#my skills have failed me

[funtergeist]

my little omens :]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Siffrin plays Disco Elysium AU: Featuring backseat gamer Loop.

[dreadfuldevotee]

petty gripe but the bad-faith reading of Armand that most annoys me is when people say "the dick is mid". Ma'am. Madame. One thing a man with Armand's background will be left with, for better or worse, is knowing his way around a bedroom. You really think Louis would hang around an immortal theater kid polycule longer than five seconds for mid dick?? Like...people who are ultimately incompatible can still have a good time folding each other into origami

THANK YOU!!!! Armand didn't go through all of this shit to be bad in bed. Being undesirable or a bad lover is literally never a problem for him. In fact!! Most of his issues stem from people being unable to be normal about how into him they are.

Plus, real facts on Louis. If the sex was bad he wouldn't have been running around for a year n' a half calling Armand everything but his boyfriend. LDPDL has stuck through a lot of -ish, but putting up with boring sex is not one of them. If Loumand got absolutely nothing else out of their relationship, they were getting off

[shorthaltsjester]

i do not want to dig a hole but i am too much of a laura bailey pc enjoyer to not make this post so:

selfishness ≠ a lack of kindness 

selfishness is a theme that has come up with all of laura's main campaign pcs. that doesn't mean that her characters are always making selfish choices or that they don't care about the rest of the people they're with or that they're not good. it's just that, for the most part, the first thing they're thinking of when they take action or make choices is themselves. 

in jester and vex both it is more typical and obvious selfishness. vex's developed because she needed it to keep herself and vax alive and as safe as possible and it grew into a behaviour that she had to actively work to avoid. it's evident in her greed, her theft of the broom, her reaction to her own death which relied heavily on i'm okay/i survived to which keyleth reminded her that she wasn't the only one who had to witness and reckon with her death. in jester's case, she grew up in an environment that literally trained her to make every decision based on two things - her mother's opinion and her own. so, when she's out in the world without marion for the first time, her choices are those that will benefit her and her actions are those that consider her own thoughts and not really many others' (aside from the traveler's). 

it isn't a criticism of either vex or jester to say that they are characters who act selfishly. in fact, i'd argue that to claim otherwise does a great disservice to exactly how immense both of their character arcs are. because the nuance of both jester and vex is that they are selfish, and they also hold extreme room for self-sacrifice and empathy. vex is much more brash than jester is, and jester is much more trusting than vex, but both of them are characters who begin with selfish impulses who grow with them. neither ever truly shed those impulses, but they use them in new ways, typically transforming them into impulses towards things that are in the best interest of the party. 

you may have noticed the lack of imogen in this post about laura bailey pcs and that's because of two reasons. one, we are an unknown amount of time into her story, i can't analyse her development the same way i can vex and jester's. two, imogen's selfishness isn't the blatant quasi-self-aware selfishness that we see in things like jester complaining about her lack of money to caleb or vex stealing a broom. instead, imogen's is very internal, like a lot of laura's character work with imogen. it is a bit similar to jester’s in the sense that it comes from a lack of awareness moreso than vex’s practiced behaviour, but imogen’s is a lot more tied to inherent beliefs she has about the world and the people in it.

as a consequence of her powers, imogen sees people's thoughts as their entirety, she holds it above their actions to be the truth of who they are - to act against what they think or to say something that doesn’t cohere with what they’ve thought is akin to lying, so for her to act empathetically is to act in tandem with what someone else’s thoughts are, not how they act, which is typically not all that wanted. the same as vex’s greed and jester’s naivety, this is a trait that makes narrative sense and it’s one i find quite compelling, especially when read in the vein of someone struggling through trauma that has made them assume that the world is against them. imogen’s cynicism is coherent cynicism, i can’t say that in a similar situation i wouldn’t have the same predisposition towards the world.

the part that is particularly self-interested comes in if you look at how imogen has actually been treated in the campaign (quite well) in comparison to the cynicism that she’s developed from her past (something that speaks to a world out to get her). certainly, a bunch of shitty things have happened to imogen in the time we’ve known her, but the same can be said for everyone in bell’s hells and pretty much everyone in exandria at this point in time. but, in a fight to save the aforementioned world, imogen’s focus was getting her mother back on her side. which, while very consistent with her character and a choice that i enjoy, is a very selfish one. the fun thing (to me, obviously) about imogen is that she has, more than most, an insight into the opinions of others and she also tends to seek others’ opinions out and genuinely engages with them and supports their choices. but she still very much acts towards what she thinks is best. it’s one reason i enjoy looking at the dynamic between her and orym as one between foils, as orym tends to be stalwart in his beliefs and doesn’t care too much for other’s opinions if he’s already sure of his own, but his actions tend to favour collaboration and protecting others.

