#mind always clear

[s-p-r-i-n-g-t-i-g-e-r]

happy birthday soobie~

[wuntrum]

honestly love when artists draw copious amounts of fanart for a character and then start adding more and more personal touches or headcanons to how they depict them and then just change their name and adopt them as an original character. its like watching nature heal in real time

[bonicedemandarina]

Click for better quality

Shotout to Leona and Cheka for singlehandedly getting me out of the worst artblock I've had in months, love these guys

Tbh I just wanted to draw Cheka doing that one thing kids do when they treat you like a climbing tree, I have other drawing about that but it's a work in progress, it was supposed to be animation practice but Ibis got some crunchy quality on the canvas if you don't pay so. Yeah. Also Grim is here bc why not

[shorthaltsjester]

you ever think about vex and percy being so stand-offish and snarky to vox machina but vex being the first one to call them all family and percy cushioning scanlan’s leaving by reminding them they are a family, and percy quietly confessing to grog that it’s nice to have an older brother again? you ever think about the fact that percy and vex, members of a party that — except on rare occasions — existed as a group of seven, had five kids?

[idontmindifuforgetme]

In the most sincere way possible i genuinely believe that the love of my life is dramatically driving home from a bad breakup as we speak (like winding through big city avenues w the tungsten streetlights kaleidoscoping off the windshield and everything) and that a precarious serious of events will lead us to each other and that it’s just written in the fabric of reality idk

[crystalmagpie447]

ourhrg cant draw them cuz

tired

but iloves u sun and moonfnaf

iloves them dearly.. 😞😞💝💝💝💝💝💝💍💍💍💐💐💝💝

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pages from trying to keep a little sketchbook-scrapbook type thing going for two weeks lol. I gave myself specific rules in hopes they might all end up more cohesive/consistent seeming, but alas, scribbly chaos reigns, it seems

[spectrum-spectre]

give me an Al Munson who cleans up his act in prison and gets released early on good behavior a few months after the "earthquake" struck the town.

give me an Al Munson who hears the news about the murders shortly after getting out, and realizes it's his fault the people of Hawkins had so readily believed that Eddie could be capable of such things.

give me an Al Munson who immediately starts looking for Eddie to apologize for being a shitty dad.

give me an Al Munson who works his ass off for months to get back into Wayne's good graces and prove that he wants to be a part of Eddie's life again.

give me an Al Munson who may not understand his son's sexuality, but takes the time to unlearn some of his bigotries if it means gaining Eddie's trust back.

just give me an Al Munson who is trying to be better.

[nekky-nek]

It fascinates me that there are people who don't hear a voice or have a home theater in their brain, so I'm curious. I would love to know how concrete the images are or what kind of voice you hear in your head if you do.

[welcometogrouchland]

Also I am. Constantly forgetting how fucking funny Hunter is. We never give him enough credit for how funny he is because his life is so fucked up but I swear 90% of his lines are just bit after bit after bit. He's not even trying either. Anytime he actively tries to make a joke it falls flat but if you just put him in a Scenario he'll find a way to be so over invested and yet out of touch/at odds with whatever's going on. He's so autistic

[tunemyart]

The thing about Alex Cabot that I keep coming back to is that even in her earliest, most "I must follow the letter of the law" blonde bob and power suit days, she still has an enormous reputation with judges for finding loopholes that she can twist to suit her arguments and her own sense of justice, to the point that they call her out on it! That is in fact one of the biggest points of her character! Right there from the beginning!

So say, just for example, that you're watching one of her earliest episodes: Season 2, episode 11, "Abuse." If you haven't watched it recently, this is the one where Olivia Benson becomes attached to a superstar singer's daughter who is hurting herself as a cry for attention due to her parents' neglect. Alex gets involved because Olivia asks her to and Alex is, as always, unable to resist a direct appeal from Olivia.* She finagles a perfectly legal way for the daughter to be removed from the home - bypassing family court, which, when they end up there as planned, does not earn her any favors with the judge.

Again, to reiterate: this is eleven whole episodes into Alex Cabot's entire character.

*another longstanding character trait, by the way, that I can't believe I don't see discussed more often because it makes me insane - and which is similarly seeded right here at the very beginning of Alex's character, before Alex and Olivia could even really be called friends!

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

When discussing or analyzing Dazai, one thing I hope you will keep in mind when reading anything I write about him is that from my perspective, he is always, always both.

What do I mean by this? Well, I find there tends to be a general split among people who hold the opinion that "he's a manipulator and will always be manipulative" and "he's doing his best to be good and helpful and live up to Oda's last wishes for him", of which, neither is completely right - because he is both. But even among the people who hold to this dual-nature interpretation, I find that his individual actions and motivations still tend to be thought of in a dichotomous manner - is it manipulative, or genuine?

