#thanks for the tag and being patient

[errantgoat]

7 (bc I'm curious what you did for his backstory in not-Thedas :P), 16, 23 from the BG3 asks?

6. What is your Tav’s origin story? 

What I wanted is for Harv's backstory to echo what it was in DAO a bit more than what I came up with in WoTR, I had to compromise some but I'm generally happy with what I came up with.

In BG3 timeline, I imagine Harvey's a bit older, in his early/mid thirties, and enough things happened for life to chew him up and spit him out, so while still stoic, he definitely feels more jaded.

Harvey's not originally from Baldur's Gate, he's a bastard son of a local lord more up north. He was born to a highborn concubine and given legitimacy, since the lady of the house couldn't bear more children other than his older half-brother. Mother died in childbirth. He had a generally decent childhood, often felt like he was playing second fiddle, but with his brother being supportive much of it was quickly forgotten.

Attack on his home happens when he's a bit younger here, 14 or 15 yo (what kind of attack it was, I'm still mulling out the details, but the result stays the same, all of his immediate family - brother included - are gone. At the point of events in BG3, these are old, festering wounds.) Harvey miraculously escapes the massacre, almost doesn't make it...but is ultimately saved by an older human ranger who happens to be in the area. Nothing is free though, and the man demands apprenticeship from the teenager for having saved his life. Harvey, who was taught to honor debts, and well...is still a naive kid at heart, can't do anything but agree to his terms.

(This kind of takes care of the early life/Highever massacre/Warden conscription parallels. For the second part of his backstory, I wanted to use themes present in the game itself, difficult relationships, trauma, and all the ways each particular character deals with it)

Young Harvey refocused his despair into a new purpose, learning to slay monsters, to which he took like fish to water. The teacher wasn't kind, but he was competent, and the boy was a fast learner, taking in everything from book knowledge to tracking and fighting. This arrangement lasted a few years. When Harvey reached his early twenties- and his apprenticeship had ended, (or maybe when the old ranger died), he directed his steps to Baldur's Gate in search of his more distant relatives. He didn't know the family on his (real) deceased mother's side well, but I imagine he would try to contact them via letters after what happened to his home. They turned out to be a a family of nobles of greatly diminished importance. To his surprise he was welcomed with open arms, and it was the first time in years he started feeling at home again. The illusion didn't last for long unfortunately, when it turned out these so called relatives immediately took steps to secure a better political position by arranging a marriage between him and some noble broad Harv's never even seen in his life before, without his knowledge.

The transactional nature of his relationships with people over the past few years - first the ranger and now his extended family messed with Harvey's head really bad and left him disillusioned. He reflexively let the flight response kick in - washing his hands out of all that mess, he broke off the engagement and left for the wilderness, figuring out ultimately people were just not worth the trouble.

As of shortly before BG3, he's retracted into himself, still roaming around and focusing on survival, without higher aims or goals, doing odd jobs, living off monster bounties, rarely working in adventuring parties, and when he does, it's never for too long.

At the start of the game, I imagine he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, visiting Baldur's Gate lower city to simply stock up when he was abducted.

...

(Unrelated little heritage headcanon I'm humoring. I like to think Harv's mother was actually a half-elf, though his blood has diluted to the point not much of it shows besides his slender build and eyes, which are unapologetically emerald.)

16. Which of the companions does your Tav trust most? 

Haha, I just had a mental image of Act1 Harvey going through all his companions in his head, putting a big red X over each and every one of them, Astarion very much in the lead.

I think at the beggining...Karlach, she seemed the least like a ticking time bomb, ironically.

But the trust was earned by every companion, in time. It started with trusting Gale's reasonable advice, trusting Astarion to have his back in a fight, two precise strikers sowing chaos together. Trust Shadowheart to be kind despite her suspicious Goddess worship, trust Wyll to be honorable and driven despite his shady deal with the devil-woman. I think Lae'zel was the last person Harvey learned to trust to a decent degree, he was not quite sure she wouldn't just sell them out the moment she was with her people again.

23. What is your Tav’s favorite moment they’ve had with their lover?

Light on spoilers. I personally like their misunderstandings and frustrations with each other the most, but I think Harvey's having the time of his life right now, with Astarion finally free of his master. He can't believe this goofy ass elf was hidden beneath all that act. I mean he saw the glimpses of it before, the seldom dorky laugh, the few instances the over the top routine dropped, but he's still astonished. He loves it.

