#mostly vague ones
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**Contains character/worldbuilding info that is slowly revealed over the course of Witch King, but no big plot spoilers**
Witch King was the first non-Murderbot book by Martha Wells that I've read, so I spent a lot of it playing "Spot the Murderbot Parallels." They're very different books in style & content but there's also lots of of fun little things that reminded me of Murderbot. (I'm curious how many of these are Wells trademarks that show up in Raksura or her other books, but I don't have any other points of comparison). I kept a running list while I was reading, and most of them ended up being related to the respective protagonists, so without further ado:
Similarities between Murderbot & Kai
Villain-coded protagonists
Set apart from “mortals”/“humans”
And also exist somewhat between two worlds/two different kinds of being
And also are somewhat unique and alone among beings like them because of their choices/circumstances
Very dangerous to go up against as an individual, but also very much in danger themselves from larger societal/political forces and spend a lot of time on the run or hiding who they are
Fewer physical limitations (don’t need to breathe as much, can heal/repair, not slowed down by injury or pain)
Have the ability to become disembodied and occupy different “hardware” (ES gunship and 2.0, Kai’s body swapping and travel between the underearth and upper earth)
Also have telepathy (the feed) allowing private/secret communication, detecting people from far away, and sharing of senses
Touch is significant to them and associated trust/intimacy (although it sort of works in different directions for the two of them)
Despite all the politics happening around them, their driving force is “keep my people safe” (Kai uses the phrase “my mortals” at one point which made me very happy, and getting his found family back together is what drives the plot)
Use pain magic / self sacrifice to protect others (Making the decision "not to be like them" even at personal cost to self, more of a vague theme than a specific thing but I think they have this in common. this could probably be its own whole post tbh)
But also very willing to murder people when necessary in self defense, pursuit of goals, or occasionally sheer anger
“If they hurt my human(s) I will murder everyone”
Bonus: other similarities with the Murderbot books
Casual brownness and queerness and polyamory!!
Switching to very matter of fact writing style for effect, often when describing violence/emotion (Wells is really good at deploying this at just the right moment and it was so cool to see it in literally the first chapter of Witch King)
Worldbuilding elements are dropped in without ever being explained for the convenience of the reader (what exactly is the feed? what exactly is a cursebreaker? who knows)
There's clearly a huge world full of culture and politics and history and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg
Oddly specifically, there's a lot of different conflicting calendar systems (none of which are ever explained, obviously)
and finally, even more oddly specifically:
Chapter Four of Witch King 🤝 Chapter One of Network Effect Protagonist sneaks onto a boat and then beats up the people on it
#murderbot#witch king#witch king spoilers#mostly vague ones#stars has thoughts#me reading ch4 of witch king: is this a boat fight. martha wells do you just really like boat fights#there is arguably at least one more fight on a boat later in the book. possibly several depending on how you count#i may end up making the whole post about the pain magic & self sacrifice if i can make my thoughts coherent enough
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Hacaea, the Witch of the Woodland Green and Grimore, the Witch of the Wild Hunt
(@worldsbeyondpod has me pacing and fearing for the pcs lives)
#was gonna do all four but then i felt like splitting it up#worlds beyond number#wbn#the wizard the witch and the wild one#the coven of elders#wwwo#wbnpod#grimore said free the nipple#cw blood#cw gore#cw partial nudity#fun fact: hacaea's outfit is vaguely inspired by the fulani hat worn by the wodaabe in west africa#i say vaguely bec its mostly the silhouette and the turban#covering something in moss tends to obscure any real detail#anyway will get mirara and indri next#ribbittrobbit#character design
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ULTRATOBER /// EIGHTH CHARACTER DESIGN SWAP
I did, in fact, draw their faces but wasn't 100% sure if that conveyed "angel" enough so I gave them upside-down masks. But here they are uncovered.
#Ultrakill#Ultratober#Ultratober2024#Mannequin Ultrakill#In my mind they're greater angels. Hence being humanoid but also kinda buglike because the terminal mentions them to be vaguely animal shap#Granted we haven't seen any greater angels so it's mostly just bullshitted#Also in case it wasn't clear the cracks on the right mannequin are meant to resemble chest feminization scars. Idk if it reads#Hrokkall sketch#Admittedly this one was a little rushed but I still wanted to post it because I liked the concept. Quality only goes down from here folks!
