at the time. He helped me get through it.

Sometimes, when you catch yourself in a rut and cant seem to find a way out and just end up digging yourself down deeper, you need someone to call you an idiot. You need someone to go "maybe instead of resigning yourself to pacing back and forth forever, you could try and climb. You could try and dig into the walls and climb. Just stop trying to pretend it's okay, and ask for help."

I decided from then on out that I was going to treat myself better. That I wouldnt seek out self deprecation, and I wouldnt dwell on things that made me feel bad. It was hard, and it Still Is, but I'm better now. I'm better than I was. I still have the screenshots of the texts he sent me. They're on a blog I used to Write my Woes onto, but now its just an archive.

I am no longer my Own Worst Enemy.

When I first got with my girlfriend, I was kind of in the middle of losing my mind, and I ended up breaking up with her. Awful decision, really, but it needed to happen. I needed to grow as a person, into someone who deserved her even a Little Bit.

I still dont think I'm good enough for her, not by a long shot, shes a better person than I'll ever be. But she loves me anyway. Shes seen me when I looked my worst, when my brain was at its worst, and she still loves me. I dont think ill ever measure up to be what I think she deserves, but I try.

She motivates me, more than anything, to keep trying. To keep going. I almost didnt make it past 19, despite everything I still almost gave in, I almost gave up. I refuse to hurt her like that though. I can't hurt any of you like that.

I cant give up now, not when I have a future to look forward to, and that above all else is what she gives me. Its what you give me. A future to look forward too, to want to earn, to achieve.

I have never really had any solid idea of what I wanted out of life as I gotolder. Usually I'd go for more vague things, like "I want to be an artist and make money from my crafts" and "I want to be a therapist for tweens and young teens, to help them understand themselves." But besides that, I had nothing. What kind of life would I lead, outside of these Career Paths?

Now, I know I just want to be yours. For as long as you'll have me.

I'm 20 now. I am a man, and I don't really want to bother much with a label for my sexuality besides saying I'm queer. I have two best friends, one like a sister another like a muse, and my girlfriend. I have a cat named chelly and a dog named princess.

My life isnt where I want it to be, but I'm a better person now than I was before.

I'm better at Being a person than I ever have been.

Because everything I am now I had the potential to become, and everything I will be I have to potential to become.

There are a finite amount of resources in me, and the more I learn the better I am at using them.

I still get upset just as easily now as I did before, I can still spiral just as badly. I can still cry just as quickly. It's just that now, I know what to do to calm down a little quicker. Now, I'm nicer to myself. Now, I know how to redirect my emotions and my thoughts.

I'm still everything that I was before, just with more experience. The same parts, just rearranged more effectively than before. I'm as quick to comfort myself as I am to comfort others.

And it's all thanks to them. It's all thanks to you.

Thanks you.

I love you

[kingoftheravensarchive]

1, 4, 12, 14, 22

      INTERVIEW THE WRITER // accepting !

what color do you associate with your muse?

It’s a toss up between green and blue, but generally green.

do you have any advice for other writers?

I’m not multitalented like a lot of people (I can draw a little, I can train doggos, I can paint, I am passably okay at video games) so writing is the only thing I have that I know I’m good at and actually enjoy doing. Some people are very easily dismayed by their talents (or, as they see it, a lack thereof), and myself being someone who hates failure of any kind, I get that. If you’re having doubts about your writing, I can tell you that, for one, you’re really not as bad as you think you are. We all write differently, we have our own Voices, our own styles, and looking at other people’s writings, ofc you’re going to be dismayed. But you have your own style and Voice, too! It’s just like everyone has a different method to completing a task; that doesn’t mean your method is worse! Maybe you need to tweak something, sure, but don’t we all? Rather than letting it beat you down (which I totally understand is NOT easy and I would never expect someone to be able to flick that “switch” with ease), take it as a learning experience! Or inspiration to try something new (without plagiarizing or being a prick obvi)!

For two, I always tell people to read a lot (if you can/are able to). Reading has been the primary thing that has gotten me where I am today (that and consistently writing for years on end) and I’m still nowhere near AMAZING, WONDERFUL. But then you’re exposed to other styles of writing than what’s on here. Because tumblr’s RPC is ripe with people who generally (not everyone ofc) follow an invisible, strict code on how to write. It feels fake and choppy and Not Right. Like the same over saturated filter everyone pastes onto their photos.

JUST DO YOUR THING. WRITE HOW YOU WANNA WRITE. Don’t feel compelled to do something a specific way JUST because the RPC is doing it (do you know how long it took me to actually transfer to using icons??? Or small text? lmfao a long time). Obvi staying “relevant” is a portion of the reason people make promos (I have ‘em too), but who you are as a person, how you write, how you portray your character, etc is what gets to them to STAY. Is what makes them build a relationship with you. I have so many long time RP friends because of this and we’re all open and accepting and loyal to each other and it’s awesome! Everyone should have that!!!! SO YEAH SORRY THIS WAS LONG.

favorite book?

Oh boy. I read a lot and, because of this, I have a ton of books I really adore. Most of Zadie Smith’s works are in my top five. “Alias Grace” by Margaret Atwood is another favorite. “The Devourers” by Indra Das is brutal and detailed, but it’s sooooo good. “The Luminaries” by Eleanor Catton has left an impression on me, so that means it’s good. Also have always adored Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked”. Oh, and, forever and always: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (I was a history major in college and Vlad the Impaler was my one true love).

ghosts or monsters?

I joke around a lot that I am a ghost, but I’m actually kind of fucking terrified of them, so I’ll go with monsters.

mcdonald’s or burger king?

I used to be adamantly opposed to McDonald’s for years and years and years, but my workplace is right across the street from one so I’ve learned to like them again. I love BK, too, though, they’re just more out of the way. Were the two right by work, I’d probably frequent BK more tbh. Now, my one true love is Arby’s.

[madestrcng]

tagged by: @dcputyrook​ tagging: whomest ever

BASICS:

Name: Bee ;w; Age: 22 Pronouns: they / them Sexuality: Gay Zodiac sign: Capricorn  Taken or single: single pringle Four Things About This Blog: ✘ I originally made it to be a John Seed blog while I was still playing through the game, but after considering and playing more of it, I decided on Staci instead.  ✘ Partly why I decided on Staci was because he was similar to a muse I use to play that I missed, and mostly because I found @badwclv​‘s blog in the tags while I was on my personal and I just ???? wanted to have a reason to write with them and I hadn’t seen any blogs for Staci when I looked. So I was the first to write him on here. ✘ uuuuuuh, a lot of Staci’s backstory is based on previous characters I played from other fandoms that I thought were similar, my own personal experience (see below), and some fanfics I had read about him. His secondary verse (cult verse) is heavily influenced by a fanfic actually. Embarrassing to admit haha I just found the story concept and Staci’s development interesting and I wanted to see where I could go with that. ✘ I write Staci as being Native American and had grown up on the Rez. Mostly because I myself am Native American and grew up and lived on an Indian reservation all my life before moving for College. I decided to do this partly because of how Staci looked (nonwhite, dark hair, etc), and also based on the general area of where this might all take place. Montana is home to a lot of different Indigenous tribes, like The Cheyenne, Crow Nation, Bitterroot Salish, Blackfoot, just to name a few. I decided on Blackfoot because their reservation is North of where Hope County is supposed to be set. Idk if that is really that interesting but I just ??? wanted to do it, because not a lot is known about Staci before EG, and I found it as a way to build his character and connect to him more personality. Like, if he and I shared experiences even if they were mundane and small, it would make writing him more real to me?? Idk f that makes sense, but point is that bc of this I created like 5 other FC5 OCs or Other Characters (Wheaty) on my multi who are also Indigenous and I get to thrive??? writing native characters??? Thanks I suck lmao

Three Mun Facts: ✘ I will go the fuck off about character theories or headcanons for the most minor characters ever. I only really do it on discord because I fear being annoying and spamming but, I got some deep ass metas in my head. ✘ I wanted to be a filmmaker since I was 4 years old, and I made some short films in middle school and high school. So when I graduated I moved across the country a month later and went to film school. I graduated with a degree in film & cinematography, and every time I watch Inside Eden’s Gate or any of the shorts made for Far Cry, I cry because I wanna make some shit like that. Super wild. ✘ I can play bass guitar and use to be able to play piano like a mf but I stopped and now I’m really rusty. Anyway, hire me to be your bassist in your punk band ;3c

EXPERIENCE:

How’d you start: I rped Naruto over texting with my best friend in Middle School. Platforms you’ve used:  I pretty much jumped right into tumblr after that, never did the forums or anything. I think for awhile we used skype :0 but I only really rped over skype, email, facebook, and texting on and off for awhile with her. But I found uuuuuh, a Durarara!! rp group randomly like two years later and was like oh???  Anyway, so I’ve used skype, email, tumblr, aim??, facebook, and I now RP on Discord a lot more. Best experience: honestly hard to say, I think when I just met people I really hit it off with and we just meshed well is always the best. But if I have to be specific uuuuh, I once joined an RP group about Gods or something, and I eventually got my best friends to join which is what got them into Rping. Also through it I met another girl who became like, my best friend online for YEARS after that, from age like, 13 to age 20?? And also bc I was a big gay, I fell in love with her which uuh, didn’t end well but point is that, the best part is just making friends who you love and adore who stick with you even after the group or fandom you were in together dies.  Worst experience:  fuck ok honestly, I had someone who would hound me to ship all the time, and would follow me every time I moved blogs. They would constantly hound me to write smut with them (even tho I was underage) and if I said no they would just be like oh well too bad and would start writing their character doing some shit with mine and get really fucking mean to me if I didn’t reply. Also would constantly bug me to reply to them and guilt trip me, even if I wasn’t home to reply or if I was at school, they would get really mean and vicious about it. And would post horrible shit about me on the dash and stuff when I wasn’t home to reply to our threads.

