#thanks for letting my OLD MAN

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i have to say i love the art from your pfp where erik's holding charles it looks so sassy idk i love seeing erik holding charles in various ways and you just draw that perfectly thank you very much erik please do carry charles everywhere he's a princess and he deserves that

thank you my friend !! he is his princess thats so true .....

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

jin guangshan and lan qiren yaoi perhaps? since their shapes create a perfect balance?

Two old men perform worlds first successful 96.

[doctorwhommm]

I hsve an idea. Could u draw rose and ianto as besties

absOLUTELY I CAN

they’re chatting shit (lovingly) about their tall, long-coat-wearing, time-travelling, death-cheating, alien boyfriends who have spikey hair

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[vaggieslefteye]

HUSK, Hotel Bartender & Concierge | 1x04 - Masquerade

"Oh, I FORGOT — you're the wise-old bartender who's seen it all! Get the fuck over yourself and pour me a real drink."

[laurrelise]

one thing about five is he will always have a hand in his pockets or a drink within reach

[efingart]

Sending it here to you as well hehe. I love them 🥰❤️

Alyyyyyyy I know I told you before but this is so gorgeous, so beautiful. I'm in love and obsessed 💙💙💙 His expression is killing me. Thank you so much lovely, it was such a nice surprise to get. Your art is so amazing!!

[youssefguedira]

V, JoeNicky & Nile

V. An abandoned or empty place.

When Joe pulls the sheet off the couch it kicks up enough dust that it makes Nile sneeze. The couch underneath is old, wooden frame rotting, fabric stained and full of holes where moths have eaten away at it. 

“Sorry,” Joe says to Nile when she finally manages to get the sneezing under control. “Didn’t realise it was that bad.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the couch. Nile looks it over.

“There’s no saving that,” she says, wiping at her eyes. She can heal from falling over ten stories, but she can’t get away from allergies.

Joe frowns. “I liked that couch.”

The house is older than anywhere else they’ve brought her, and has been abandoned for long enough that it’s falling apart. But through some trick of posing as their own sons, or something, Joe and Nicky still own it, even if there’s a giant hole in the roof and all the windows are broken. Why they’d decided to come back here, Nile doesn’t know, but it’s a nice enough area, and a good distraction from, well. Everything. Growing back a leg, she’s discovered, is not fun. 

From one of the other rooms – she thinks it’s the kitchen, she’s not actually sure where Nicky had wandered to – there’s the sound of something breaking and crashing to the ground, and a muffled curse. 

Joe makes a questioning noise in the vague direction of the kitchen. A few moments later, Nicky appears in the doorway, covered in dust. “I am okay,” he says. “But I think we will need to go out to eat tonight.”

��Nothing?” 

Nicky shakes his head. “Unless you want to start a fire and go hunt some rabbits.”

Joe grins. “Just like old times, right?”

Nile shakes her head firmly, which makes Nicky smile. She loves them, but there’s no way they’re doing that. 

“We can probably clear out enough space in here,” Joe says, gesturing to the floor. “Get the sleeping bags out of the car. Probably have to start a fire anyway, but…”

Nile looks around again while Joe says something to Nicky in Arabic that makes him laugh. The house is falling apart, sure, but it’s structurally stable, and the bones are all there. It could be something. They’ve got time to make it something. 

Nicky is the one who goes for pizza in the end – he doesn’t trust Nile and Joe to order it if left to their own devices – while they try to clear out a space in the living room. Eventually, though, after Nile has another sneezing fit, Joe suggests they just take the sleeping bags outside instead, which works out a lot better. He sets about starting a fire with practiced ease while Nile sets out the sleeping bags around it. They’re far enough away from civilisation that she can’t hear cars passing by, which is kind of surreal, and the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen them. 

When Nicky gets back, two boxes balanced on one arm and a bottle of wine in the other, he looks over their makeshift camp and laughs. “Just like old times, then?” he asks.

Joe grins. “Except we have pizza.”

“And actual sleeping bags,” Nile says.