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Lil Nowhere King-themed mini doodle dump! 🦌🧁
#the 'expression sheet' was mostly me playing around w/ his eyes- I like the thought that they'd be v expressive and maybe even a bit toony#(some of that centaurworld DNA peeking through)#I hope the bloody one isn't too edgy LMAO#it's vaguely from an angsty AU where the general succeeds in recapturing him#anyway this is mostly old art and some busts that I touched up marginally but I wanted to post smth#I finished a zine piece/comm recently and we finally started selling the pins-#I thought I'd be super excited to rush back to personal projects but I've been struggling a bit w/ inspo and idk why#the nowhere king#centaurworld#guest-starring nowhere bbs#my art#cw blood
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Sephardic Jews from Thessaloniki in their traditional costumes, in the city’s old cemetery, before the war // a contemporary photo that shows where the destroyed cemetery once was, which is now Greece's largest university, built partially on top of and with land and materials (particularly tombstones) stolen from the razed site.
Thessaloniki or Salonika, once referred to as “the Jerusalem of the Balkans” due to its Ladino-speaking Jewish majority, saw roughly 96% of its Jewish population murdered during the Holocaust. This mass destruction extended to the city's Jewish cemetery, which had been the country's largest, established in the 15th century and housing hundreds of thousands of Jewish graves until its razing by city authorities who had long desired to repurpose the land and resented the inconvenience of Jewish presence. Despite its large-scale destruction during German occupation in 1942, which was initiated and carried out primarily by Thessaloniki authorities with Nazi consent and arrangement, some parts of the cemetery survived intact as late as 1947. Many tombstones were subsequently appropriated and used by city authorities and the Greek Orthodox Church. After the war, people were still carrying away Jewish gravestones each day and regularly looting the cemetery in search of valuables. The city's officials, led by their mayor, completed the cemetery's destruction and sold the tombstones to contractors for use as building materials in various projects; as such many were and are still found in various walls, roads, structures, and churches around the city. A 1992 commemorative book pictures Greek schoolgirls playing Hamlet with skulls and other bones they found in the cemetery.
“[T]he ‘rape’ of the cemetery escalated, marble flooded the market, and its price plummeted. Jewish tombstones were stacked up in mason’s yards and, with the permission of the director of antiquities of Macedonia and overseen by the metropolitan bishop and the municipality, used to pave roads, line latrines, and extend the sea walls; to construct pathways, patios, and walls in private and public spaces though out the city, in suburbs such as Panorama and Ampelokipi, and more than sixty kilometers away in beach towns in Halkidiki, where they decorated playgrounds, bars, and restaurants in hotels; to build a swimming pool – with Hebrew-letter inscription visible; to repair the St. Demetrius Church and other buildings...” Devin Naar, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece
Most of the efforts to return found tombstones throughout the city are led by Jews, particularly Jacky Benmayor, the curator of the Jewish Museum and last Ladino speaker in Greece, who has personally recovered hundreds of tombstones including his own family's. Surviving Greek Jews never received compensation for the confiscation of the land under the destroyed cemetery, upon which now partially rests Greece's largest university, Aristotle University, which also used Jewish gravestones as building material for its long-coveted expansion finally made possible by the dispossession and annihilation of the city's Jews. In 2014, 72 years after the cemetery's destruction and appropriation, a small memorial was established on campus grounds to acknowledge the Jewish cemetery the school is built on and with; the ceremony just 10 years ago involved the first-ever acknowledgement of the atrocities and apology from a Thessaloniki mayor. The memorial has been vandalised multiple times since its establishment.
