#stunning originals

[shellshooked]

to bury a goddess

[pearlore]

@eydilily 's gempearl designs r so gorgeous i had to draw........ also a swap?? ft. some nzsl bc i was briefly possessed by the spirit of. hands.

[varian-ross-horror-author]

"Disabled people should be allowed to be as independent as we can be" and "disabled people should not be pressured to be hyper-independent in order to not wind up in nursing homes against our will" are two thoughts that can, and should, exist at the same time.

[heysweetbee]

[arcxus-of-altihex]

Ruan ref!! Or well, I wanted to revamp his design for 2024 so here he is.

[lacebird]

SHALOM HARLOW Versace spring/summer 1995

[wingheadshellhead]

TONY STARK in I AM IRON MAN (2023) art by Dotun Akande

[trappedinafantasy37]

Since Minthara presents an exterior shell made of steel, and she's sometimes mean, and is an absolute badass in battle, she is often treated and perceived as someone who feels no emotions. And this often occurs to individuals who do put on such a tough exterior. It also does not help that many people perceive evil characters as incapable of doing or feeling anything other than evil. That love and evil are innately incompatible.

But Minthara is not emotionless, she does feel things. Sadness, grief, fear, loneliness, anger, anxiety, paranoia, vengeance, love. She can laugh, she can tell jokes, she can cry, she can smile, and she does get upset at things. If anything, she is emotionally repressed and emotionally guarded and the times where she does really express her more negative and vulnerable emotions is when it becomes too much to hold back and it comes out a little over the top. We have to remember she comes from a society in which such outward emotional expression would be rewarded with social punishment, religious scorn, or even death. So she really doesn't have the healthiest mechanisms to express her emotions.

She hides what she feels all the time as a means of keeping herself safe from punishment. She keeps it to herself cause she does not want you to see her as weak, as she would have been in the past. And she certainly does not want you or anyone else to punish her for it either. She hides behind little pet names and even using words from languages she knows you don't understand as that is the only way she feels safe being vulnerable with you. In her past, her love was rewarded with new wounds and new scars. She is terrified to open up to you, fearing that you will hurt her because she loves you. That her love for you won't actually be enough to stop you from hurting her. And she will only ever admit she loves you in contexts that have a high risk of death because there's really not much for her to lose at that point so she may as well tell you.

She also has a habit of intellectualizing what she feels and experiences so that they appear as "rational" and "logical" rather than emotional and to distance herself from her emotions. She says it takes a sharp mind to have sympathy for someone who suffers unnecessarily. She is trying to make it appear that emotions like sympathy is a matter of the mind, not the heart. That it is a mark of intelligence, because otherwise it would be the mark of weakness.

She blames herself for her own torments, like she deserved the awful things that happened to her. She frames the situation like she is more at fault and more deserving of blame, than the people who hurt her. It is the only way she can find any reason in what happened to her and any reason in her tormentors actions. That she did something wrong and induced someone's wrath upon her, rather than acknowledging that the person who hurt her is just a bad person.

She deserved what Ketheric and Orin did to her because she was "weak, passive, proud". That her emotional state had blinded her from the trap that was set, giving Ketheric and Orin ample opportunity to attack her. That if she hadn't felt those exact emotions, then it wouldn't have happened. She could have seen the trap coming, or she could have fought back.

Or if you attempt to tell her that her childhood was rough and her mother abused her, she immediately deflects by saying, "it could have been worse" and therefore, what she did actually experience wasn't really that bad. And yeah, sure, maybe she needed certain lessons given that she lived in a cruel and dangerous society like Menzoberranzan where she had to be prepared for violence at all times. But trauma is not born of love, it is born of fear, of pain, of agony, and her mother still tried to kill her. Regardless of her mother's intent, it was the first broken bond of trust and it left a mark on Minthara. Where she began to believe that her mother would torment her for torments sake, and she had doubts on whether or not her mother actually loved her.