(You get different kind of responses from Astarion depending on approval and relationship stages. The responses after his quest concludes and you are in the relationship with him -and he's not Ascended- are by far the least flirtatious and over the top. He's comfortable enough to actually be laid back and drop his learned habits and I find it endearing.)

[caelanglang]

Happy Lunar New Year!

here's a lil comic of my skk little prince au i made a while back to greet you all :)) I hope your new year wishes come to fruition and that your year would be a blessed one <3

Anyways,,, new year shrine visit!

[thegeminisage]

SPOCKANALIA VOLUME 1 IS NOW ON AO3!

do you like vintage fanzines, but hate reading tiny font? do you love spock, but hate the headache you get from squinting at textured paper and imperfect scans? are you someone who wants to read SPOCKANALIA but has trouble getting your screenreader to cooperate with 60-year-old PDFS? have we ever got news for you. @maulthots and i have been very, very, VERY hard at work digitizing SPOCKANALIA, a SFW star trek fanzine about spock first published in 1967, and now you, YES YOU, can read it on AO3!

updated features of SPOCKANALIA on AO3 include:

text has been meticulously retyped and can now be read at whatever size you have your browser settings on, which means the line width also changes based on the width of your browser window or device screen

images are dynamic to fit on your screen whether you are on a pc or a mobile device so you don't have to scroll until your hand breaks and still only see mr. spock's eyelashes (you have to turn work skins on for this feature)

backgrounds/paper texture/echoes of ghost text removed (by hand!) from images for easier viewing, and in some cases the images have been rotated to correct tilted/sideways scanning

images come with ALT TEXT for those using screen readers!

here are a few before/after shots for your perusal:

so what are you waiting for?! get your inner 60s fangirl (gender neutral) on and read SPOCKANALIA today!!

and if you think this is COOL AS SHIT (i do), please consider giving this post a reblog or leaving us some love on AO3! we have only your good vibes to fuel us as we contemplate volume 2 💪

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Chu Wanning, kit-tea man. (Part 2)

(for @onionlings)

[shikisei]

unrelenting truth-seeker (part 2/?)

part 1 here

[luna-loveboop]

Linktober day twelve- favourite game

Skyward sword! My favourite game forever :)) The duets with Fi are by far my favourite gameplay aspect and recurring scenes in the game.

The music is The Ballad of the Goddess with Link's harp accompaniment. I played through on three different instruments like fifteen times, and checked every note on ocarina before I carved it. So. It's very accurate. Close ups of the music +my reference because yes

Also I replaced the treble clef with the triforce

:)

[acekindaneat]

~ 80's Retro! ~

i also drew a version with serizawa just in the tank top 😉

seeing his bare shoulders and that loose tank top did something to me

[bleaksqueak]

Caduceus glyph doodle while I get back on my feet

[hiemaldesirae]

Alastor manifests a conductor’s hat and dons it. “All aboard! Next stop: Royal Circle and the Morningstar Palace!” His face softens as Vox steps up. He offers his arm. “Shall we? If you ignore the warm, sponginess of the floor, Tim’s insides are quite comfortable.” Vox grins. “Sure. A train ride to an upcoming battle sounds weirdly romantic.” Alastor kisses the other Overlord’s knuckles. “I’m so glad you’re safe.” He whispers. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

- Radio Healed The Video Star, Finale I (by Aspiring_Forest_Witch / @slash-is-my-weakness86)

ive been reading and rereading this fic from exams week actually. i dont know what exactly was put into the story but im assuming it was some sort of crack because this might be hands down the best thing ive ever read. i wanted to draw one of my favourite scenes (the train ride on shortline tim.... if anyone questions my taste just know that we all watched the original hazbin so youve no room to judge) ((good luck on ur job search btw author !! hoping u find one sooner than later, thanks sm for making this fic))

[write-it-motherfuckers]

[iwoszareba]

commission for lovely @spyridonya

good luck to Lady Konomi trying to withstand mean girl judgement from both Count Daeran Arendae and Knight Commander Kadira

[azaracyy]

to the next stage of our adventure! digimon survive week 2024 day 7: post-game / future personal thoughts under the cut - less about the artwork and more about shuuji and lopmon themselves. a long rambling containing major spoilers and heavy topics. will cause whiplash. proceed with caution.