#jumblr#jewish#jewish history#jewish photography#sephardic#holocaust#salonika#my posts#greece#don't feel very coherent about this one. doesn't a country's biggest university being built on and with jewish graves just say it all#72 years of silence and then a small memorial subject to frequent vandalism btw#this is the 'compensation' greek jews got#from an annihilation that didn't even spare the dead. a near-total obliteration of life and memory#the memorial pisses me off a little bc it's deliberately vague about very key local participation in these atrocities#reading it you wouldn't know they were mostly driven by local authorities; just facilitated and finally made possible by the nazis#but I do think about what it says a lot:#'but people were not enough. they wanted to kill the memory too.'#and wasn't that true? of both nazis and neighbors?#I really recommend devin naar's work for anyone further interested in this subject
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sometimes you sound bit too mean, it happens
it was Supposed to be in colour, and them the bw version Just Looked better
this is mostly based on this meme
#biggest thanks to the person in the discord who just i guess had this screenshot On Hands?? i would not be able to find it#kinda feel like im burning out with art#should take a rest probably#isat#in stars and time#is this spoilers??? probably not??? maybe??? will tag in case#isat spoilers#isat siffrin#isat isabeau#is mostly there as eye candy#any one of the party members could be there#the attitudes would be different tho#i like having at least a vague sense of blackstory for things like this so isa has just finished shopping for fabricks#a long and arduous process in my experience#i feel so bad that i cant draw stylish clothes isa deserves better but i am supremely unfashionable#my art#comic
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Still thinking about just how deep in it Liliana Temult is. Like in the eyes of the narrative she went from
absent & possibly dead, very sad -> alive just estranged?? mysterious! -> possibly involved in a cult, tragic, can her daughter reach her? -> uncomfortably high up in said cult -> the cult's goddamn General and striking such terror into the local population of the Ruidus that they are afraid of even her appearance or someone who looks like her
Ordinary people who are trying to resist the dictatorial Imperium/Ruby Vanguard alliance and their iron control of the populace are terrified of her. You don't strike terror just by "being there". Terror happens because of actions. And it leaves us to wonder what exactly Liliana Temult has done during her time on the moon to make the citizens fear her so much.
#all of this has happened so fast#but I wonder whether Imogen mourns the version of her (dead/vanished) mother that she held in her mind#the one who was ostensibly good in that way children hope their lost loved ones to be (or at least not full ham evil)#Liliana has at times given off this vague air of regret - mostly regarding Imogen like 'i wish it wasn't like this but it is'#but in general that all this violence and terrorizing Ruidus and killing all the gods - it's unfortunate but part of the Greater Purpose#and that makes her all the more detestable tbh#she sees and understands and maybe even empathizes with those that have been or will be hurt by this campaign for Predathos#and has decided that it's still necessary. unfortunate but necessary. this sort of quiet and awful conviction#the kind of person who will hurt you while telling you it's for your own good and it's better this way#cr spoilers#c3e88#critical role#liliana temult#op
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sunshowers
🧢 🔶 a franco colapinto x lando norris fic 🌆 a sunset, from franco's pov ✏️ 2.1k words, rated g 🔗 read on ao3
preview
Lando, for his part, seems content to study the horizon. He used to talk so much, in every video, haphazard energy to fill the silence. These days, it seems he is happier to play the part of a wizened, if a bit eccentric, sage. “How are you finding it? Like. Everything,” Lando asks. Franco does not look at him, but they are both looking at the clouds. “It is… a lot. It’s everything I ever wanted. And it’s all happening so fast.” “Completely understandable. It’s like, it’s normal, and you’re nobody, until you’re… not? And everyone wants a piece of you. And it’s nice, people, like, knowing your name and stuff. When it’s new. I��d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.” “Do you still like it?” Franco glances over at the other driver. Lando doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he leans back on his palms, and tilts his face upwards as if to soak in the surreal, sundrenched sky.
and! thank you @ocontraire for the readthrough !!
taglist for those who wanted to read it... @rigmarole-07 @redbulldotgov @lovelylotusf1 @jusst-you-race @lyslsstuff @daughter-of-aphrodite
#lando norris#franco colapinto#ln4#fc43#norapinto#norpinto#frando#f1 rpf#f1 fanfiction#franco colapinto x lando norris#formula one rpf#formula one fanfiction#formula one fanfic#wiz.writing#this was meant to be fluff but whatever i do it ends up vaguely in the direction of wistful so idk#but hey that's the Wiz Special idk#let me be#trust a rarepair to yank me back to writing eh#IT'S MOSTLY HAPPY THO !!!!
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Luffy steals everyones clothes like the little shit he is
Anytime someone can't find a piece of clothing they just automatically know it's Luffy and aren't shocked to see him running around in that particular article of clothing
They let him, they think it's cute, endearing, and amusing
Seeing luffy running around in overalls that he rolls up to not trip over the legs, Hawaiian shirts that fall off his shoulders when he runs, spotted jeans he complains are too tight but keeps stealing
#monkey d. luffy#one piece#trafalgar law#roronoa zoro#nami#usopp#sanji#nico robin#franky#tony tony chopper#soul king brook#jimbei#mugiwara pirates#this is intended to be#lawlu#lulaw#and also vaguely#luffy x everyone#but mostly lawlu
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see the issue is i have a long history of obsessing over duos who have committed their lives to the cause (and each other) so finding out that zoro and luffy met by chance bc luffy heard about a demon pirate hunter (who would call luffy a son of the devil), and were brought together by their dreams/aspirations and an underlying current of goodness that ran in their blood, and within a few weeks time they were speaking nonverbally, had inside jokes, and were on the same wavelength of stupid..... and zoro became such a loyal and devoted first mate that he would follow luffy to hell if need be/would die for him..... has completely rotted my brain. they win
#one piece#opla#mostly thinking about the anime. have NOT been able to watch too much but I have been reading so many spoilers lmao#cannot help myself#zolu#(vaguely)?? platonically?? in love??#monkey d luffy#roronoa zoro
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didnt plan on posting this today originally but decided that it actually fits really well with the beginning of the spooky season, so!