as i mentioned earlier, imogen is a harder case to look at because she is still in the process of her story. however, the circlet is clearly influencing how she interacts with the world and in the wake of the solstice, the hostile reaction towards ruidusborn people has started to become more and more apparent and i’m interested to see what route that ends up leading imogen down and how it will influence her relationship with the rest of bell’s hells. (for better, i think, based on recent conversations, but if it's for worse i will be just as seated and excited).

all of this is just to say, please stop assuming that claiming a character has a trait you think is a bad one is criticism or a hate post. in light of the fact that i know that people who don’t believe this will continue to not believe this, i’ll encourage anyone confused about the ability of a character to be good and kind and selfish all at once to look to what the text itself says, specifically scanlan’s words to pelor when asked what vex means to him:

“Her name is Vex, and she is greedy and mean sometimes, and she can steal a lot. She’s a little bit not the greatest person, but her flaws highlight everything that is right about her, which is she does all these things to protect her friends and her family. She would give her life for any of us and for anyone who was truly in need. And she’s not perfect but she’s the most perfect of all of us.”

would you look at that... an ability to be a multitude of things, some in conflict with one another. i know that's hard for fandoms to believe, especially about female characters with agency, but i promise its true!

[francesderwent]

something that I think the “have fun and be yourself” discourse tends to miss is that it’s all very well saying do whatever you want and don’t worry about what people think because the people who judge you aren’t worth your time, but sometimes you choose to act normal because you have a task to do or you’re in a conversation that you care about, and having to stop in the middle for your interlocutor to say bewilderedly “but why did you do that in such a quirky way” would be wasting time and getting off topic. choosing to act normal to avoid that is not being inauthentic out of unhealthy fear of censure. it’s just prudence.

[zaacoy]

revamping my rendering process because I want to add more color and messiness into my work except I have no idea what I'm doing and twt is making me anxious SO! I'm putting my attempts here!!!

Here is tang because he is bbg💕

[holoscout]

another day another fern and jermaine sketch dump whats upppp

[zoobus]

Fantasizing about going no contact with my extended family, not because of abuse or anything but because they're annoying and I dislike feeling obligated to return even superficial pleasantries with them once a month

[steelthroat]

I'm printing a bunch of copies of Climber(totallynotoptimus)'s design. My markers are ready, and that's how I'm gonna spend the afternoon! Wuhuuu!

[wormchaser]

you are complaining about complaining too much while complaining about the fact that maybe people dont like you because you complain too much while complaining about being alone. just stop complaining and do something about it. talk to people. reach out. dont just wait for someone to come to you first.

i have tried reaching out to different people in the past year or so but it never works. i understand its my own fault for letting relationships decay because of my own insecurities and issues but that doesn't mean i can just will myself to think or believe different things about myself. it's a self fulfilling prophecy ; i think people don't like me so i don't reach out so people don't like me etc . i am sure you do not want to hear me list all the things i want to say in response so i will put them in the tags.

[americankimchi]

i have a few more planned playthroughs of bg3 i wanna do before i think i'll be burned out

currently playing: resist durge OoA paladin romancing astarion

future planned playthroughs:

full send durge war cleric or dragon sorcerer romancing minthara

cleric of selune romancing shadowheart

literally anyone with halsin. anyone. i do not care i need 2 kiss that man or i will die i think

honor mode 🫡

[corvid-language-library]

I really wish I could draw. I don't want to have to learn; I don't have time with all the other shit I want/have to do in my life and I'm too damned impatient to sit through hour after gruelling hour of only being able to produce absolute garbage that looks nothing like how I was hoping. I just want to be able to draw the characters I have in my head.

Alas, it is a skill that has to be learned, like everything else. Goddammit.

[jackyjackdraws]

@forduary week 3: Insomnia

College hitting me like

[pumpkinrootbeer]

Things I think about all the time regarding Peter B is how a lot of his movement feels almost like laziness but it's actually just an absurd amount of skill and experience. he's been doing this longer than anyone else there, so he knows how that villain speech is going to play out, doesn't look when he fires a web because he knows exactly where it's going to land, and he's absolutely able to predict where Miles is going to go and catch up to him when no one else can. because peter b has been at this longer than everyone else there and it's literally second nature to him. give me more middle aged experienced superheros please.

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

sorry for only saying this type of shit lately but i kinda wanna drive a car straight into a brick wall at the highest speed possible

[dukeofthomas]

BTAS Batman feels like a normal human who's really trained and skilled and manages to pull off amazing feats

Comics Batman just feels like a superpowered human