other than the fact this may be boring and long-winded, cw and tw: there will be mentions of self-harm and suicide. if these topics make you uncomfortable, please step back. if you're sure, then alright. i'm aware this is a weird place to ramble about shuuji and lopmon considering the notorious highlight of their story would match the themes of day 5 (villains) and day 6 (dark & loss) better. unfortunately (ironically?) i never planned to feature them for those days, so... pretty sure i'm not the only one feeling this, but when i discovered that a good part of the fandom seems to loathe shuuji with utmost passion, even after they claimed to have completed the game, i was confused. the way his death happened and (understanding) the cause made me uncomfortable for a while, but never drove me to the point of hate... once i recovered from the initial shock, what i felt towards him was more pity, then respect (on truthful route). i feel shuuji should have been one of the most appreciated characters in survive. yet it was the opposite that happened. (between you and me though, knowing there was this discourse with the fact digimon survive is a visual novel, i'm not that surprised it turned out this way...) from my point of view, lopmon evolving into wendimon then killing shuuji symbolizes suicide, the act of taking one's own life. it was the climax of shuuji's mental breakdown, leading him to basically self-destruct, causing damage to everyone around him and ultimately himself. lopmon evolved, just like he hoped. but failed to do it like other kemonogami partners (maintaining control of themselves and fending off enemies). the next and final outcome was death, through his own partner actually eating him alive too. it reminds me how when someone thought they have prepared well for something important yet it failed spectacularly, the devastation and frustration would eat them in the same way from inside. and they probably would for one second think, "i'm better off dead". the more i pondered about it, the more it hit home, so of course, the last thing i could do is hate him, when his struggles sound similar to my own - having to rely on consistent achievements to prove your value, to feel you are worth living and not a waste of resources. the part where shuuji went all abusive on lopmon felt like the equivalent of pushing yourself to the extreme to reach your goal, to the point of neglecting your own needs. it's like a student so absorbed in their study, sacrificing food and sleep, until their body eventually snaps and shuts down for good (...this in fact happened to one of the students at my previous workplace. she was in her last year of high school. life was just about to truly start for her when her classmate informed us of her sudden death). even in truthful route where shuuji and lopmon survive that point, things aren't immediately nice and easy for him. you can see that he still has self-doubts, and what i think is impostor's syndrome. he could be making a great contribution to the team and still put himself down for having done "nothing". i have found it interesting that artists and writers tend to be especially fond of shuuji. so perhaps it's not just the matter of one's upbringing - whether you were raised in a harsh, competitive environment and/or with family with (unreasonably) high standards so you can relate more easily to him - but also whether one can see just what every struggle shuuji and lopmon went through symbolizes shuuji's mental state. out of all survive characters, i think shuuji and lopmon pulled off this thing called "surviving" the hardest, no joke. which is why i almost always gravitate to drawing them happy because that's what they deserve :') after all this, what i also would like to say is, it's okay if a character makes you uncomfortable. it's okay if you hate a character. but never, ever bring down the character to people who like them or even consider them their favorite or comfort character. if you must, do it in your own space and only with like-minded people.

[hipsternumbertwo]

Epic Mario Party Prank

[cafe-for-palestine]

🍰 the cafe is closed! ☕️

hey there!! do you have an idea you've always wanted to see written and drawn, but don't have the time to do it? do you want to donate to palestine, but don't know where to start?

welcome to the nico and evo cafe, in which @deliwobbe and @good-vs-evo will collaborate to create one fanart and fanfic combination for any prompt in exchange for a donation to palestine!

we'll be catering to a whole lot of fandoms! including, but not limited to: chainsaw man, heaven official's blessing, haikyuu!!, alien stage, and so much more!

for our first trial run, we will be taking two commission slots! (slots taken, thank you so much for your support!)

check out our carrd for more info and samples!

our dms and askbox are both open to answer any questions you might have about how this event will be running :] thank you for reading this! if you can’t donate, reblogs are appreciated!

[incorrect-malfoys]

Lucius: If there's anyone that can get to the bottom of this kind of thing, it's me

Lucius: Why? Cause I'm the king of bottoms

[everypanelofizuku]

Chapter 54 - Re: Ingenium