And they would constantly like, play if off like I was the bad guy and the abusive one and was overall just really toxic and super mean to me and my friends? Pushed away my other shipping partners, forced me to tell my best friend I cant ship with her anymore or else??? And we were all like, 14 or 15 at the time when we met them, and they were like, 36 and had a kid and was married. I didn’t get away from them until I was like, 18 :))) and they had made so many people dislike me and shit because of the dumbass stuff they said about me, so I had to leave tumblr for awhile. Anyway when I came back like, months later a bunch of people had come out of the woodwork who I don’t even remember to apologize to me and be like wow some shit went down and this person showed their true colors and everyone kinda realized they were toxic and a liar bc I guess they tried to do it to some other people. It was wild.

MUSE PREFERENCES:

Original or canon: Canon usually Favourite face: oh geez uuuh, i guess Rami Malek since I’ve used him A LOT, or Erin Richards. Least favorite face: idk man, I guess people who use FCs who are dead irl makes me uncomfy. It just feels weird to me :/ Or people who use White FCs for nonwhite characters, sometimes its up to interpretation though like a video game character or something. But when it’s super obvious a poc and they use a white fc it’s super weird for me. Multi or single: both, but I have trouble maintaining a multi.

WRITING PREFERENCES:

Plots or memes: plot usually, sometimes I don’t know what to do with memes or I don’t know what the other writer is comfortable with. I like to hash things out and make a game plan so I don’t screw something up. Best time to write:  I usually write at night, but sometimes I crank out replies during the day if I have time or if the muses suddenly strikes. Do you like your muse(s):   I love all my muses so much it hurts wowie How long (months/years?): uuuuuh, started in 6th grade so uuuuh, 11 or so years now?? Something like that, I feel like my writing peeked in high school but then again, if I look back at it, it was probably all cringy and dark bc I was a little edgelord.

[tribblsrp]

Name: Draco! (Marta)

Pronouns: She/her

Selectivity:  Not much, I guess? Unless a mun makes me uncomfortable or I’m super uninspired for a certain thread or interaction, I’m pretty open to roleplaying with everyone.

Favorite animal: When I was a kid it was the ocelot, but nowadays my answer is much less fancy. Dogs. Puppies. Good boys.

Favorite muse you’ve had so far ever: Fushimi Saruhiko. He’s a fairly complex character who has an interesting balance of insecurities caused by past traumas and terrible life choices that still can’t be completely justified by them.

Muse you kinda wanna pick up: The long list or the short one...? I’d love to add more KH muses once I’ll replay the games, namely Saïx, Xigbar, Roxas, Naminé and Xion. I guess what’s holding me back the most is mainly that I’m kinda missing years of headcanons since I’m fairly new to the fandom. There’s Ardyn, too... and I’m also rooting for Markus, Kara and Connor from DBH.

Most identifiable fictional character: Rokudo Mukuro. It’s been years since that, but back in my day he used to be my favorite muse to write and I would pick him up in as many rp forums as I could. I was even nicknamed after him and even my irl friends back then had a running gag with me and pineapples.

What color your aura is/think it is: No idea, but I’d go with light blue.

Personality stuff you agree with (astrology, mbti, Hogwarts house, etc be as specific as you want!):  All of the mentioned, actually. I’m a libra (leo rising), INFP and Ravenclaw.

Do you think you’re a good driver:  I don’t know, but my reflexes suck so I’ll just stick to public transport.

Favorite minor discourse (pinapple on pizza, what color is the dress, etc):  Pineapple on pizza. I love, most of my friends hate it.

Favorite vine and/or meme: I’m a huge fan of alignment charts, text post memes and incorrect quotes, if that counts.

Why did you choose this muse: I’ll just answer this the other way around. I made this blog mainly for my video game muses, because writing fics about them is too much work.

Favorite rp memory: My girlfriend is not much of a roleplayer, but I had the chance to roleplay angsty 14-chapter ignoct with her months ago. It was my first time writing Ignis, and also I hadn’t yet played ep. Ignis (while she had). Some time later I played it when she was staying at my home and I was sUFFERING SO MUCH BECAUSE (spoiler) i was like focusing A LOT on Ignis’ hopes of having Noct back at least but he knew about Noctis’ fate all alongnhajgfdse

Favorite thing you’ve written, in rp or not: I DO HAVE A FAVORITE THING, and it’s this FFXV post-game fic. Not only I really enjoyed writing it, but also I made at least four people literally cry including myself. An achieved life goal, honestly.

A line/lyrics/quote/etc you like or that means a lot to you: “Different universe, but somehow the same people had a way to find each other”

Give a shout-out to someone: I always suck at these, but:

@inchvins: VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV me alegra mucho que volvieras ;; cuando me hice el blog nuevo apenas seguí a gente del anterior, y la mayoría se había cambiado de urls y eso así que era todo un desastre y no sabía quién era ni dónde estaba nadie, pero no te veía por el dash y DDDD: y luego vi que el otro blog también estaba inactivo, así que fue hello darkness my old friend. pERO AHORA ESTÁS AQUÍ y tenemos que rolear mucho de nuevo 👀 aunque apenas tengo aún OCs nuevos porque casi no he tenido inspiración para esos, pero como pLOTEAR CONTIGO ES TAN FÁCIL Y BONITO seguro que en ná estamos en ello (?)

@lordofblacksand: One of the things that I like the most about tumblr rp community is the great variety of characters one can find here, especially since I’m a huge fan of crossovers myself, so when you first followed me I was losing my mind over seeing someone roleplay Mozenrath. It’s great to read you and write with you, really.

@hollowrage​: Can’t say I’ve roleplayed a lot within the KH fandom, so it’s not like I’ve seen many different Saïx muns but he’s a character I love and I really, really like your portrayal of him. I tend to feel like I get too carried away in our threads but tbh they’re playing a huge part on how fond I’m becoming of Axel.

@royalbestie​: yOUR PROMPTO IS THE CUTEST??? He’s a huge dork, I love your portrayal of him and I’m really looking forward to roleplaying more with you. Also, you seem like a really nice person, I simply enjoy seeing you in my dash.

@crowncoded​ Even though I write lots of muses myself, I kind of admire how you can pull off different muses and do a great job portraying all of them and capturing their essence, it’s just nice to read you. Also you and your fiance are really cute.

Tagging: Everyone up there except for Allen bc they were the one to tag me.

[flamingmirrorbookish]

Tag game: 100 Questions

Thanks for tagging me @i-breathe-therefore-i-read

1. What is your nickname? Flamingmirror

2. How old are you? Younger than I'll be in a month

3. What is your birth month? July

4. What is your zodiac sign? pizza

5. What is your favorite color? purple

6. What’s your lucky number? 17

7. Do you have any pets? Frog the cat

8. Where are you from? Estonia

9. How tall are you? 160cm

10. What shoe size are you? I think US 8

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Not enough

12. Are you random? ?

13. Last person you texted? My mother

14. Are you psychic in any way? Heh... I thought so once but no

15. Last TV show watched? Brooklyn Nine-Nine

16. Favourite movie? The Holiday, While you were sleeping, The Gods must be crazy 1 and 2, The emperor’s new groove, Men in black 2

17. Favourite show from your childhood? You won't know them. They're from here

18. Do you want children? no

19. Do you want a church wedding? No

20. What is your religion? none

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? I worked there so... I get it, I get it. As a patient, less than 10 times (everything is in the hospital so I go there regularly but I assume this means staying there)

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? No

23. How is life? @!#

24. Baths or showers? Showers

25. What color socks are you wearing? pink

26. Have you ever been famous? No

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? No

28. What type of music do you like?

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? .........yes

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? 2

31. What position do you usually sleep in? Lying down?

32. How big is your house? Not big enough to get 3 more cats

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Ding! Was that the microwave 34. Have you ever left the country?Long term? no

35. Have you ever tried archery? No

36. Do you like anyone? doubtful

37. Favourite swear word(s)? MF

38. When do you fall asleep? Around 11

39. Do you have any scars? Yes

40. Sexual orientation? something

41. Are you a good liar? I don't like to lie

42. What languages would you like to learn? Spanish

43. Top 10 songs?

Goldfrapp – Ooh la la

The Cranberries – Zombie

Marc Anthony – You sang to me

Earth Song - Michael Jackson

Rod Stewart – Sailing

Supermassive black hole - Muse

Kiss from a rose - Seal

Rain - Madonna

Wonderful tonight - Eric Clapton

Linkin Park - Waiting for the end

44. Do you like your country? I have this thing where on one hand, I think it's a hellhole but on the other, am very patriotic

45. Do you have friends from the web? I hope so?

46. What is your personality type? INFJ

47. Hogwarts House? Hufflepuff

48. Can you curl your tongue? no

49. Pick one fictional character you can relate to? I'm copying Jenn and saying Cath from Fangirl

50. Left or right handed? Right

51. Are you scared of spiders? No, yes, maybe

52. Favourite food? Pizza, fries, risotto, food?

53. Favorite foreign food? Pizza isn't foreign enough?

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Clean-ish

55. If you could switch your gender for a day, what would you do? Just walk around the city. And never for a moment fear for my safety

56. What color underwear? white

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? Depends on where I'm going. Could be 10 minutes or an hour (weddings and stuff)