a fake doai movie poster inspired by posters for movies 'a short film about love' and 'on the silver globe', both by andrzej pągowski! and just for fun i also made a version with a shoddy polish title, how authentic am i right
#doodlesoup#doai#dreams of an insomniac#pastra#pastraspec#i love tags cause i can share additional stuff here while not feeling like im rambling too much#anyway lankmanns 'eyes' are actually the sun and moon and im mentioning it mostly cause i feel like it aint really obvious..#theyre both out cause i wanted the landscape of eastridge to look more surreal. one could almost say.. you know.. like a dream#one of an insomniac even#also to anyone curious the pl title is “town of hallucinations”#i had to get a little creative since the word 'insomniac' doesnt quite exist in polish#so i decided to keep the general vague vibe of the original title while trying to allude to the actual story#i also wanted to make it a little cringey and weird since thats how most of translated titles are i feel#in that sense its also inspired by the pl title of the fnaf movie which is basically “five nightmarish nights”#questionable but kinda charming yknow?#anyway im stopping the yapping session here lmao can yall tell im really autistic about translations?
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reminder that Neil Gaiman has been accused of sexual abuse by five (5) women
#neil gaiman#good omens#crowley#aziraphale#aziracrow#the sandman#the ocean at the end of the lane#coraline#my post#making this mostly because someone actually found out about neil gaiman from my last vague text posts#and that's absolutely on us not being more vocal about this#one time online activism could actually change things and we did nothing god i really thought we were better than this
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You are without doubt the worst rogue cultivator I’ve ever heard of. Ah. But you have heard of me.
Some Mobei-jun/rogue cultivator!Shen Yuan brainrot—thanks to @neonghostcat I can no longer separate SY from the guandao 😭 (thank you from the bottom of my heart)
#svsss#mobei jun#shen yuan#moshen#svsss art#my art#I mostly just threw these together for the ✨aesthetics✨#stupid!pretty+deadly!pretty#but I’m kinda liking this alternate possibility?#some cultivator going around making friends with/taming demonic beasts he has no jurisdiction over#and the demon realm being all ?????#if anything this dweeb should be killing/exorcising these creatures?? but he’s just making them his pets???#MBJ is the one stuck investigating him and#*flailing and vague noises*#idk#fic ideas#that will prob fail to ever appear#if any brave soul wishes to try their hand let me know!!#I’d love to see other ppl’s takes on this weird ship
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litany of the martyrs (click for better resolution!)
#at some point i wanted to make an illustration for each character but in retrospect maybe each is multiple song-coded..#drew the sketch for a quincy thing after a chat with a mutual reminded me this song existed dfsghjkl and then spent weeks rendering this#quincy cynthius martin#adamandi#i'm finally done with this! the saints especially were joys to paint and the halo a menace.... this has been the most ambitious one so far.#but it also took quite long because i only worked on it <engages with quincy> when mentally okay to deal with the themes. i'm not religious#but i do identify with the irrational(?ish) guilt + family legacy + academic achievement + disregard for self. also more complex thoughts#about love [but depsite quincent being a large part of quincy's character this piece deals with mostly the Rest of it. so another time..]#anyways! in the original sketch- the saints had heads bent towards quincy so the halo spikes pointed at him. but this worked better! halos#of the saints implying/creating one for quincy was a concept from the start though. in the show they don't touch him directly here but#differences in mediums i think- i don't have time in an image to craft a narrative so everything has to be happening. also artistic liberty#misc inspiration for this includes stained glass windows. i might have maybe misinterpreted the saint costume but i think i logic-ed it out#as the cloth part following a nun's habit w the hood. and then halo above. the material is also more transparent originally but i had. um.#too much fun painting fabric folds.. if you look closely you can see the basis of faces though behind the cloth; but only the vague shapes#because smth obscurity + inhumanness// cassian is the only one i gave a mouth though. that stems from melliot's post about the saints and#st cassian as spokesperson (<- did research teehee!) that's also how i found out which costume = which saint. speaking of which.#left to right: 'st lucy take my hand' // 'st lawrence give me strength' (presses quincy forward; but hand on shoulder connotates guidance)#/'st cassian help me smile' (quincy's mouth is btwn a grimace and a smile; tilts up at side. also no direct touch bc added insidiousness.)