When you encounter the first Orin imposter, it's pretty damn obvious she is terrified. And you kinda gotta squeeze it out of her to admit that she's afraid. Where it's "I'm afraid of Orin because she is capable of this, this, and this, and you should be too" rather than "I am afraid of Orin because she hurt me." And she begs you, BEGS, to keep her safe because she knows her fear makes her vulnerable to Orin.

She doesn't even truly acknowledge that she wasn't at fault for what Orin did to her until Orin is dead. She doesn't start putting the blame on Orin until Orin is dead. She doesn't go through the emotional process of sympathizing with herself until Orin is dead. And she doesn't admit that she undoubtedly has trauma, until Orin is dead. She gets so wrapped up, and so lost in her own fear and paranoia that she never has the room to properly process the things that happen to her. That her primary concern right now is keeping you, the others, and herself safe and her emotions can wait because wallowing in them will only make her weak. Only does the distance of death give her the room to start healing. Only problem is that there have always been threats and they never end, they never stop. So it is rare for Minthara to ever have a moment of peace and safety to work through what she feels and they just get backed up. Ignoring your problems does not make them go away.

So you wanna know what will happen when an embrace Durge betrays her? She will fall to her death, a knife in her belly, blaming herself for your betrayal. All her worst fears have come to pass and you were indeed a lover who hurt her because she loved you, and that she was a fool to ever trust you at all. That if she didn't love you, maybe you wouldn't have hurt her. She doesn't understand your reasoning, she can't make sense of it, she doesn't know why you'd betray her, so it must have been her fault for thinking you'd be different. That if she hadn't been so loyal, so devoted, that she could have been spared. That her belief that you would rule together is what damned her. She will die blaming herself for her own murder before she ever gets a chance to start blaming you.

[moonwaterlight]

[intuitive-revelations]

I don't know if I'm excited or frustrated at the 'future children' angle for Susan's origin. On one hand... I'm very interested in the possible links to the likes of Miranda, the Other etc.

On the other hand... ok confession time: This may make me a minority in the fandom, but I actually really dislike the 80s-90s retcons of Susan's origin. (Birth of a Renegade, Lungbarrow etc.)

I kinda just like her and the Doctor being some of the last surviving members of what was once a family on Gallifrey. I find the mystery and tragedy of what happened on Gallifrey, with implied student uprisings and political assassinations, far more intriguing than any twists saying "actually she's not really his granddaughter". Fortunately, some things can be canonwelded into that (eg. Susan really could be also related to the president / descended from Rassilon), but stuff that actually gives her an origin elsewhere is always a pain.

Idk. I just see once being a parent (and losing it all tragically) as such a crucial part of the Doctor's background and Susan fits very well into that as far as I'm concerned. Anything disconnecting her from that, or worse erasing it completely, ultimately damages what I find to be one of the most compelling things about the Doctor and Susan. :/

The few posts I've already seen talking about this suggests this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd be interested to know what people think, and if they agree or disagree...

[johbeil]

The road and the sky

Stunning sky seen while driving on a country road in Lazio, Italy, yesterday. Photo taken with a 2011 Sony Xperia and subjected to some digital cross processing.

[occasionallyinlovewithmovies]

Ripley (2024) dir. by Steven Zaillian

If there was any sensation he hated, it was that of being followed, by anybody. And lately he had it all the time. Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley

[heysweetbee]

[usefulquotes7]

Be alone. Eat alone, take yourself on dates, sleep alone. In the midst of this you will learn about yourself. You will grow, you will learn what inspires you. You will cultivate your own dreams, your own beliefs, your own stunning clarity. And when you do meet the right person who makes your cells dance, you will be sure of it because you are sure of yourself. Bianca Sparacino

[yukipri]

Before the Bad Batch S2 premieres tonight, sharing what I hope happened after S1:

Echo is fixing AZI, and notices some wiped memory data. He offers to restore it, and sees—

~~

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, EDIT, TRANSLATE, OR OTHERWISE USE MY ART. To share, please reblog! Reblogs and comments greatly appreciated!!!

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