#queen of light

[tranquil-artxst]

The idea of a Child of Light x Baldur's Gate 3 crossover has been plaguing my mind for the last couple of weeks so I wanted to get some sketches out in between comic projects

(Close-ups below the cut!)

[ahsokalegend]

One of my favorite choices the Apothecary Diaries made was making the Emperor a “normal guy” (as far as I know as an anime-only). He’s not evil. He’s not hindering Mao Mao’s journey. He respects the concubines.

If anything his lack of autonomy and presence as the most powerful person in the country further enhances the show’s themes of working within the confines of class and gender inequality.

The previous emperor was a horrible, horrible pervert. Okay, then this emperor only weds women of age… Until he’s forced to take his father’s precious wife due to politics. The current emperor reasonably avoids her.

Eunuchs exist? Bam! now the surgery is outlawed, but this will create a reduction in male labor around the palace.

The emperor clearly favors few women. Well, now he must recognize a concubine with a powerful politician father playing the system.

He supports Mao Mao toeing the line of social expectations for women, but hasn’t removed the law against women preparing medicine. It makes one think, if he wanted to, could he make the change at all? For every two steps forward, he’s forced to take one step back.

In this universe even the Emperor is limited by social pressure and the expectations of his station. His life and that of his children is out of his control, and if that isn’t such a compelling piece of world building I don’t know what is.

If that’s how the author twists the narrative of the Emperor you better believe her female characters dealing with women’s issues in this society are even better written.

[angelynebeautyqueen]

[neo--queen--serenity]

It’s heartbreaking to know that when Anshi looks back on her first encounter with the late emperor—the man who sexually abused her for years—she can only describe her 10-year old self as ambitious.

In the light novel, Anshi is far less aware of why she was sent to the rear palace, and it’s clear in the books that she did not intend to grab the emperor’s attention.

But in the manga—now the anime—she says she knew, that she understood what she was getting into, and that she reached out to him deliberately.

This is very likely a lie she told herself to cope with the trauma of the abuse she endured, abuse that dictated the course of the rest of her life, for better or for worse.

Because, even if Anshi knew, on paper, what her father intended by sending her to the rear palace, what 10-year old would understand, truly, the implications of winning the emperor’s favor? What prepubescent child fully understands sexual grooming or abuse for what it is, understands how it will hurt them?

Anshi falls for the oldest lie children of sexual abuse tell themselves: that they brought this upon themselves, that they were somehow responsible for what happened.

Telling herself that she put herself in his path out of ambition gives her the illusion of agency. It allows her to ignore the glaring, obvious signs that she could not have refused him if she’d wanted to. It is also a manifestation of her own self-loathing, the all too common misplaced guilt that rape survivors feel in the wake of their assault.

This particular coping mechanism is what drove her to assault the late emperor right back when she was in her late 20’s.

That helplessness, that rage, that unresolved trauma, led to her repeating the cycle of abuse, led her to forcing herself onto him as an adult to reclaim that agency she knows she never had.

And this assault brought about her second pregnancy—the birth of the moon prince, the current emperor’s younger brother.

And even though Anshi knows Jinshi is Ah-Duo’s son, not hers, Anshi was still the woman who raised him. She feels this guilt and revulsion every time she looks at Jinshi, especially since he resembles the late emperor so strongly.

And even though Anshi loves Jinshi deeply, she is constantly haunted by the self-loathing she associates with him. She calls his very existence immoral, a living embodiment of her sins. And it’s so heart-wrenching, so tragic that she blames herself for everything, that she believes all of this happened due to her own, selfish sense of ambition.

[girbirty]

house and wilson smoking weed together but wilson has a panic attack for no reason and house is The Same As Usual

[littlefankingdom]

This man (Bruce) is so abnormal about parenthood and so intense about his love for Dick. "He's not my son, he's more than that" Son is not a strong enough word for what Dick is to him. And the last panel being Oliver with Roy, which is later, implying that Oliver finally understood wtf was Bruce talking about when he got Roy, being like "wtf does his weird bs make sense?!?"