“Ah, these modern inventions could never quite match the comfort of a pile of furs,” Joe says wistfully. Nile gives him a look. She’s ninety percent sure that one’s bullshit, but she can never quite tell with him. 

Nicky sets down the pizza boxes, and jogs back to the car to grab the pack of plastic wine glasses they’d bought before they got here. 

“We should’ve bought marshmallows,” Nile says. “Could have made s’mores.”

“Well, we’ll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow anyway,” Joe points out. “And I think it’ll be a little while before we can actually sleep in there.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Nicky agrees.

[llannasvsp]

Does it ridiculously annoy you when people micharacterize your favorite character? Do you feel like you want to implode when you see it happening?

Because I sure want to.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Old Men(tor) Big Naturals

(for @3luecactuz)

[caelanglang]

Did you draw your own pfp? If so, how did you color it? Especially the lineart. It's so pretty!

aww thank you! i'm so glad you noticed! yes, i made the pfp myself :)) it's my favorite character of all times ;w; Allen Walker from D. Gray man! here's the full work!

i colored the lineart and changed the layermode to Multiply, i also duplicated the lineart and set it under the Multiply layer then gave it a layermode of Colorburn! this gives it a crispy color in my case (but you can always play around with colors and different layermodes to get the best effect which different from each drawing, in my case it just happened to be this) I like duplicating line arts and changing their colors/layermodes when i play around :))

i used mostly flat colors but added slight hue variations along with a simple shadowing! I only have one value for the shadows but instead of using a single color, i used different colors with the same value to give it a more colorful and lively look:

for example, when i turn everything into black and white, you can see that the fur has only 1 value in terms of shading but in reality i used different colors that have similar values to make it livelier!

Hope this helps! thank you for noticing Allen in my pfp xD he is my angel crying in the bar over the recent manga update

[howhow326]

Nerites x Poseidon retelling where Nerities is a young adult and he gets saved by Poseidon which causes him to fall head over heels and everyone else tells him that he shouldn't be with Poseidon because he's too old for him and he's problematic and there's a power imbalance and and and but Nerites decides "I'm going to fuck that old man" anyway.

Bonus: Poseidon dosen't push Nerites into a relationship and allows Nerites to decide how fast their relationship is going and he dosen't kidnap him or rape him or force him to be his husband or turn him into a cup barer or whatever and yes I am shiting all over the other two ships

[lepitorus]

umm sorry this isnt very specific but it would be really cool if you went into detail about what their dynamic is like ^-^

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING! Sorry it took me so long to get to this! In my mind, Will and Henry meet in college and get along on the basis of both of them being A Little Weird in their own separate ways. Specifically, I think Henry, who is able to more-or-less mask that and fit in, sees himself in Will, who... is not able to, and he ends up growing sort of protective of him. This leads to them becoming friends, and then roommates, and then the two of them being a little too drunk or a little too high one night and Henry kissing William. I don't think William thinks much about his sexuality prior to that. He knows he isn't interested in women the way his peers are, but I think in his mind he attributes that to his workaholic attitude - there's just so many more important things to do than dating, aren't there? - and he already has a complicated jealousy/admiration thing going on for Henry, so being kissed awakens a Lot in him.

Oh, that's an option. Oh, Henry likes him that way. Oh. I don't think they ever have a "proper" relationship in college, just something Vague and Undefined and Kind of Loaded. Still, William clings to it. He begins to view Henry as an extension of himself: they aren't Henry and William anymore, they're Henry-and-William, and he sees no reason not to embrace that. After all, it's gonna be like that forever, right? They love each other, and besides, it's not like they know other queer people!

Meanwhile, Henry, in his mind, is like "well of course I like Will, but there's no way this can be a serious thing, I mean, we're gonna have to get married eventually, haha!" And he likes women too, so like, he has no problem doing that. Lots of nice girls out there. And he just sort of assumes William feels the same way. So that's kind of an issue. Henry starts spending a lot of time with this girl because people are starting to look at them strange but haven't they always looked at them strange? Isn't that why they got along so well in the first place? And then, oh, they're dating. And also apparently this was always going to happen? And Henry's saying this like it's the most natural thing in the world, like it's something they were both supposed to know?