58. Do you have much of an ego? yes

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? both

60. Do you talk to yourself? It happens

61. Do you sing to yourself? All the time. I don't even notice it

62. Are you a good singer? Good enough

63. Biggest Fears? Losing a loved one, snakes, suffocating

64. Are you a gossip? yeah

65. Are you a grammar nazi? I'm not a nazi but I'm a grammar nerd

66. Do you have long or short hair? It's short right now. Not for long. My hair grows very quickly

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? no

68. Favorite school subject? cultural history

69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? No

71. What makes you nervous? Everything

72. Are you scared of the dark? More yes than no

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Depends who and what mistake

74. Are you ticklish? yeeeees

75. Have you ever started a rumor? No

76. Have you ever been out of your home country? Yes

77. Have you ever drank underage? Yes. My worst drinking days were when I was 16-18 (heavy depression+bad company)

78. Have you ever done drugs? no

79. What do you fantasize about? A different life

80. How many piercings do you have? Ears count? Then 2

81. Can you roll your R’s? idk

82. How fast can you type? With my broken computer and an on-screen keyboard – painfully slowly. Normally still slowly but with much less swearing

83. How fast can you run? Sports... blech

84. What color is your hair? reddish brown. More red

85. What color are your eyes? gray

86. What are you allergic to? Idiots. And onions

87. Do you keep a journal? kinda

88. Are you depressed about anything? always

89. Do you like your age? Doesn't bother me

90. What makes you angry? People, when things don't work like they should (technology)

91. Do you like your own name? It's fine

92. Did you ever get a foreign object up your nose? Excuse?

93. Do you want a boy or a girl for a child? I think I already said that I don't want kids

94. What talents do you have? Breaking things, overreacting

95. Sun or moon? Moon

96. How did you get your name? My grandpa heard the name on the radio, liked it, and named me before my mother could&something she didn't even like („oh, how I cried when I found out“ she says)

97. Are you religious? No

98. Have you ever been to a therapist? No

99. Color of your bedspread? White and green

100. Tumblr Bestie? @maddie-mux , @i-breathe-therefore-i-read , @bibliophilecats

tagging: @lilymaidofgallifrey , and the people I just mentioned (minus Jenn who tagged me)

[ravenclawravings]

Tag Game

Hi all! Recently we have been tagged in a bunch of those tag games. So instead of clogging your newsfeed we decided to combine a bunch into one post.

Here are some of you who tagged us! (I tried to find you all but, we get a lot of notifications and Tumblr makes it very hard to sort through them)

Tagged by: @headcanonsandmore 

@fuckitup-in-style,

@acciohermionejg

@iamskylorsaurus

@unusuallyzealousburgette

Gender: Both of us are girls.

Birthday: Zoe: March 28th. Alex: March 11th

Last movie seen: Zoe: Dunkirk Alex: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

What do you post/reblog: Zoe: A bunch of random crap. Alex: On this blog we post #relatable content. On my personal I just shitpost

Last thing you Googled: Zoe: “List of apex predators” Alex: “how do radiators know when to turn on”

Favorite blog: Zoe: No idea. Alex: @myendlessparade has some dank content ;)

Dream job: Zoe: Writer/ youtuber but I’m bad at both Alex: YouTuber or a paid/professional internet content creator

Dream trip: Zoe: I don’t know, I haven’t been to Japan before, I guess Alex: I really want to go to Germany but, I’d love to go anywhere in Europe. Or anywhere outside the US. Or anywhere really.

What would be your first entry in a new diary: Zoe: I don’t diary Alex: Probably something really random, a random thought perhaps. All of my past journals are filled with weird shit like “Tap Dancing Cat Play” with zero context

Top 3 things you love about yourself: Zoe: Why is this so hard? Can I say things I love about Alex instead? 1) She’s smart and funny and a great person to be around. 2) She’s creative and works so hard on the things she’s passionate about. 3) She’s supportive and understanding and all around a great friend. Alex: d’awwwww <3 turning the tables now - here are three reasons I love Zoe: 1. She’s a very accepting, patient and understanding friend. 2. She’s full of good ideas and the reason we started this blog. Also partly convinced me to pursue YouTube seriously (speaking of we need to do something about the gaming channel) 3. She has a very dark and dry humor, we can talk and laugh for hours

3 things you wish you knew how to do: Zoe: 1) Drive stick, 2) speak a different language (I’ve tried, I’m really bad at it), 3) manage my finances Alex: 1. Make gifs, 2. play an instrument, 3. drive??!?

Something you wish you had discovered/invented first: Zoe: I honestly don’t know. Alex: I asked Jake what to say and he said “submarines.” So I guess submarines

3 qualities you like in a person: Zoe: 1) their sense of humor, 2) intelligence, 3) creativity Alex: 1. taste in media, 2. humor, 3. uniqueness

3 qualities you dislike in a person: Zoe: 1) Cockiness, 2) overly defensive, 3) when someone talks over someone else and especially when they don’t stop and listen when the first person tries to keep talking Alex: 1. Selfishness, 2. carelessness, 3. when they walk slowly in front of me

Favorite planet: Zoe: I guess technically Earth because I live here, but viva la Pluto! Alex: Mars! Mars has such a vast history for such a barren planet.

A resolution you make every year: Zoe: I don’t make resolutions. Alex: I don’t really make resolutions but, I try to be less hard on myself each year

Something you’re better at than most people: Zoe: Um... writing? Alex: Video editing

Something you’re worse at than most people: Zoe: Talking to other people. Alex: Making friends

Favorite thing about tumblr: Zoe: Memes? Alex: MEMES and cute animal pictures

Least favourite thing about tumblr: Zoe: The entire way that this site is set up is like someone threw darts at a board and went “so this goes here, and uh, I guess that’s how we do this...” Alex: Dear god, this website is designed poorly for blog runners! There is no clear way to sort notifications, you either get them all or none at all. Also there have been times when a queued post just doesn’t post or tags just delete themselves while you’re typing them.

Weapon of choice: Zoe: Knives or a bow and arrow (I’m actually quite good at archery) Alex: Uh, none...

Something not many people know about you:  Zoe: I was going to be in a production with my dad trying to break the world record of most roller coasters ridden in a day, but the plans everything fell through about midway through, so it never happened. Alex: In middle school I used wear one ankle sock and one knee high because...fashion...?

Favorite means of transport: Zoe: I like driving, but if I’m going into the city, I’m taking the train. Alex: God, I hate all means of transportation. It’s all bad. Let’s just learn how to teleport already

Favorite story: Zoe: Harry Potter Alex: A New Hope

Chicken or egg: Zoe: Dinosaur Alex: I was going to say chicken but, Zoe’s answer is the really the best one

Something that always makes you laugh: Zoe: Cats. Alex: When Zelda yells around the apartment at her toys

What is the strangest thing about you: Zoe: You should see some of the texts I send Alex. Alex: just who I am as a person

You get to switch places with someone for a day, who is it and why: Zoe: Can I switch places with my cat? Alex: I’m stealing Zoe’s answer. Fuck yeah! I’d love to be Zelda for a day!

Name: Zoe Alex

Nicknames: Zoe: None Alex: Weasel

Height: Zoe: 5′7″ Alex: 5′3″

Orientation: Zoe: Hell if I know Alex: straight

Nationality: Zoe: I’m a US and UK citizen. Alex: ‘murican

Favorite Fruit: Zoe: Banana? Alex: Oranges

Favorite Season: Zoe: Fall Alex: Fall

Favorite Flower: Zoe: Roses Alex: Blue Roses! (only people from high school will get this joke and none them follow me....)

Favorite Scents: Zoe: Burning wood Alex: Most any candle

Favorite Color: Zoe: Purple Alex: Purple

Favorite Animals: Zoe: Cheetah, wolves, sea pancake Alex: Zelda!

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: Zoe: Depends on my mood Alex: All of the above, please

Average Sleep Hours: Zoe: 6 Alex: 8?

Dog or Cat Person: Zoe: Both Alex: Love both but, I really like cats

Favorite Fictional Characters: Zoe: Oh god, Aragorn, Harry Potter, Sirius Black, Gandalf, don’t make me choose, I could keep going. Alex: Han Solo, The Master, Mac, Michael Scott, Squidward (??), I don’t know man!

Number of Blankets You Sleep with: Zoe: Anywhere between 1 and 4 Alex: Normally one but, if it’s real cold, two or more

Blog Created: Zoe: This blog was created a little over a year ago, my personal blog was created something like nine years ago I think. Alex: Mine was made like 6 years ago?

Number of Followers: 48,100

Random fact: Zoe: When people are hanged, they die from lack of blood flow to the brain. Alex: Most female cats are right pawed

Star sign: Zoe: Aries Alex: Pisces

Hogwarts House: Take a guess

Why I made this account: Zoe: I made the account because I wanted something to do, and then I invited Alex to be a part of it with me. Alex: What she said ^

Reason for url: Alliteration is cool?

My favorite writer: Zoe: It changes all the time. Alex: Dr. Seuss

My favorite book: Zoe: Harry Potter? Alex: I have no clue?

My favorite movie: Zoe: Lord of the Rings Alex: Oh dear, I don’t know... Ed Wood (1994) ?