Again, I think it's always both.

Dazai has a very pragmatic view on a lot of things - he is always looking for the usefulness of things and people so that the situation turns out in his favour. He's incredibly adept at this, and his prediction and placement and careful reveals are all manipulation tactics to get his allies and enemies doing exactly what he needs them to. I don't think anyone can contest this since we see it over and over in the series.

But that's not all there is to it. He's not solely manipulative and he does, to some extent, sympathize with others - I think there are several instances of this in the series, but I want to stress that this has been apparent since Chapter 1!

For context, Dazai is recalling what Atsushi said to him a few minutes earlier, but it's very interesting that it should be this specific part of the conversation. He could've flashed back to the part where Atsushi said he had nowhere to go; no money, no food - he is about to trick him into joining, after all, and this is the key piece he uses to basically force Atsushi into the Agency. But instead it's Atsushi's self-deprecation that catches his attention, and it really does, because even during the conversation, he turns to look at him after he says this with an odd expression.

You could say that this makes Atsushi easier to manipulate, if that's your angle, but that can't be solely it, because in the later conversation with Hirotsu, we know Dazai was planning to bring Atsushi into the Agency and set him up as one half of the new Double Black the moment he met him. The panel shown there is the riverbank, set much earlier in the day than this scene. He was already planning to pair him with Akutagawa since he figured out he was the tiger, so what's with this reaction?

Well. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best.

He manipulated Atsushi into joining with the intention of utilizing him in his future plans. He also helped him and gave him a place to belong, and importantly, he likes this kid! It's both.

I think much of it might be that his brain just kinda works way too fast - he's such a natural at crafting these elaborate plots and seeing how things connect and gathering useful people like resources that it's practically automatic - though this is not a great means when you're trying to be a kinder person. There's an omake, I believe, that has him saying "I like using my head for justice", i.e. using these underhanded means to act for the better. Not great, but those are the kind of gifts he has. He's way more suited to exploitation, but is choosing to use these tactics to save people now, which is quite reminiscent of what he tells Kyouka. Kyouka's talents lie in killing people - when what you're good at isn't who you want to be, what do you do? Well, I expect you use what you have, even if it's not ideal.

Now, about the current situation with Sigma - I think he definitely likes him, and is intrigued by him and his situation. We did get a little thought bubble where the guy amusedly compares him to Atsushi, and you can't tell me he doesn't care about Atsushi (listen to the onsen drama cd, or read 55 Minutes if you somehow don't believe me). But also, it's undeniable that Sigma is in a very vulnerable position of being homeless and having had no one be genuinely kind to him before. His trust is very easy to earn, and with the latest chapter, Dazai has now saved his life multiple times. There is, as always, a practical purpose he needs him for. And I have to be somewhat amused because Dazai is quite literally telling Sigma everything he ever wanted and needed to hear. It's a brilliant means of quickly endearing himself to Sigma - but I don't think that's all it is.

Look. The most honest moments we get in this series from Dazai are, interestingly for an expert manipulator, when people are at their most vulnerable. In spite of every pointlessly cruel act he inflicted on Akutagawa, his first meeting with him was open and transparent; much like the orphanage director, it seems he thought this treatment would make him strong and adaptable (he's wrong but that's not the point of this). He cuts Kyouka off in irritation and says "don't give me that" when she implies that she would fail the entrance exam. He tells Atsushi it's normal to cry after losing a father figure and to feel however you feel, even if that person caused you nothing but incredible pain and cannot be forgiven. He refuses to entertain Sigma's assumptions that Dazai sees himself as a superior being to him.

Selective honesty can also be utilized to great effect; Mori does this, and undoubtedly it serves this purpose for Dazai too. But I want to stress that I do sincerely believe this is all still honesty from him. Manipulation, or genuine?

Both. It's both.

[cecropiacrown]

Mu Qing shifts under the gaze, heat prickling along his neck as he adjusts the hold on the brush in his hand. He stares down at his neatly scribed notes recounting his latest mission with his fellow southern general and finds he can't remember what he was just about to write.

His face flushes and he swallows, sitting just a little taller in an attempt to squash the smothering shyness that is creeping up along his spine. He unnecessarily dips his brush into the inkwell, collecting the excess along the rim, his posture immaculate as he holds his wrist steadily over the scroll. And yet...

"Must you dissect me with your eyes, General?" he spits, his head just barely inclined in Feng Xin's direction, his eyes narrowed and piercing as he glares at him.