#//'st jude [...] i hope your causes burn' (jude's hand is in two places to show movement- nearing the flame and then snatching back; burnt)#other notes: at the midst of the flame the core is shaped like a human heart /the saints and their wax are all melting like the candle for#fun visual effect and also this way they are even less tangible <real>. perks of painting as a medium i guess. // also insp from icarus?#wax and burning imagery; looking at the halo and rays as parallel to sun that burns. too close to the sun; melting; hurting; hurtling //#candles at bottom are a nod to the frankly gorgeous set// also the entire composition kind of stems from the lyric <what use is a candle if#both ends aren't burning>; the two sides between the concepts of catholic guilt and academic perfection that spur quincy#the halo above (saints and guilt; litanyofthemartyrs) and the 'halo' below (academic papers; insp from choreo for perfect at school)#the papers were originally supposed to be more glowy. but i like the idea of it now being a reflection of how quincy's priorities shift#also of note is that <candle> in centre = quincy; w burning candle + aforementioned heart in flame -> most human; idea of love + passion#last thoughts: kneeling + hands close tgt = prayer //wax dripping onto the red As make an effect that looks like blood. because i like#hiding that within the adamandi pieces :OO continuity!! // i've run out of tags but yeah! had fun with this one! every so often i go a#little insane in making art and the final result astounds even me. ngl i'm quite proud of this one. pretty colours <3333
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did someone say sulla and his harem of guys.
(from left to right: pompey, metellus pius, crassus, sulla, lucullus)
#my art#posting this in the middle of the night when no one is online cause i just finished it but. i will reblog it again later whatever#i did something different with my sulla this time based him more on the coin portrait#i think my favorite face in this is metellus i just like his expression#since we dont know what he looked like this is mostly based on my vague recollection of the metellus image in masters of rome cause#i like it. you also get blonde pompey because of masters of rome I KNOWW controversial take but he has blonde man vibes to me so.#crassus is based on the old man maybe-crassus statue i tried to like. de-age it and based the face off that. crassus was by FAR the hardest#to like. decide on what he should look like but im alright with this crassus#lucullus is just kind of vibes based every lucullus Take ive seen has him with sort of a long thin face and i like that so. i kinda took#that into the rest of him & made him tall and thin .#oh Also . ive always interpreted sullas 'red and white complexion' as rosacea so thats the take. this drawing sadly not really my sexiest#sulla though. ill draw him again sometime. and he Will be sexier next time if i can help it.
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[WIP] Some more updates!!!
I've been quiet recently, but got a bunch of stuff in the works for y'all!!
I'm still working on those paper puppets for a little project regarding intertwined opposites (Possibly one of the most ambitious things I've ever worked on so far) and found a proper way to introduce that new au I'm working on!!
Here are two more paper puppets for the big pmv
And a few sneak peaks for the new au!!
(Doodles+notes alongside a silly little meme with a sprite edit of pewpaw)
I'm working on an info post for it, progress has been slow however since I wanna prioritize the pmv again (Started it on june, stagnated a long period, and went back to work on it. I'm dead set on finishing it this summer AND stubborn/silly).
[Personal reminder: Beetle stop starting wips when you're already busy/silly]
#Another note here#Intertwines opposites is by far my most fleshed out au whfbebf#I've started to lose interest in storybook recently#mostly because I can't think out new story beats and lack motivation#so I've set it aside for now to work on something fresh#I like character focus and more simple narratives hsrbwbfb#Intertwined Opposites has one but I'm still figuring out a story line for this other one here#won't spoil but it's revolving around statements and misteries#I don't think it'll have a proper conclusion either...mayhaps....#Maybe up to interpretation or more vague if I give it a “”ending“”#There isn't a conflict in the first place shfhdhf it's much more simple in concept#that's all I'm gonna say for now#/silly#beetle's ramblings#cookie run kingdom#pure vanilla cookie#crk au#intertwined opposites au#- .- .--. . ... - .-. -.-- .----. ... / .-- .. ... .--. . .-. ... au#I'll give y'all a little hint#ok I'll stop rambling now gsbeugjdhg#beetle's art#white lily cookie
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