Time: Zoe: 15:46 Alex: 9:58pm

Favourite bands: Zoe: Queen, The Who, FOB, Muse, a lot. Alex: Fall Out Boy, Imagine Dragons, Panic! at the Disco

Favourite solo artists: Zoe: No clue Alex: Uh none? I don’t really listen to music besides the three bands listed and movie soundtracks

Song stuck in my head: Zoe: Right now, it’s “I’m Only Joking” by Kongos Alex: “Champion” by Fall Out Boy

Last show I watched: Zoe: NCIS Alex: I don’t really know. It’s between The Punisher, Black Mirror and Peep Show. I watch so many things I forget when I last watched it

Do I get asks: Zoe: Not really. Alex: We get asks here pretty often. I never get any personally - except spam

Lucky number: Zoe: 13 Alex: 3

Instruments: Zoe: I played the clarinet ages ago, and I sorta learned Violin for a little bit, but if you asked me to play any instrument now, I’d probably suck. Alex: I am not talented enough

What I am wearing: Zoe: Plaid and leggings. Alex: Grey and black sweater, leggings and draped in a blanket 

Favourite food: Zoe: I want pancakes right now, so let’s go with that? Alex: I’m so bad at picking favorite things! I just love food!

Last book I read: Zoe: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (it’s tradition for me to reread all the novels every year, and I was late last year, so I only just finished it in time) Alex: The Disaster Artist

3 favorite fandoms: Zoe: Oh, god... Harry Potter, LotR, and i guess certain youtubers? Alex: uh, that changes depending on how I’m feeling. Right now, probably, Star Wars, YouTube and something else?

[jooheonies]

nawar lover no.1 aka user shwhyuk uwu

bloodorangeki said: the lady formerly known as hyuccwoo, shreknu if u will,

send me a tumblr url and ill tell you what i think of them!

hhhhhh ok before i eben launch into this full love essay. i jst wanna say tht u truly are the light at the end of my tunnel sejung,,,,u make me so happy !!! Like i remember when i was losing my mind off of like three sips of pineapple cider and i legitimately felt like i was gonna throw up but then i was like … damn i can’t forget to text shannon and tell her about all this. and then i talked to u for a full hour or so while u called me a liddle babie nd i continuously whined…either way you truly have me under your spell you demon!!

okay so not to be. dramatic but youre so dreamy and pretty you remind me of rain and soft kisses on the cheeks and rose gardens and bouquets of flowers and soft sunlight on flower meadows and like! that feeling you get in your cheeks when you smile too much for too long and you get that permanent blush across your face! god that’s probabaly nonsense and not very cohesive but you have the same sort of colors…soft orange and light pink….you’re like a sunset on the beach right at the start of spring when theres barely anyone on the shore and the whole world feels really big and wide but even though youre all alone you don’t feel lonely because it still feels like the whole world(you) is poised right at the edge of your fingertips.

hhhh that also probably made very little sense but i dont care i love you so much and im very bad at expressing emotion (blame my virgo moon who hasn’t felt any feelings in over 18 years) but i still feel like always showering u in that sweet love and affection, despite the fact that im horrible with words and i have absolutely no consistency. I feel like it’s really rare to meet someone who literally changes your entire perception of the world but … damn here we are!! tlkaing to u is literally a part of my daily life its a part of who i am at this point :/

Anyways, friendships don’t really come naturally to me because I have a very weird perosnality where like. im simultaneously suffocating whilst also being very detached and it turns people off so quickly but..god we mesh so well i truly love you so much. i also tend to not write a lot whenever i make these posts bc im the kind of person who continously says how much i love you throughtout the convo (even thoguh ill ghost most ppl for a few days) so whenever i get around to writing these im like :// but what else do i say :// but this time!!! oooo i have so much to say i can never go into full loving hours with you bc you always turn things around and get me to start talking abotu myself and pretty soon we start talking about how i used to raise rocks as a kid instead of talking about how hot you are :/

so anyways firstly . those were just the intro pragaraphs im finally getting into my loving sejung essay :(( helloooo one of my favortie things about talking to you is how easily the conversation always flows ….us talking about shownus asshole and the questionable consumption of expired jello and orbeez at 3 am is most likely the more demonic things weve done while simultaenously being the more tame things…my head still aches when i remember that giagntic bruise i got from looking at that wonho+tentacles/changkyun+black hole sketch u made… god we somehow always go from topic to topic with absolutely no regard for cohesiveness and yet neither of us ever question it…we’ll spend hours discussing absolutely nothing …like that one night we stayed up for like three hours on rabbit talking about all the different mx stans and which member has the most stans internationally versus domestically and why….icons of developing complex sociocultural theories at 2am while occasionally mentioning “oh wow its late u should go to bed >:/” god its just that I always lose track of time whenever I talk to you…its like im so focused on that I Love Her mood that I don’t even realize its been 4 hours until I look down at my pile of unfinished homework and then back up at my laptop like. This was a Valid choice why would I pick ib math when I have a whole entire sejung talking to me. hhhh its just that talking to you comes so naturally and I always tell you all these quesiotnable things to which you always respond by first calling me a demon and then laughing about it and encouraging my stupidity. it’s also so so endearing that ill tell you about the dumb shit im doing and your first response is always to nag at me to be safe and take care of myself as if ill actually listen to you and clean a cut with alcohol, risking legitimate Pain… anyways sejung? queen of making me feel loved and noticed? MORE LIKELY THAN U THINK!!!!

hhhhh ok moving on now I get to talk about how. sexy u are damn….i remember back when we were first starting to talk and you sent me those pictures of yourself in that button up and I literally. I quite literally almost passed out in the starbucks while the barista was handing me my strawberry lemonade I truly almost lost it…nd right before that I was encouraging you to talk to the boba girl nd flirt nd be all spicie…but then u sent me those pics nd I was like for what reason would she have to impress boba girl when im right here … mouth open so wide in love that all the bobas are spilling out of my mouth :( not to be dramatic yet again when I know ive mentioned those selfies before but damn…those were so hot u unbuttoned like two or three of the top buttons and u looked so hot truly. raw me vore me behind each and every single boba store location hewwwooo u look so intense nd powerful im truly putty in ur hands not only would I lose my mind for u, I have already lost it

hhhhh im very much rambling and making very little sense rn bc its. 2:30 am and im sleebie nd I blocked all social media sites so id do homework bt I kept thiknning abt u so I was like hm the universe clearly wants me to write about sejung more even though ill have to post this in the morning bc tungle is blocked until then :// bt anaywas that also means I get to go into all the other thigns I love about u and all the things u remind me of :(( hhhh its so wild that I never actually aunch into full loving shannon mood bt I talk abt u so much w my friends theyre all. suspicious ,,,,

them: nawar u don’t actually like romance and u hate talking about people r u perhaps dating this girl??me, w hearts in my eyes laughing at smth ure saying on my phone: what

HHHH DJHFKSJDHF TAHST TRULY ME,,,,ALWAYS THIKNING ABT U,,,ALWAYS BEING BIG HEART EYES FR U,,,at any given moment I could be reminded of u :( I see a piece of paper nd im like huh I should do work then again is work necessary to live perhaps not but sejung is necessary to live,,,,me thinking abt u as I procrastinate every single thing ive ever had to do :D Like, ive never understood when people say that they hated a zodiac sign at one point, and then they met one person and they were like oh my god nevermind this sign is perfect but truly,,,I love geminis now ,,,I used to hate them almost as much as cancer nd now? geminis are all good ure so wonderful nd loving nd sweet u being a gemini saved geminis collectively,,

ill also neber stop talking abt how now matter how much I whine and demand attention, youre always jst,,,supplying it without any question like at one point people usually get annoyed, no matter how endeared they were by it at first, bt youre always calling me a baby (even though im older) nd giving me that sweet Love and Attention,,mmmmm my libra sun thrives under ur care :( hhhh also I feel it is important to point out I love. all of u,,,,like I don’t even usually care much for peoples voices or anything unless its like so deep it sounds like the grim reaper bc that’s wild u ,,bt anyways the first moment I heard ur voice I was. breathless I was so shocked like ur voice is so soothing nd warm its like. if the aesthetic of sunlight and honey and warm pies had a voice,,,hhhh im also not the type to really believe in things like fate nd destiny and soulmates and stuff bt that’s kind of what u remind me of ? in a? not weird way hhhhh so I feel like youre just so naturally in tune with people like nothing really catches you off guard and you roll with peoples different personalities and quirks and you always jst. mesh so well with everyone ure like the minhyuk of the internet,,,,nd like!! theres smth abt u that reminds me of balance and maybe its my libra sun always seeking peace and harmony in life but I always feel so relaxed nd steady whenever I talk to you its like . idk how to explain it!!! its jst so comforting!!!

I was originally gonna cut myself off at 1k but its too late for that now and im gonna put this under a read more anyways and its 3am now so I feel like. go Big or go Home!!! now im gonna launch into a long analysis of u! and ur smile!! first of all,,,its so rare nd wild to find someone who likes validating people more than being validated,,,,u finding my libra antics cute???hhhhh tahts so wild,,,,I could pout for hours nd u would call it cute,,,validating!!! nd the fact that you’ve read my writing,,,,excerpts from my demonic wips and youre stil friends with me?? you still talk to me?? damn that’s like. never to be expected any time I make someone read that tangerine fic they ghost me for a good month but I sent you pieces of that tentacle fic and YOU FUCKCING SKETCHED OUT THE LOOK,,,,,MY MUSE,,,nd also you tend to always steer the convo around to focus on the other person n dim a FOOL who almost falls for it every time,,,before I remember and make u tell me thigns…god ive told you so many obscure things from my childhood like that time I tried to eat a brick and yet you still,,,,talk to me,,,,who are u,,,,hhhh ure always so cute nd giving nd caring I feel like I could genuinely truly look like shit nd send u a selfie nd you would still be like WOW GORGEOEUS YOU LOOK SO GOOD THAT’S HOT!!! u,,,going out of ur way to make ppl happy :( anyways im a fool in love w u ,,,also not to be like. one of those old white boy text posts from tumblr but ,,,,hey girl,,,ladie,,,wamen,,,did u know? ur smile lights up my world? ,,,did u know? theres no such thing as u being anything less than perfect,,,why? because its impossible to be anything less than the essence of who you are. hhhh that’s the dumbest thing im ever written im cutting myself off that was too much this is like. 2k words so far and in all honesty I could continue but then id get gushier than that last line and nobody wants to see That,,,hhhh

this started out with. somewhat decent grammar like I used periods and I think I occasionally capitalized the first letter of the sentence but at this point its incoherent rambling it’s the inside of my brain every time I see u or hear frm u its like when spongebobs brain was on fire and all the cabinets and computers were going up in flames and all the little brain spongebobs were losing their mind that’s me right now losing my mind over you I wrote exactly 2k words in that whole essay,,,,im so fucking valid,,,,ananywas I love you if you couldn’t tell nd iim . somewhat satisfied at being able to vent all this love,,,smoochie,,smoochh,,SMOOCHIIE

[beaniegara]

I was tagged by @demonsandthebois​ & @demonproofboi​! thank you, beautiful people!! <3

Rules: answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag 20 people.