Feng Xin sighs, looking exasperated, but before he even has a chance to speak, Mu Qing beats him to it, looking back to his scroll as his words cut through the thin air of his study - sharp and accusatory.

"I feel equally like a criminal on trial and a pig who has unfortunately found its home as the centerpiece of a meat market display."

Mu Qing can't bear to spare another glance in Feng Xin's direction - just hearing the man's amused scoff is humiliation enough.

"We still aren't sure if you've been cursed yet, Mu Qing. I am to watch for signs of drowsiness - how do you expect me to do that if I can't fucking look at you?"

___

[Mu Qing is his normal amount of tired and ends up having to admit to Feng Xin that he has stayed up past his typical early bedtime. Truthfully, he'd almost rather be cursed than be that forthright ever again, but alas.

Feng Xin watches him ready for bed -dressing in his night robes, oiling his hair - and though Mu Qing would never admit it, it's almost... nice to have someone to share his evening tea with. He even reads a few passages of his current book out to Feng Xin before officially retiring for the evening.

But as he gets into bed and his head hits his pillow, he feels more vulnerable than he has all evening.

Feng Xin's eyes are too perceptive, he thinks, but as the thought occurs to him and he battles with the warm weight of his fellow general's gaze, Feng Xin speaks.

"I won't be able to monitor your breathing this way - look at this mountain of blankets you have on."

And as he says this, he uses his hand to casually flick up a corner of one of the blankets from his seat at Mu Qing's bedside, and the action sends heat racing to Mu Qing's cheeks. He's not sure whether it's fury, indignation, embarrassment, or a mixture of all three.

Mu Qing huffs and kicks his foot up against his blanket mound, barely brushing the tip of Feng Xin's nose with just the fabric.

"Not all of us are walking furnaces, Feng Xin."

And even though he meant for the statement to come out scathing, it sounds more pitiful than anything else.

He clenches his hands into fists and pretends his shaking is from anger.

Feng Xin gives him a flat look for the comment, but soon it's clear that his gears are turning and before Mu Qing even has an idea of what's happening, Feng Xin is standing and offering his hand.

"Let me in with you."

"Excuse me?"

"Let me into bed with you."

"W-what - why?"

"Two birds, one stone."

Mu Qing flings a pillow out at Feng Xin, hitting him square in the chest before yanking it back and huffily turning on his side so he doesn't have to look at this absolute idiot anymore.

Feng Xin grumbles under his breath, frustrated, and then the bed is dipping with his weight as he leans onto it and Mu Qing is spiraling - heart racing.

"Two birds," he says, lowering himself to sit on the bed.

"One stone."

He lays a hand on Mu Qing's back and Mu Qing can't understand why his instinct is not to immediately throw him off. He stays very, very still.

"You can lay on top of me."

Mu Qing noticeably stiffens. Feng Xin's hand just presses more insistently against his back.

"That way I'll be able to keep a better check on your breathing and you'll also benefit from having this furnace to warm you."

Teasing.

Earnest.

God, fuck.]

___

Mu Qing can't believe he's doing this.

He keeps his face as straight and unaffected as possible even though he feels his cheeks burning in the darkness of his room. In one calculated and detached movement, he lowers his body down onto Feng Xin's, hovering slightly, not being able to commit to putting his whole weight down.

The night is quiet.

The stillness of it and the pulsing, steady warmth that emanates from below him swallows Mu Qing whole. It turns his mind sticky, thoughts coming slow, like oozing tree sap.

He has been made unbearably small.

He denies his limbs the relief of settling as a last-ditch effort to maintain a semblance of control.

Feng Xin clicks his tongue disapprovingly, and then there's an arm, heavy and firm, around Mu Qing's waist, and a hand at the back of his head, and then they're tugging and Mu Qing is pulled right up against Feng Xin's front. He makes a sound, certainly not a squeak, face ducking reflexively as to not headbutt Feng Xin's chin. The position puts him tucked close to the hollow of Feng Xin's throat. He smells strong here, like he might dab himself with fragranced oil when he readies for the day.

It's a heady scent, warm and spiced, mixed with the musk of a day's worth of sweat. Mu Qing should be disgusted, but instead he finds the scent infuriatingly calming. The tension in his limbs eases without permission and he finally sinks bodily against Feng Xin - defeated.

"Ah, now that's it. There we go, Mu Qing," Feng Xin praises, his voice not only a rough and rumbling sound that quiets Mu Qing's trembling heart, but a hot, steady warmth that caresses the shell of his ear and causes a new bloom of cherry-red flush to prickle down his neck and grow all the way down his chest.

"Not so hard, huh?"