But well, they're still friends, right? (like it could ever go back to that) Yes, of course, he'd love to be Henry's best man! (and throw up in the bathroom at the reception) From there, William's already complicated Henry Emotions spiral further. He hates him. He wants to be him. He wants to be with him. He wants Henry to have nothing. He wants Henry to have nothing but him. You know, normal stuff.

[deus-ex-mona]

farewell, my idiot son…

[vanhelsingapologist]

//scuttles in

Hey you should totally talk about Kasimir

Kasimir And The Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad 400 Years

CW: Sororicide, Child Death, discussion of mental health, discussion on the nature of shame.

This is going to be so, so long. Disclaimer that this is our table's interpretation of Kasimir Velikov. Spoilers for Curse of Strahd and the Dusk Elves abound.

Guilty, Not Remorseful

Kasimir is one of those characters who seems to be very consistent in characterization across tables. I do believe that if you asked DMs to list their Kasimir’s traits, a majority would hit the Trifecta of Misery:

Guilty

Sad

Desperate.

A massive part of our Kasimir’s characterization is how my DM draws the line between regret, guilt, and remorse.

He feels fathomless guilt surrounding killing Patrina, but he never describes himself as feeling remorse. To explain, I’ll divide it like this:

He feels guilty because he knew it would have a repercussion. He did it anyway. Patrina was engaged to Strahd.

He did not expect the repercussions to be all that they were. This was a mistake, but I don’t entirely know whether he sees his decision surrounding killing Patrina as one or not.

He does not feel remorse, because that would require him to regret what he did (killing his sister). Our Kasimir does not feel remorse for killing her, and it makes him guiltier because of everything her death set off, not to mention the love he held for his sister.

He tells himself that he did what he had to do (he did not), and wishes there were another way (there undoubtedly was), which gives way to shame. 

"I had to do it, but I wish I didn't." "... Did I have to? Surely, yes?"

So, he has these interplaying themes connected to the overarching theme of guilt, all of which drive his every action in our campaign. 

He is okay with this.

He is okay with the idea that every day is a punishment. He did what he had to do, he says, and he believes he should pay that price forever. 

The Whole Patrina Thing

In our game, Patrina didn’t seem to be so much in love with Strahd as she was in love with power. My running theory is that she was intending to dethrone Strahd or overpower him once she’d been turned. 

Because (I believe) in our game, he was one of the first vampires, if not The First Vampire, she didn’t quite realize how spawn mechanics worked— and to that end, neither did the dusk elves.

The Story

Kasimir holds to the story he told us. He discovered his sister half-turned, having received two of the three bites required to undergo the bride ceremony. 

I believe he discovered her in the process of trying to feed (a la Lucy Westenra) and came to the conclusion that she had been irrevocably turned into this horrifying, unknowable dead thing. So he gathered the dusk elves and killed her, setting off the chain of events. 

In the years since he’s been confronted with new information regarding vampirization and the process of turning, but he’s also said that if Patrina hadn’t died, she likely would’ve gone through with it anyway. Is this to avoid heaping more guilt onto his shoulders? Maybe. I don't know. Despite his guilt, he still, interestingly, provides a justification.

We have nothing to contradict his word with.

However, he also told us that he’s been experiencing dreams where she tells him how sorry she is, how much she hates him, how much she loves him, and how much she would have changed if he'd let her live.

His foundational beliefs get preyed upon, because what if he was wrong? What if he doomed everyone because he couldn’t compromise his morality for a moment?

Kasimir’s Backstory Is Misery In Case You Were Wondering

In our campaign, Kasimir and Patrina were raised to be the leaders of their communities and witnessed Rahadin’s exile and subsequent alliance with King Barov.