Last

1. drink- water.

2. phone call- something work-related, I think? like, I answered the phone at work.

3. text message- a friend answering my “why are you online at 6″ message to her lol (it was too hot to sleep, she said.)

4. song you listened to- currently listening to summertime sadness by lana del rey (totally on a lana del rey high these days).

5. time you cried- I don’t.. remember? it must’ve been a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months? but I did get teary-eyed watching some episodes of hannibal these days.

Ever

6. dated someone twice? nope.

7. kissed someone and regretted it? nope.

8. been cheated on? nope. 

9. lost someone special? I mean, I lost my grandma when I was 4 and she was raising me? but I don’t really remember anything, my brain deleted everything from that time, so I’m gonna say no.

10. been depressed? clinically, 9 years ago. on and off since then. 

11. gotten drunk and thrown up? nope.

Fave colours

12. orange.

13. lime green.

14. purple? pink? I can’t pick one kmgfkdjgfks

In the last year have you…

15. made new friends? yup! 

16. fallen out of love? technically, yes.

17. laughed until you cried? many times.

18. found out someone was talking about you? not that I can remember?

19. met someone who changed you? not to sound like an ass but I think every person changes me in their own way!!

20. found out who your friends are? I kinda already knew. didn’t change much. 

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list? nope.

General

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl? probably not even 1/3, I keep unfriending people from school kkkkdjskgfdjk and I’ve been talking to people online for the better part of my life so there’s a lot of internet friends there! 

23. do you have any pets? nope :(

24. do you want to change your name? I wish I could take out one of my last names (I have two). hate that part of the family.

25. what did you do for your last birthday? uhh, spent some time with my mom and aunt? I don’t really celebrate my birthdays but they do so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

26. what time did you wake up today? 6-ish, almost 7am.

27. what were you doing at midnight last night? I think I went to bed around that time, after lots of reblogging gifs of the bfu episode kjfdsfdkkg

28. what is something you can’t wait for? can’t wait until I’m well off and don’t need to study/work doing stuff that makes me so uncomfortable (ie, dealing with people).

30. what are you listening to right now? 1cm pride (live) - mamamoo.

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom? uhm, don’t think so. we don’t get those here. 

32. something that’s getting on your nerves – politics. can’t stand the state of things right now. 

33. most visited website- tumblr but twitter is a close second.

34. hair color- brown, auburn-ish.

35. long or short hair- mine is currently short but that’s ‘cause I don’t have the patience for long hair, because I’d rather have mine long.

36. do you have a crush on someone? starting to. big time. (you know who you are!!)

37. what do you like about yourself? almost nothing but uhhh... I guess I could say I try to be as polite/kind as possible to people? D:

38. want any piercings? yesss, I miss my industrial piercing :c 

39. blood type- O+. I think. it may be negative.

40. nicknames- naluh! most of my friends call me that. but two of them call me kagami, forgot to mention it last time I did this :D

41. relationship status- single.

42. zodiac- gemini! the best sign!!  

43. pronouns- she/her.

44. fave tv shows- sherlock (quickly dropping, but for now..), dollhouse, the lizzie borden chronicles, the librarians. <3

45. tattoos- none, but I already have two in mind. I just need to hate my body a bit less lol

46. right or left handed- right.

47. ever had surgery? nope. 

49. sport- I used to dance, and I still want to go back to it, but for now... none. I do like watching football (US soccer) though! 

50, vacation- wish I could go overseas, maybe visit the UK? scotland, ireland, england? 

51. trainers- I have (1) and that’s more than enough. 

More general

52. eating- just had bread and cream cheese since we skipped lunch today lol

53. drinking- water.

54. i’m about to watch- trying to decide if I should catch up on a show or continue watching thelma.

55. waiting for- inspiration/muse. writer’s block sucks ass. 

56. want- self-esteem and/or money, I’m not picky. 

57. get married- maybe? I mean, it’d be kinda nice, but I’m not fixated on it. if my s.o. wants it too, then sure! 

58. career- I’m a translator but I’m having my midlife crisis at 23 and I’d love to be something else like idk, a film director? a screenwriter? dana scully? can I be dana scully please.

Which is better

59. hugs or kisses- hugs.

60. lips or eyes- hmmm, eyes? maybe? [both_is_good.gif]

62. younger or older- you mean which one I prefer? makes no difference to me, I think? [both is good intensifies]

63. nice arms or stomach- uhhh, idk kkfdkdgjdkk stomach I guess?

64. hookup or relationship- relationship. but hey, whatever rocks your boat.

65. troublemaker or hesitant- these are so widly different, I can’t pick one ???

Have you ever

66. kissed a stranger- nope.

67. drank hard liquor- nope.

68. lost glasses- nope. I mean, I may have lost sunglasses? but it was one time, iirc.

69. turned someone down- yep. but I mean, drunk people at parties doesn’t count, I don’t think?

70. sex on first date- nope. 

71. broken someones heart- I think I did, sort of.. I was in such a bad place that I walked away but she may have been way more into me than I thought at first.

72. had your heart broken- lil bit but nothing I couldn’t survive after months of moping around.

73. been arrested- nope.

74. cried when someone died- yup. 

75. fallen for a friend- I mean, who hasn’t lol I had the biggest and gayest crush on a friend from school and to this day I haven’t told her (but I think she knew, I was pretty obvious - and dumb). 

Do you believe in

76. yourself- nope. working on it, tho! 

77. miracles- kinda? I mean, I do believe unexplainable things can happen, I just don’t think it’s thanks to a higher power.

78. love at first sight- nope. attraction at first sight, however... I’ve been there.

79. santa claus- kfsdgkfnfh lol no.

80. kiss on a first date- if both are willing, why not?

81. angels- nope. but I like the idea.

other

82. best friends name- jenny! bruna and dani would probably skin me alive if I didn’t mention them so yeah, them too.

83. eye colour- light brown/honey.

84. fave movie- chicago!!!!!!!!!!! and the babadook, and captain fantastic, and le fabuleux destin d’amélie poulain.

85. fave actor- I’m going with gillian anderson these days but I really like viggo mortensen, christina ricci, and amanda abbington too! <3

tagging @i-am-ghost-proof-baby​, @thatmademadej​, @ghoulboi​, @heytheredemyons​, @yaboibergara​, and whoever wants to do it! (it’s fine if you don’t, tho.)

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Interesting. Sharks said he’d give it to me only if I asked, and I did, so let’s take a look at this.

I did skim the top of it when he sent it to me, and I have to say, I wasn’t expecting the format.

"Well," Hagrid said. He seemed a bit put out, but he wasn't in a position to say so. "Well. I've never seen anything take to, well, anything quite so fast as Fluffy there's taken to you."

Welcome to the official Worm Hogwarts AU, it seems!

I love the idea of Rachel and Hagrid bonding over their appreciation of monstrous dogs, and Fluffy taking to Rachel.

Even with her stocky build, which was closer to Hagrid's body type than the average eleven year old's,

Hehe. Reminds me of that one Tumblr post that tried to make sense of how Hagrid was described... hang on, let me see if I can find it.

Ah yes, here it is.

(Bear in mind the smaller figure is Harry, who’s small for his age.)

Rachel struggled to keep her feet as three massive heads fought for her attention. A tongue licked the side of her head, and her hair, which had already been sticking up in virtually every direction, was left even messier.

D’aw.

"Uh huh," Rachel said. "Good boy. Boys. Whatever. You can stop now. Gotta- Unf. Gotta get to my room, or the stupid painting won't let me back in. Stupid older kids yell at me if I sleep on the stairs."

This was written before Deathly Hallows came out, right? The Ravenclaw common room doesn’t have a painting on the door, it has a knocker that asks you a riddle.

...

I imagine that would infuriate Rachel so much.

Hagrid eyed the girl's house colors dubiously.

...or maybe this was actually taken into account and Rachel is trying to pretend she’s a Gryffindor?

She reached up, scratching the beast's jowl, rubbing it against its teeth. The other heads knocked her this way and that, fighting for the same treatment. "He needs bones."

"What?" Hagrid asked, surprised.

Ahh, Hagrid’s being out-dogownered.

Yeah, sure, that’s a word.

"He needs bones!" Rachel said, very loud.

"No, lass. I'm not deaf, though I might be if you keep that up. Why are you saying he needs them?"

"His teeth are bothering him."

Chew toy!

He gave her an appreciating look, which was just about the only thing he could do, without either giving up the secret to handling Fluffy or making the girl's situation worse.

