#one of their best characters hands down

[kumakuma-circus]

i've been slacking on posting these. here's some silliness.

[l1-b1]

If I don’t draw Nya within every 24 hours, I go insane

[harpoonsnotspoons]

Boy why are you so fucking green. And dead. And jealous

[girlishwhimsies]

i love looking at hot takes and realizing that some outsiders fans don’t realize that fandom is something fun. nothing is truly that serious at the end of the day.

[draw-the-squad-like-this]

Draw your characters like this! (src)

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[eosofspades]

i admit i only really notice this because it's just one of my favorite niche tropes but i think it's fun how strickler multiple times refers to trolls he dislikes as dogs. "not a very good guard dog, is he?" abt draal, directly "you are a dog, and this [the ring] is your leash" to angor rot, etc

[bsotted]

ok well. unfortunate news: sometimes ur niche is so niche u've already niched the niche. this is exactly the same as the feeling of hitting the end of ur ship tag in ao3 🥲

*edit: sorry i accidentally named like every character ever in the tags so ppl are Seeing this post who dont have the benefit of so much as a single crumb of context. if i accidentally namedropped ur blorbo its bc of this post:

anyway. i was excited for recs bc i also enjoy this genre of fictional character. unfortunately as above the niche is niched, it turns out. at least for me, content enjoyer georg, who has apparently already seen or read everything anyone else has already seen or read except for a small handful of specific media properties that i do not wish to see or read for various personal reasons and also not literally everything ever... just the same things as everyone else has already seen and read... u get the idea. ok thnks 👍🏻

[outer-edges]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D s4 e15 - Self Control "It took four years, but I think Marvel's Agents of SHIELD may have finally achieved near perfection." - Marc Buxton, Den of Geek

[charmwasjess]

I want you to know I’m a sucker for slice of life looks into master + padawan dynamics and your fics (especially sitting in the dark and rabbit heart) have changed my life. They were so good and had me so enamored that I told my dad about them. You have incredible talent and I’m so grateful that you share it with us ❤️

Anon, I'm fucking crying. ❤️

This is what every author dreams of hearing about their work, and your ask hit me on a particularly bad day where it was such an incredible gift. Slice-of-life stories in the pre-prequel era can be a strange to write because they're not always dramatic or sexy like an AU or fix-it, they don't explicitly change the looming doom on the horizon, but they're still so important to me, and I'm just so very touched you have gotten something out of my stories.

[onyourstageleft]

I'm going to be a certified library professional in a few short weeks, I have a solid understanding of the need to read broadly and should have a strong personal commitment to doing so, but more often than not, I end up reading fanfic for the one relatively obscure YA universe that has engrained itself into my very being rather than reading literally anything else and I don't know how to feel about it

[pebblezone]

[zannolin]

real talk i actually do put like. an unreasonable amount of effort into my textpost memes behind the scenes so it's actually really rewarding to get to share them thanks for putting up with my antics

[buckys-arm-and-rios-dagger]

Wild that the Russos are responsible for both the best and worst movies in the MCU

[mlp-natural]

fuck of desitel ponies for tday

[leonardoeatscarrots]

Sometimes I forget that I made a Puppet History parody for a presentation in my forensics class about the Rasputin Assasination

Obviously it was dramatized to some extent due to attempting to make it appealing to the audience and dealing with time restrictions

And it was, in fact, apeshit hilarious

The script was 100% written by me, but I'd still like to go back and tweak it a bit so I can give a Lil presentation to my buddies