When the Dusk Elves regrouped after a crushing defeat, Kasimir, who is a Druid in our campaign, was voted in to be the head of the remaining families, and Patrina, an Archmage, left for Ravenloft intermittently. 

I think there was an effort for peace being made with a marriage between Strahd and herself, but obviously, the Tatyana Conundrum came in (Kasimir Win!), and then a couple years down the line, the Patrina Conundrum happened (Kasimir Fail!).

By the time he made his big bad decision, he was not only the head of his community but was also the father to a small child and the husband to a man who would die defending their family.

So, as far as he’s concerned, Kasimir is almost directly responsible for the deaths of his entire family.

He’s in a constant internal battle between blaming Ravenloft— perhaps predominantly, Rahadin— for enacting disproportionate revenge and blaming himself for pulling the trigger. Two things can be true. And still, to this day, his remaining people trust him. He still leads them and protects them. Yowch.

Kasimir As The Moral Compass

While traveling with our party, Kasimir was militant about doing what he believed was right. It could’ve been because he might’ve literally snapped in half if he took on any more shame, but probably had more to do with the fact that he was likely projecting heavily onto our party. 

He held his hand on the metaphorical stove for so long that he has nothing but bone left, so when he sees the party tentatively edging towards the fire, he takes action. 

Because he lives in a cesspool of anguish, I think an argument can be made that he wants to ensure his actions aren’t repeated by someone else. That is for HIM.

How It Affects Dynamic

This makes him fun to have in the party, because not only is Sororicide “Hypocrite” Velikov telling us not to do things, but it also provides a good bit of levity to what is otherwise one of the emotionally heaviest characters in our campaign.

Having this ancient elven druid sternly ask if kicking the corpse of enemy #6 made you feel good and having to shamefully tell him ’no’ creates a bond like no other.

It’s also an interesting way to have him trying to semi-atone without explicitly expressing remorse. Because he judges himself so harshly, he judges the party by the same standards.

Kasimir Will Make The Same Mistake Over And Over

The problem is that shame is poison to recovery.

Kasimir does not believe he has a place in a world in which he is not suffering, so whenever he is confronted with redemption, he’ll do what keeps him rotting.

I don’t know how my other players feel about this, but I’m convinced that it’s not that he can’t break the cycle, it’s that he won’t.

In trying to do the right thing, I think he will choose the wrong thing. He will stone her to death again and again and not know why.

There He Goes Again!

It’s why I think these dreams are such a big problem. I think they’re goading him. Whatever’s causing it (the Dark Powers, Strahd, or Patrina herself) knows him well enough that he will make a horrible, horrible decision. As far as theory goes, I think it may really be Patrina, because who would know him better than his sister?

In our campaign, Kasimir is currently acting as a mentor to a half dusk-elven wizard/druid who habitually toes the line between good and evil. He waffles between wanting to save her and wanting to nip the problem in the bud, propelled by his profound shame for wanting to do it.

He knows he shouldn’t have anything to do with it, but whereas Van Richten isolates himself out of necessity, Kasimir creates this wall between them because he sees the cycle starting again and feels helpless to stop it. It’s like he doesn’t realize he’s actively recreating the cycle.

Sound familiar, Strahd?

He and Van Richten are two characters who might have the biggest questions of the nature of redeemability hanging over their head, and both grapple with themes of guilt.

I think they differ because, in our campaign, Van Richten is actively seeking redemption. Kasimir is not.

He can’t imagine atonement even exists.

[wispscribbles]

hey, so I just read most of your fics (apart from the really long one, i'm saving that for a rainy day) and uh, wow

the way you write these sad boys is just perfection, the longing, the ANGST. Augh, I barely ever read fanfiction but I've just spent half a day reading yours.

So yeah. thank you for making me fall in love with these fictional men from a game I've never seen or played

aawW thank you!! So so happy that you enjoyed my angsty, emotional fics <333 Can relate to this ask, as I have also never played the games - and when I started reading (and writing) fics for it, I had only watched 1 or 2 edited playthroughs lol. Ghoap quite literally made me start reading again after a bad slump... The power of them...