Honestly, I feel like Rachel might figure out the secret on her own.

I mean, not by accidentally playing music nearby Fluffy (not really a Rachel thing to do, it seems), just by her innate understanding of dogs.

"Aye, girl, you're right. I'm just surprised you figured it out. Hard to get anything big and strong enough for a creature like him."

"Whatever. Oof. I need to go now. Help me make him stop?"

Hagrid sighed.

Maybe the girl wouldn't figure it out.

Nah, if you actually do it in front of her she’ll notice it immediately, I think.

"Cover yer ears," he said.

She managed.

He did the usual, humming the same song he'd used to lull Fluffy to sleep when Fluffy had been just a pup. 

He expected to have to explain, curious looks, or something of the sort. 

Instead, the girl just collected her scattered things, wiped her spit-slick hair down, and opened the door to go.

Hah! She doesn’t care.

(Doesn’t mean she hasn’t figured it out, though.)

"Don't get so turned around again, y'hear?" Hagrid said.

Kinda sounds like this happened as she accidentally wound up in the Fluffy room and Hagrid happened to be there. Or arrive there later to find his pet being affectionate with one of the first-year students.

"Uh huh," the girl replied. "Bye Fluffy. See you soon."

Hagrid blinked a few times. By the time he processed the idea, the girl was already gone, feet clumping on stairs.

Hehe, of course she can’t stay away.

He poked his head out the door, ready to tell her not to, but his heart wasn't in it. He had his fondness for animals, and as Dumbledore had mused, the only thing that might hold an equal space in Hagrid's heart might be his desire to pass on that fondness.

Yeah, it’s absolutely something Hagrid can relate to.

He'd been a little caught off guard, seeing the girl, but talents were talents, and the House prized individuality. Little Rachel Clegane was definitely an individual.

Rachel Clegane? That’s interesting. Why would she have a different surname in this AU? Hm...

He saw her stop at a fork in the hallway.

She turned around, clearly irritated.

"I know my way around a city, or outdoors, but this stupid place is a stupid maze," she said, her voice too loud, carrying all the way to him.

Hehe, yeah, Hogwarts is kind of a terrible place for people like Rachel, who get easily annoyed by unnecessary complication. It’s not even just a stupid maze, it’s a stupid ever-changing maze.

"You want to go right, lassie," he said.

At least today.

She looked one way, then the other. 

She raised one hand, counting on her fingers. 

"Point," he said. 

She pointed down one hallway.

Does she not know her right and left? Or are there too many ways to the right?

"Yeh," he said. "You'll find house Ravenclaw that way. Don't get turned around now."

Easier said than done.

And there’s the Ravenclaw bit. At this point, the text seems to switch to more direct commentary by Wildbow:

House Ravenclaw is defined by the element of air. Rachel is itinerant, free ranging, definitely an individual. The house favors individuality, and tends to take good care of eccentrics, of which Rachel is one, even if she's less a mad scientist eccentric and more an oddly shaped peg demanding an oddly shaped hole to fit into. She's dedicated and deeply interested when it comes to her particular pursuits.

Hm, yeah, I can get behind this. It’s a different approach to house sorting than what I was working with, but equally valid. Honestly makes more sense, really.

Houses tend to get pigeonholed, but just like Neville and Ron weren't really archetypically brave (though they came into their own with the right company), the Ravenclaws don't have to fit a bookworm archetype.

True that.

They don't all get top grades in every class, but rather, each finds their individual areas of expertise - for Luna Lovegood, it was the esoteric stuff. For Rachel, it's the care of certain magical creatures. Given a chance to grow, and the right group, she can relate the care of dogs to the care of other magical creatures, she can find her niche in the group, when the Ravenclaws gather in study groups to learn, and they gather the best students in each given area, Rachel is an automatic invite.

I’m very much liking this take on Ravenclaw House and Rachel.

How does the hat sort? It looks to the student's wishes. What does the student really need? Neville needed the right people to grow as a person and get over his deeper traumas (the loss of his parents foremost among them), while Rachel needs acceptance, with Acceptance being one of Ravenclaw's chief virtues.

Honestly, Acceptance also seems to be a Hufflepuff thing, at least if you go back to the founders. According to the Hat, each founder wanted children with specific virtues, and while Hufflepuff also had core values, she was willing to take anyone who didn’t fit in the other houses too. And while the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs sort of blend together for me in my memory of the books sometimes, I seem to recall background Ravenclaws often being more judgmental? I don’t know, maybe it was the other way around.

Still, Acceptance being a Hufflepuff thing doesn’t prevent it from also being a Ravenclaw thing, and maybe it’s more in the forefront for sorting into Ravenclaw.

Anyway, yeah, I do really appreciate Wildbow’s take on it. I’ll have to keep this kind of thinking in mind for future house assignments I do.

[spriterpt]

Hello Liss. This is Fairy Godmother. I am gathering information on behalf of King Ben to all Heroes, Villains, and their Descendants; asking them what they think of Auradon University. Could I please ask you for your opinion on our establishment, so that I may take notes on how we can better improve it? Thank you.

AN OPINION FOR: auradonurp.

Please keep in mind that all statements below the cut reflect only my subjective opinion.

THEME: I’m not sure how I feel about the color scheme here. It works for me in the graphics, but the theme looks like it clashes. I would maybe consider more grey and less blue, or change it up and make the background grey or blue and the accents red. This theme is pretty basic and not the most eye-catching to me personally, but I’ll talk about how the graphics play into that below.

GRAPHICS: The graphics are nice, and spice up the theme. I particularly like the custom-made admin GIFs. They make the posts look neater and tie the page together. I also like the header. I don’t really recognize anything that’s in it (I’ve never seen Descendants so maybe I just can’t pick it out), except for the people to the right, but it just looks nice. The colors are pretty and the red is perfectly scattered throughout the image. I’m not as big a fan of the sidebar graphic. It doesn’t hold as much substance to me, and rather than the red being sprinkled on it like in the header, it’s all in one very aggressively red spot. I don’t think it’s necessary for both of the graphics to have the roleplay name on them, and I think it makes more sense for the header to have it. I also don’t like the font used for the roleplay name. I think something a little bit neater would look better. Similarly, I definitely think the navigation graphic having the roleplay name is overkill, but I like the graphic itself. It also has the red peppered throughout and each part of it looks pretty. As for the skeleton graphics, they all look really nice on their own, with their little pops of color. Together, they seem a little bit disjointed, but it’s not bad since they’re all so different. I would reconsider the graphic for Mal, as the green text doesn’t match anything in the picture. The character pages look nice, some nicer than others based on how well the colors work together. I actually like that each character has their own color scheme. The graphics for the dorm rooms are nice too, but the text isn’t properly justified. The text should all either be centered or all the way to the left or right. The app count graphic is one of my favorites, simple but very pretty and interesting.

DESCRIPTION: I like that the description includes basic information about the type of RP and age requirements so that potential applicants can know right away if this is the right kind of RP for them. I would personally put the info that you have in the first chunk of your description at the end, and have your ‘actual’ description come first. The description seems to succinctly explain what the premise of the RP is and what makes your RP different than other Descendants RPs.

NAVIGATION: I like the navigation. I like that the partial navigation fits perfectly into your theme. It includes the most important links, and it seems like someone could apply without having to go to the full navigation at all. The full navigation includes a lot of good extra information, though. I will say that in the ‘after acceptance’ section the blockquote is broken and the line shows up in pieces instead of just being one smooth line. I don’t really know how to better describe it but you should be able to see what I mean. All of the links work and lead to the proper page!

PLOT IDEA: I’ll preface this by saying I’ve never seen Descendants, I don’t know what it’s about or anything about the characters. But this seems like an idea that probably hasn’t been done. I think RPs that are based around something Internet-related like this can be really interesting. The plot also gives writers the opportunity to delve into the character in a completely new way.

PLOT WRITING: First off, I feel like each word in “bringing it down” should be capitalized. The sentence about King Ben doesn’t make sense to me. It says he’s caught up with “this learning”, but I don’t know what “this learning” is. You also have the word ‘villain’ capitalized only some of the time–consistency is key and makes the page look neater. Otherwise, I think the writing is good. The second paragraph is sort of lost on me since I haven’t seen it and am not really into Disney, but it seems to explain the situation well. The summary brings up something about the king taking courses, which isn’t mentioned in the actual plot and doesn’t make sense to me, probably because I haven’t seen it. Beyond that it provides important information. The only other change I’d make is putting a period at the end of the very last sentence (the link).

GUIDELINES: First of all, these rules are very long. I would try to shorten them. People are likely to just skim them, and since the password is right at the bottom, they don’t have to read carefully to get it. On multiple occasions, you mention that muns under the age of 18 should not participate in NSFW plots or interactions. However, you also state that muns must be 18+, so that rule is irrelevant. I would take it out to shorten up the rules a little bit. I think it’s a little weird that you’ll allow face claim changes for certain characters but possibly not for others because a certain admin chose them. I don’t think players should be limited only to icons, as many people prefer small GIFs instead and can find more/better resources that way. I know you have a resource blog, but there are still many more options if you allow regular GIFs as well. You link to xkit in the rules with no explanation. Maybe say something like “Please cut your posts! If you don’t know how, download xkit and come to the main with any questions you may have!” I’m not sure your reasoning for not allowing sideblogs, but I would reconsider that rule, personally. It makes it much more difficult to remain active on multiple characters. Your shipping section is very long and could probably be shortened into just a few sentences. All you need to say is that no canon ships are canon in the RP, no canon ships are required to happen in the RP, and forcing ships is against the rules. The NSFW and triggers sections could probably be combined into one, as self-harm and depression are triggers. There are also two misspellings–”before hand” should be “beforehand”, and “insure” should be “ensure”.