But also, a part of it may come from how Dick wasn't comfortable with becoming Bruce's son, so Bruce got used to immediately correcting people when they called him his father or Dick his son because he doesn't want Dick to overhear it and be hurt (a lot of people in the fandom seems to forget that it was Dick who did not want to be adopted and who was against Bruce being his father. Of course, that changed with time, but Bruce respecting that is great and not "bad parenting". A foster parent should never force a kid to accept them as their father/mother)

[sacredrealm64]

I was literally blown away by Tears of the Kingdom. I've literally never had this feeling for a game since Ocarina of Time. It definitely had exceeded my expectations. Easily Game of the Year. I cannot wait for the Future of Zelda!

[very-cherrybomb]

[escapismsworld]

The Queen of the Night

1818

Simon Quaglio

[drenched-in-sunlight]

mom vs dad incantation class

(also no thought… just Marika with her little daughters)

[spiraling-trap]

happy valentine’s day :)

better quality here

the text is an L line from the L romance route in the ds game ↓

[neo--queen--serenity]

Marcille is actually one of the biggest reasons it took so long to pinpoint which Chilchuck was the imposter in today’s episode.

The Senshi and Marcille imposters had their own reasons for being hard to decipher, but that was a joint effort on the party’s part. Chilchuck was the only example where a single member’s bias actually swayed the others so strongly that it made them all doubt themselves.

Ryouko Kui did an excellent job of giving us a rich background on how different races interact, and how they may descriminate against each other. Each of the races in this series struggles with these prejudices. Our main characters are not exempt from this, and we see it clearly in the way the shapeshifter manifested as each party member, showing us how the others percieve them.

Marcille knows Chilchuck well, and cares deeply for him as a friend. But she’s not immune to assumptions and biases that come from her elven background. The Chilchuck imposter we are faced with, when it’s down to two of them left, is Marcille’s memory of Chilchuck, Marcille’s perception of how he behaves.

One of the first manifestations of this bias occurs when shapeshifter Chilchuck can’t get a jar open.

The real Chilchuck knows that this would never happen—at least not in this way. Chilchuck is proud, yes, but he asks for Laios’ help all the time. Laios is actually one of the party members he is the most likely to ask help from, given how long they’ve known each other, and how much mutual trust exists between them.

However, the whole scenario isn’t right. Chilchuck wouldn’t give up so easily on opening something; his whole job is opening and unlocking things. He would never quit an attempt like this within 5 seconds, then run to Laios so that “big strong adult tall-man” can open it for him.

Marcille is the one who asks, “Huh? Why do you say that?” because Marcille is partially right. Chilchuck does rely on Laios, and Marcille knows this to be true. But she fails to realize how he relies on Laios.

Chilchuck respects many of Laios’ talents, but the most important ones are his combat skills, his emotional fortitude, and his quick thinking when delegating tasks. He trusts Laios as someone he is comfortable following (he literally said to him and Shuro in the last episode: “Laios!! Tell us what do!! Give us orders!!” when chimera Falin was quickly overpowering them).

So while Marcille almost understands Chilchuck’s confidence in Laios, she tends to accidentally infantilize him in the process.

She immediately believes that Chilchuck B (the imposter, who is specifically using her own memory as its base for Chilchuck’s personality) is the real one, and says so, because she’s blinded by her perception of him as being childlike and adorable because of the very common racial prejudices that half-foots deal with all the time.

She dotes on the imposter, and is open with her affections, as usual (again, her care for him is clear), but doubles down on that bias, on her own assumptions of Chilchuck’s behavior shown through her own lens.

And ultimately, Laios was able to tell the difference, but only because he watched how the Chilchucks handled other minute tasks. Marcille’s stance on which Chilchuck was real truly did throw the others for a loop, at least until the threat passed. And honestly, that’s part of what makes the shapeshifter so terrifying. Its strategy almost worked.

[v-poreons]

Join us and die! Join us and die! Join us and die!

She demanded I draw her it was a physical need LOL

Progress gif + flat colors under the cut 😳

[cannyparagon]

Felwinter

[l0velyb0nes111]

buying new clothes while i’m quietly insane >> ༘⋆𝜗𝜚

[scottheim]

Sunset Strip rock billboards (photos by Robert Landau and others)