[mohntilyet]

i’m having illario dellamorte thoughts. what if instead of knowingly betraying lucanis he did it like, unknowingly. idk how this would work but i’m intrigued by what it gives us. illario ‘i accidentally caused my cousin’s death & can never tell anyone’ dellamorte. genuinely grieving. blaming himself. does he take advantage of the year before lucanis comes back?? does caterina still ignore him the whole time?? how different is the canon plotline once rook shows up with lucanis post-rescue…..

anyways i would love your thoughts!!

95% of what i do with illario operates on the idea that he is frighteningly competent so you can see why the way the crows plotline plays out in the game might frustrate me. it’s also this reason why i don’t actually think too much about “illario got lucanis killed, but didn’t mean to do it”, because i like the idea that everything illario does in his life is planned to the second and that he’s too well trained to mess up this badly, if that makes sense. with that being said. 5% of my brain power does sometimes go towards “and what if he just sucked actually” and it was a theory i enjoyed before the game even released. so i have in fact been thinking about this anyway LOL . maybe he tries to honeypot zara, accidentally actually reveals lucanis’ next assassination job, and zara gets rid of him as a ‘gift’. illario is horrified and that gets even worse when lucanis’ body shows up, and he assumes this must be because he spurned zara by leaving her and not having the guts to seize power.

i think we could make his inferiority complex worse. illario’s worst fear confirmed: he is as worthless as his grandmother believes he is, botching something so badly that he accidentally sentences his cousin to death when what he wanted was lucanis just… out of the way for a bit (maybe while he kills caterina. LOL. i still think his resentment of caterina trumps his jealousy for lucanis though those two things are very intertwined its hard for him to differentiate them). so incapable that he got the only person who actually supports him killed, and now he’s dreading the idea of becoming first talon. he doesn’t want first talon without lucanis backing him, and now the only person left is caterina which is suffocating and makes him even unhappier. at least he hadn’t lived through her alone, and now through consequences of his own decisions, illario has no choice but to.

i think that would affect his plans for talon because of how horribly he’d fucked up, and tries to mask it because if he suddenly actually doesn’t want to be talon that would be a red flag for everyone. lucanis coming back would delight him (talon is within his sights again if lucanis comes back!) and freak him out. i think the plotline would actually be pretty similar because of this freak out, so he still shows up to zara’s fight to cover his tracks. lucanis can never know, caterina can never know, because what little faith they have in him will be lost. like he committed fratricide and didn’t even MEAN to😭 ...corpse whispering still happens, and zara is like “ohhh that coward. he can never finish what he started, can he?” + “elaborate.” + “i gave him what he most wanted in the world and instead of being grateful, he ran away.” so lucanis finds out about what happened but feels a mix of “illario, you idiot” + pity because turns out he didn’t even mean for it to happen, and keeps his secret for now, otherwise he’d probably have to kill him.

i also think not meaning to kill lucanis would sour his feelings towards the venatori, who are a reminder of how badly he failed, so the alliance wouldn’t happen. this does mean if the story goes on as it does in canon, he has to take desperate measures another way and kidnap caterina for some other reason but i can’t think of why….. maybe a thing where illario is like “ok. lucanis is distracted by the elven gods. this time i just have to kill nonna for real and then nothing is in my way” and recruits disgraced houses or houses that don’t like caterina to do so? not sure tbh but i don’t believe caterina made it so far without making enemies lol. this would happen post bloodbath + corpse whispering— lucanis leaves his cousin unchecked because while he knows illario didn’t mean for him to die, he has no idea how far he would go to have caterina dead. teia could find out about this and send word to foil the kidnapping and assassination attempt

so ‘murder of crows’ is still about saving caterina, the illario-lucanis fight still happens, but it’s a little more hesitant and lots of “why won’t you just let me kill her? i’m doing this for the both of us”. he’s had to live with being the un-favorite, but never would have thought lucanis would actually pick caterina if it came down to it. with all of his missteps here, i think the final decision (and i think it should be like this in canon anyway) would be to imprison illario or kill him. imprisoning him is just a lot of “i can’t kill illario as much as he couldn’t kill me”, vs killing him as is expected from him as talon, and what he knew he would have to do after finding out about illario's failures. unlike canon, where illario is actually meaning to kill him and can be seen as a 'good crow' despite the sloppiness, here he's like. just bad at everything. the allied traitor houses that went against caterina would also have to be imprisoned or killed. no happy ending at all here, and lucanis still becomes first talon. now that i’ve written it out this is actually probably the worst ending LOL

the above sticks a lot to what is canon to the game (plot points, choices, etc) and i didn’t go very far away from it so it's like canon 3 inches to the left. tho my thoughts on this are not fleshed out* because i think illario works better as an antagonist character that sets things in motion !! not necessarily the villain in a cain-abel story, but a character who opposes lucanis while still not wanting to hurt him. that kind of discipline where he finds a way to get what he wants (first talon) without compromising what he also cares for (family) is so much more fun for me than a man who apparently just loses it and decides to enact a bad plan to get rid of his cousin. if he waited 20+ years to become talon i think he’d be more careful when it came down to it. if i had my way illario would be playing insane 5d chess to rival solas (insert black sails “i once thought that to lead, to be liked was just as good as feared. and that may very well be true. but to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being.”)