APPLICATION: First of all, I love that you guys have a site you can use to apply??? I think that’s so cool. But it’s also cool that you allow people to just apply through Tumblr if they prefer that. I like that you let applicants put whatever they want as a writing sample, whether it be a bio or a para or whatnot. It doesn’t make sense to me to say “No reason why they’re (positive traits). It would make more sense to me to say “No reason why they’re (negative traits). It’s unusual to not allow a muse to be any older than their faceclaim. Most RPs implement a 5-year difference rule, which allows more flexibility for muns. The app goes from asking the mun questions (“what is your muse’s biggest fear?”) to asking the muse questions (”what high school did you graduate from?”) without any warning or separation of the sections. It doesn’t change anything, but makes it seem kind of inconsistent. When you ask for the major, the wording is kind of confusing. I would maybe say “What is your major? If you’ll be double majoring, please place both of your majors here.” Asking immediately about double majors makes it seem like you’re only asking about double majors. I think it’s kind of strange to have muns write out connections to characters they haven’t plotted with yet–it’s almost like godmodding? What happens if the person who takes up one of those characters doesn’t want that connection? There’s also one small typo where you said “ship” instead of “skip”.

CHARACTERS: I like the character pages a lot. They’re really cute and the different color schemes give each character a bit of, well, character. The connections section is helpful and the social media section gives a little personality. The theme of the character page itself is very basic, which is great because that means it doesn’t look way different from your main theme and clash. It also makes everything very neat. I just checked and it’s actually pretty mobile accessible, you just have to zoom in.

OTHER PAGES:

FAMILIES: The first thing I noticed was that both ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ are spelled wrong on this page. I’m not sure why the page lists so many people that aren’t available characters, but I may just be missing why that’s important because I’ve never seen it.

APP COUNT: I normally wouldn’t even bother bringing up the app count page, however I think yours is really cute! I would avoid labelling the characters by gender here, though, since someone could apply for a character and change their gender to non-binary.

CLASSES: It doesn’t make sense to me that Algebra is available only to juniors and seniors, when a lot of people come into college as a freshman already starting at a higher level of math than that. There’s also a couple of classes under ‘general’ that should probably be under ‘magic’.

MAJORS AND MINORS: I think there should be a wider selection, or at least a note stating that muns can choose a major or minor that isn’t listed. There are two typos–no space between “Voodoo Magic” and “Or an emphasis” (this could also be made into one sentence if you wanted), and “there focus” instead of “their focus”.

BLOGROLL: You have two ways to follow everyone in your navigation, and both of them are inconvenient. You should use your /followed/by/ link instead so that muns can just go down the line and follow everyone instead of opening up each blog. I know you link to that in your checklist, but it should be in the navigation, too.

DORMS: This includes the most important basic information about what the rooms are like. I think it’s pretty unrealistic for a college dorm room to have two separate bathrooms, but who said a RP has to be realistic?

OVERALL: A couple little things that didn’t fit into any of the other sections–only some of your pages have titles, others don’t. It makes the pages look inconsistent. I personally think the pages look a lot better with titles than without, so I would add titles to all of the pages. I also see you’ve been tagging your posts with ‘appless RP’--this isn’t an appless RP and shouldn’t be in that tag. Anyway, moving on! I don’t know much about Descendants RPs, but this seems like an original idea, and a fun one to write about. The graphics overall look nice and consistent. I think the pages you have up include a lot of information about the RP and are easy to follow. I love that you have both resource and inspo blogs to help applicants and muns, and again, I adore the application site! The admins seem very active, which is key to a thriving RP. There are a few tweaks that could be made, but I think this is a pretty strong RP!

[butterflies-and-muse]

Tag game

Thanks for tagging me @sing-for-muse !! Omg and the wonderful @my-dark-shines tagged me too thank you sm!! Alright here we go

THE LAST: 1. Drink: Water 2. Phone call: My sister 3. Text message: I usually use DMs, and that would be my friend Shailah. But if it has to be text its my sister. 4. Song you listened to: Fairly Local - Twenty one pilots 5. Time you cried: I don’t remember

HAVE YOU: 6. Dated someone twice: yeah.. I have.. 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: No 8. Been cheated on: No 9. Lost someone special: Yes 10. Been depressed: oh yeah 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: haha no I’ve never drunk

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12. Red 13. Blue 14. Black

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: Yes!! 16. Fallen out of love: hmm I don’t think so 17. Laughed until you cried: ohh yes 18. Found out someone was talking about you: I don’t think so 19. Met someone who changed you: I believe so 20. Found out who your friends are: I’m not totally sure what’s being asked here, but I think so 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: Fun fact- I actually deleted my Facebook a long time ago because Ive had since I was like 9 and it was pure cringe.

GENERAL: 22. How many of your Facebook friend do you know in real life: If you replace Facebook with Instagram, then its almost all of them 23. Do you have any pets: Yes!! I have a cat named Bella and she may or may not hate me 24. Do you want to change your name: Another fun fact- I have a pretty unique name but I happen to share it with a porn star.. So that’s nice. I guess I would like to change my name, but I don’t think I will. 25. What did you do for your last birthday: I invited a lot of my friends to my house and we ate tacos 26. What time did you wake up: uhem.. uhh definitely not 3 in the afternoon because I fell asleep at 6:30am,, definitely not that one 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: I’m pretty sure I was practicing the piano 28. Name something you can’t wait for: Season 3 of vld!! 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: Like a few minutes ago 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: I just really wish I could see my friends more (fun fact #3 I recently moved) 31. What are you listening to right now: At this moment? Well nothing, but thanks for giving me the idea to listen to music while I finish this post. 32. Have you ever talked to a person named tom: Close, his name was tommy 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: LoTS, I don’t think this post needs to be 6 pages long though. 34. Most visited website: YouTube and Tumblr

RANDOM INFO 35. Mole/s: No, but lots of random dark freckles, unless you consider that a mole 36. Mark/s: Yes!! 37. Childhood dream: I believe a scientist 38. Hair color: Brown with blonde ombré 39. Long or short hair: Long 40. Do you have a crush on someone: Maybe 41. What do you like about yourself: That I have made wonderful friends 42. Piercings: Just some ear piercings 43. Blood type: Is it bad that I don’t know? 44. Nickname: I have a few, but my main is Angie 45. Relationship status: Single 46. Zodiac: Aries 47. Pronouns: She/her 48. Favorite tv show: At the moment it’s vld 50. Right or left hand: Right 51. Surgery: No 52. Hair dyed a different color: Yes 53. Sport: I used to play softball and volleyball ..the good old days when I actually did something with my life 55. Vacation: Mi casa 56. Pair of trainers: I do not know what this is

MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: I’m actually currently eating these weird cinnamon things 58. Drinking: Is this asking if I drink, or what I drink. Idk but I’m just gonna say water. 59. I’m about to: Sleep ..sometime, probably. Actually that’s a lie. 61. Waiting for: Ik this is like the 3rd time I’ve mentioned this, but I have no life. Vld. 62. Want: I just really want some french fries right now 63. Get married: I don’t know if anyone would actually want to marry this 64. Career: I would love a career in music, but as that is unlikely I do really like science. Maybe an astronomer. 65. Hugs or kisses: Both 66. Lips or eyes: Eyes 67. Shorter or taller: I’m pretty average 68. Older or younger: Younger 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: uhhhh 71. Sensitive or loud: Probably loud, but actually both 72. Hook up or relationship: Relationship 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: Depends who I’m with

I did most of this tag but my tumblr is being really glitchy and keeps deleting my progress, so the full tag is at @sing-for-muse 

I tag: @exogenesis-lights @we-were-kissing-gods @youwillneverownmeagain @ohmisbelieverr @spiral-static @hoverboard-howard I kind of just tagged some random blogs so I hope you don’t mind

[joannalannister]

hi, fisrt i would like to say that i love your blog, its very informative and your metas are excellent. i was recently reading some of cersei's chapters and she constantly references wanting to be jaime and hating being a woman, or how much better she would be at being tywin's son than her brothers, and it got me wondering, do you think its possible that cersei is trans? or is it just that she sees herself as "tywin with teats" and resents the gendered limitations of being a woman?

I personally don’t interpret Cersei as transgender, but I know that other people do and I think that’s also a valid interpretation. 

When I say “valid interpretation” I mean “this interpretation does not explicitly contradict the text as it is written.” For example, saying Jon Snow has blue eyes directly contradicts what GRRM wrote and such a statement isn’t valid. 

The way I was trained in literary analysis / criticism was to treat the text as my Bible, and to give paramount importance to whatever is actually written in the text. (tbh this might be why it’s so difficult for me and feels so disrespectful when I condemn certain aspects of ASOIAF … almost as if it’s sacrilegious.) “Text-as-Bible” is why I’m usually throwing large chunks of text at people whenever I’m interrogating a text, and from that I identify themes and narrative structure and all that jazz.

However, people often look at the same chunk of text and interpret it in many different ways. Interpretations of stories are ultimately very personal, and a single story can have many valid interpretations. For example, some readers interpret the character Jay Gatsby as a white-passing black man, while other readers don’t; I think both interpretations are cool, and both add to the cornucopia of meta-textual commentary surrounding The Great Gatsby. 

Bringing it back to ASOIAF, when I read Cersei’s chapters, I never interpreted Cersei’s dissatisfaction and anger and unhappiness as being directed at her own body / at herself. In my opinion, she seemed rather disparaging of the male body, hurling criticisms likes stones from a trebuchet about how ~men think with their cocks~ and therefore aren’t as dangerous as she. 

“Perhaps I’m dangerous too. You, on the other hand, are as big a fool as every other man. That worm between your legs does half your thinking.”

She thinks men are fools. This didn’t come across to me as someone who wanted to be a man. It came across as a woman who wanted to be taken as seriously as men, and to be seen as just as dangerous, imo. (Even fandom dismisses Cersei as unintelligent, which I don’t think is the case.)

Cersei seems to take pleasure in her sex:

Cersei found herself remembering all the times that Jaime had knelt where she was kneeling now, planting kisses on the inside of her thighs, making her wet. His kisses were always warm. The razor was ice-cold. When the deed was done she was as naked and vulnerable as a woman could be. 

To me, it seems that Cersei equates womanhood with vulnerability, and it’s vulnerability that Lannisters hate and try to guard themselves against. (see also: Tyrion’s ”wear it like armor,” Jaime’s caustic comments as cutting as his sword, Tywin’s entire existence, and the ancestral Lannister stronghold as a giant invincible rock - there’s a big anti-vulnerability theme here.) So I don’t think it’s being a woman that Cersei hates, it’s her position in society as a woman, assumed to be weak, vulnerable, undervalued, unintelligent, non-threatening etc. 

Also, I think Cersei takes great pleasure in having Jaime’s babies, in being a mother to them, and nursing them at her breast:

It is beautiful, she thought, as beautiful as Joffrey, when they laid him in my arms. No man had ever made her feel as good as she had felt when he took her nipple in his mouth to nurse.

That didn’t suggest to me that Cersei was angry/resentful/uncomfortable in her body.  

Even as a child, when Cersei dressed as a boy, it was because of how she was treated so differently, not because she expressed a desire to be a boy:

Though he was ten years her junior, he wanted her; Cersei could see it in the way he looked at her. Men had been looking at her that way since her breasts began to bud. Because I was so beautiful, they said, but Jaime was beautiful as well, and they never looked at him that way. When she was small she would sometimes don her brother’s clothing as a lark. She was always startled by how differently men treated her when they thought that she was Jaime. Even Lord Tywin himself …

She resents the way that grown men sexualized her pre-teen* body (and everything that went with that), but it doesn’t seem to me like she was upset with her body in and of itself? And she was “always startled” that everyone treated her differently even tho she and Jaime were the same, identical, “alike as two peas in a pod … well, except between the legs.”

 (This clothes switching probably would have been before she was even a teenager, because Jaime was then sent to Crakehall to be fostered.)

So to me, Cersei’s issues are external, derived from how society views her and treats her and dismisses her, rather than internal issues of self identity. Like, for me, Cersei has a very firm, very strong idea of self - she knows who she is, or at least she knows who she thinks she is. (Cersei would do very well in GRRM’s short story, “The Glass Flower”. tbh, now that I think about it, the narrator of the Glass Flower might be a precursor to Cersei; I have to give this more thought hmm.) 

But yeah, I think Cersei’s problems are with society, and how a misogynistic society treats her unfairly as a woman.

Like, think about the FeastDance, how AFFC and ADWD were originally supposed to be one volume, and how GRRM bookends Cersei’s narrative:

Cersei I, AFFC (first Cersei chapter):

She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all.

The courtiers were brightly colored mice below. Great lords and proud ladies knelt before her. Bold young knights laid their swords at her feet and pleaded for her favors, and the queen smiled down at them. Until the dwarf appeared as if from nowhere, pointing at her and howling with laughter. The lords and ladies began to chuckle too, hiding their smiles behind their hands. Only then did the queen realize she was naked.

Horrified, she tried to cover herself with her hands. The barbs and blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening.

vs 

Cersei II, ADWD (last Cersei chapter)

When the deed was done she was as naked and vulnerable as a woman could be. 

a smear of grease and blood down her thigh.

Halfway down Visenya’s Hill the queen fell for the first time, when her foot slipped in something that might have been nightsoil. When Septa Unella pulled her up, her knee was scraped and bloody. A ragged laugh rippled through the crowd

Her heel came down on something sharp, a stone or piece of broken crockery. Cersei cried out in pain.

They were at the foot of Aegon’s High Hill, the castle above them. [high above them all, where Cersei is at the end of ADWD]

Cersei’s AFFC dream comes true at the end of ADWD. 

In the dream, it’s not that she dreams of being a man, it’s that she dreams of power, of strength (Tywin’s kind of strength), of respect. We talk about a lot of irreconcilable desires w/r/t the FeastDance, but I’ve never seen anybody talk about Cersei’s irreconcilable desires, namely to hold Tywin’s kind of power and to be a woman. 

Look at the AFFC dream again. Look at it. Look at the blood running down her legs (strongly associated with womanhood in Westeros - see Sansa’s pov). Look at how the throne attacks Cersei’s breasts, butt, and her stomach/womb. “the more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her” - the more a woman fights gender norms in Westeros, the more she is beaten down, berated, shamed, engulfed by societal expectations. Her foot slips on the throne – maybe this sounds fake deep but it’s a metaphor for the uneasy path Cersei must walk, trying to balance her womanhood with her desire to rule, something that Westeros will not permit her to do. 

So that’s why I personally interpreted Cersei’s story as a woman who resents the gendered limitations of Westeros. 

Also, on a different note, Cersei is such a violent, abusive murderer. There are many harmful, negative stereotypes about transgender people being violent or abusive or w/e, and these stereotypes are totally wrong, and I have no desire to perpetuate these negative stereotypes in any way, so that’s another reason why I personally don’t feel comfortable labeling Cersei as trans. 

However, as I said in the beginning, I think opposing interpretations are also valid! It might be better to get the perspective of someone who is transgender to answer this question. I would love to hear other interpretations! 

Whatever you interpret her as, Cersei is at the crux of a very interesting discussion of sex and gender and gender identity in ASOIAF.

There are some posts on @asoiafuniversity about Cersei being trans that might be of interest to you:

Discussion of Cersei, Brienne, and genderqueerness

Further discussion

“Musings on Cersei”

Discussions outside of tumblr:

(Reddit) “Is Cersei trans?”

(Westeros.org) “Absence of transgender characters?”

(Westeros.org) “Sympathy for the devil? Cersei and gender”

[zuzusexytiems]

tagged by @babyfairybaekhyun to post unecessary information about yours truly lmao THANKS BAE

also i answered this last friday and saved it on my drafts so the first part of this doesn’t exactly count anymore ack

THE LAST: 1. Drink: white coffee which I mixed some milo into 2. Phone call: My uber driver asking me where I was 3. Text message: An appointment confirmation from my therapist 4. Song you listened to: Homesick at Space Camp - Fall Out Boy 5. Time you cried: The other night bc I read this stupid VIctuuri oneshot based off of PS I Love You aND THEY FUCKING KILLED OFF VICTOR WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF UDJHSUIJ @randomrissarush HAVE YOU: 6. Dated someone twice: I’m not even sure tbh lmao 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Yeah. 8. Been cheated on: No 9. Lost someone special: Yeah. 10. Been depressed: Yes. 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Yeah. LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: Pink, blue, ochre yellow IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: Yep. 16. Fallen out of love: Wasn’t even in love with anyone in the first place lmao #sadlyf 17. Laughed until you cried: Not sure tbh 18. Found out someone was talking about you: Yeah. The older you get, the more you realize how inevitable that shit is, lbr. 19. Met someone who changed you: Yeah. Not in a very good way though, no. 20. Found out who your friends are: Already have for a while now. @randomrissarush 56. Pair of trainers: I’m not sure how I’m supposed to answer this?? Like do you mean I own a pair trainers or…? :)))

MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: Not at the moment 58. Drinking: Nothing 59. I’m about to: leave the office 61. Waiting for: The Legend of Korra comics coming in October uhfjkdhsfnusj 62. Want: I don’t know I want lots of things and I’m really fucking lonely 63. Get married: if I meet the right person, then yeah 64. Career: I’m a copywriter but I’m planning on taking my masters in clinical psychology

WHICH IS BETTER 65. Hugs or kisses: hugs 66. Lips or eyes: Eyes 67. Shorter or taller: taller 68. Older or younger: Younger (but not too much, like 2-3 years is my cap off lol) 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: Arms (cus I like soft bellies)(would not be opposed to abs tho ngl) 71. Sensitive or loud: Sensitive af 72. Hook up or relationship: either 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker

HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a stranger: No 75. Drank hard liquor: yeah 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: No, I’ve never had or needed either 77. Turned someone down: Yeah. 78. Sex in the first date: Nope 79. Broken someone’s heart: Yeah. 80. Had your heart broken: Yeah. 81. Been arrested: No 82. Cried when someone died: Yes 83. Fallen for a friend: Yes

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: Learning to (struggling to. rather) 85. Miracles: Yeah 86. Love at first sight: Maybe. It doesn’t happen to everyone but I do think it’s possible 87. Santa Claus: …no? 88. Kiss in the first date: Depends. I’m leaning towards a no rn though 89. Angels: ehhh sometimes 90. Current best friends name: CURRENT??? @randomrissarush THIS IS NEVER GOING TO CHANGE, EXCUSE ME. Also Bea, Jara, E.Y. and Apoline @heart-peen 91. Eyecolor: Dark brown 92. Favorite movie: Big Fish 

gonna tag @randomrissarush @impalakatara @savingprimrose @muse-of-chaos@littledevil26 @writeme123@pettypingpongpaddle @p-t-f-s @lekoppafandoms @beifongheiress @lithafox@paper-jamz 

enjoy!