[emi-the-gremlin]

Controversial take (maybe?)

I think we need more of mr. Payne being the good parent, like don’t get me wrong I adore all the good Mrs. Payne fics (definitely check out that tag) but she’s the only one who’s actually been described negatively, parenting wise.

Not to mention it also just balances out the group, Charles has daddy issues, Crystal has parental issues, so therefore it stands to reason that Edwin has mommy issues, right?

[junewongapologia]

The fact is tho that no matter how you look at it, no matter how insufferable she is, no matter how Out Of Touch, regardless of whether she’s doing herself no favours: Eloise is right about society and just about everyone else in the show is wrong.

Like, she’s not got the full picture, she’s blinkered and her political philosophy is not very in depth or well thought out. But she’s right, and I think that’s why a lot of people watching really don’t like her because she’s breaking the illusion. All in all, the 1810s were a shit time to be alive for most people, and you can “well actually” it all you like, but the Luddite movement existed for a reason, the Chartists existed for a reason, Porto-feminist writers like Wollstonecraft and de Gouges wrote what they did for a reason.

So when you keep being reminded that it was a terrible social order for women - in a show targeted mainly towards women for escapist purposes then that character is going to come across as irritating, because she’s ruining the immersion.

Really, her attitude isn’t more anachronistic than the dresses, or the hairdos, or the diamond necklaces (men and women had been advocating women’s right to vote since before Eloise was born, lads), but it’s a problem because people are watching the show for the sweeping romances and the general regency vibe, they don’t want to think about how the regency was for most people. Which inevitably leads to some incredible projection, when watchers of a show with the central conceit of only being interested in the love lives of the top one percent of the one percent of the British aristocracy acting as though Eloise is the only privileged person on the show.

And yeah, she is better off than most of the people who exist in all of Regency Britain (though if you were to take the show as read, Britain is made up of about 70% aristocracy, 1% gentry, 5% urban bourgeoisie and 24% urban workers), but she’s the only one whose privilege is harped on out of her whole family and social circle. 99% of the speaking characters in the show come from a posher background than Beau fucking Brummell.

And! Eloise is literally just about the only main character who ever has to question her privilege! And when she is in season 2 she doesn’t throw a shitfit, she’s willing to learn! She goes out of her way to hear perspectives that she wouldn’t have heard in her social circle! But the narrative punishes her for that, and that’s because for all the criticism she gets about needing her privilege checked, they don’t actually want her to learn, they just want her to shut up and enjoy the trappings of regency decadence as much as they do.

Also - I know it’s really fashionable to rag on “pick-mes” and “Not Like Other Girls” - but actually, no, “traditional femininity” has never been socially unacceptable for women the way being GNC is, and it is in fact ruthlessly socially enforced against GNC women, even more so in the 1810s. Eloise is a teenaged girl in a society that stigmatises her for her wish for more legal autonomy, the idea that she’s somehow the villain for not being able to enjoy “feminine” hobbies without seeing them as just another element of the way women’s education is trivialised as ornamental, is farcical. “Sewing is a valuable and useful skill” so is cooking, but there’s a reason my mam, and not my dad, had home economics lessons, and that reason is still misogyny, despite the fact that it set her up better for being able to operate independently as an adult.

Idk I’m just kind of uncomfortable that in a world of rising reactionary political sentiment towards women, and this seemingly increasingly re-normalised view that women need to be wives and homemakers, people feel that the person on the show who needs to do the most introspection regarding their politics is an eighteen-year-old who is vocal about the fact that she has limited legal rights, and not any of the adult men in the show (a lot of whom probably have seats in the Upper House!!!) who never mention politics at all.

And frankly, given the shower who were Having Political Opinions in the long eighteenth century, Eloise’s brand of semi-anachronistic protofeminism is infinitely preferable to Hannah “I refuse to teach the poor how to write in my schools” More, or Edmund “don’t read my big thesis on revolutions too closely it’s definitely not all lies and junk history” Burke, or even a load of prominent members of the Bluestocking Society.