#i'm doing a presentation on them

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

this creature haunts my every waking thought

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[yangjeongin]

😪😪😪

[boopeey]

I miss him

OG pic:

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

🦇Batfamily🦇

Dick: *after a year or two of Jason being alive* Bruce, Jason has a present for you.

Bruce: *remembering the duffle bag* Pass, Jason gives terrible presents.

[sclappin]

@agaricandmoss and I got into a discussion about trans Severance headcanons this afternoon, so here's trans lesbian Mark S.

[aracariwren]

fourth anniversary of switch Miitopia! hooray!

[aashidoodles]

shiguang cosplaying as a couple at a con

Thanks for the prompt! 🦇

[sysig]

Blind side (Patreon)

[dootznbootz]

I currently have writer's block and fucked around and made Iliad and Odyssey memes :'D Some look like "repeats" but aren't. Just different scenarios/people. Enjoy!

There's... A LOT. I don't care if you pick out your favorites! I put this all in one post as I don't want to spam the tags! :D

[dearly]

Hot 99.5 Radio, Washington DC, March 2, 2012

[himluv]

Thursday Bangers - 6.5.25

Y'all, I am so excited for this one! I was tagged by @woundedsoul12 and @serensama to play this week. The lyrical prompt for this week is:

Baby I’m so into you Darling if you only knew All the things that flew through my mind “Fantasy” - Mariah Carey

These lyrics led me to some new territory, but I am so so excited about it! I hope y'all like it! (gently tagging @karinamay @pixiedurango @derivaderci-says)

Now, then. please enjoy:

This New Life

I don’t really belong here, yet. At Weisshaupt. The Wardens, well… They are a grim order and my smiles and optimism seem to be an irritant to many of them. So, I sit alone in my designated corner of the armory. My workstation – little more than a side table overflowing with vials and mortars and all manner of ingredients for making… well, anything, really – at least feels familiar. A place where I can tinker and think. A place where I can feel useful. Safe. 

The point is, I am alone, musing over a recently retrieved artifact, when Evka enters the armory. We haven’t spoken much since our arrival at the Fortress. She’s been avoiding me, I think. Perhaps for the best. I’ve caused her enough trouble already. 

The First Warden was not pleased to learn she’d put me through the Joining unsanctioned. He’d reprimanded her, in front of several high ranking Wardens, and that was before she’d told him about our… adventure in Eichweill. 

No, I have not been a good influence at all. 

But, she is here now, perusing the axes and hammers and doing her best to glance at me discreetly. Oh, Maker! She’s doing it again. I think she thinks I don’t notice. But I do, always. 

How could I not notice Warden Evka Ivo?

Ever since those dreadful, moaning days of slow death, since she sat me up and pressed a chalice to my lips, I see her face behind my eyelids. I think endlessly of smooth skin, warm eyes, such conviction and kindness and strength–

“Antoine?”

I jump. It can’t be helped. I never expect her to talk to me, even when we’re the only people in the room. Like now. 

I clear my throat. “Désolé.” I lift the device, a rather clever construct designed to hold… well, something. I haven’t discovered what just yet. “I was distracted.”

“I can tell.” Evka smiles.

Oh, her smile! So rare and soft and directed at me?! I’m blushing. Oh, no. Please don’t let her notice I’m blushing. Keep it together, Antoine.

“I asked what you were working on?”

“Ah.” I clear my throat. “I, uh, don’t know.”

She crosses her arms, weight shifting back onto one foot. “You don’t know?”

Great. Just great, Antoine. Now she thinks I’m an idiot. I sound like an idiot.

“Not precisely,” I say. I hold out the device, a sphere of gold and silver bands, clearly meant to spin and whirl. “It’s ancient Elvhen.”

“But, Dernel said he found it in the Deep Roads?”

Now I smile. “Yes! Quite the mystery, non?”

“Huh,” she says. “So, what’s it do?”

“No clue!” I’m grinning now. “It’s supposed to move–” I flick the bands with one finger, spinning them slowly “–powered by magic or perhaps some enchantment.”

“Okay,” she drawls, ever the skeptic. But, she’s still wearing the hint of a smile. “So, it spins.”

“Yes.”

She lifts an eyebrow at me. “And that’s it?”

“No.” I take the sphere back, tucking it against my chest protectively. “Or, well, probably not.”

She sighs. Am I boring her? Get to the point, Antoine!

“I think it’s some sort of… container.”

She eyes the orb, its gaps and ornate carvings. The thing is as much air as metal. “Seems like it’d do a pretty bad job of it.”

“If it were to hold something physical, yes!” I hold the sphere up to my face, frowning as I consider it. “But… what if it held something… else?”

I expect her to dig in, to dismiss me like so many of the Wardens here do. I’m the strange little City Elf, the stray with a nasty habit of making things catch fire and stumbling into trouble. A Warden merely by chance, not conviction. 

But, Evka leans closer, her hands on the table as she peers at the device. “Like what?”

Her voice, low and soft and just a little hoarse. I could listen to it for hours. She could say anything and everything and I would tether myself to every syllable. And now, she’s speaking to me with curiosity? Maybe even…awe?

I might catch fire.

I clear my throat then poke and prod at the sphere, seeking out any discrepancies in the metal. Evka is so close her breath is hot on the backs of my fingers. And then, I feel it. A thin, raised ridge beneath the pad of my middle finger. 

“Aha!”

Evka flinches at my outburst and then we’re both blinking, reeling back from the sphere. It’s floating now, a delicate thrum of power between it and my palm. The bands move slowly, until they spin steadily to diffuse the pale flicker of green flame now housed in the center of the device. 

“Light,” I murmur. And through the whirl of the metal, I see her face awash in light and soft with wonder. She laughs and I am struck with the truth.

That I would gladly hunt down the components of her laughter like alchemical ingredients, until I get the recipe just right. Until I can make her smile and laugh at will, any time she needs a dose of joy. 

The truth is, I’m ruined. Utterly hopeless for her hazel eyes and that clever smile. I know it. And, as I smile at her and our eyes meet through the device, I can’t help but think that this strange new life might be less grim if only she knew it, too. 

[herearedragons]

would you mind elaborating on edér's writing in deadfire? i don't recall anything really egregious but im not a Pillars Scholar

I am about to turn into an unskippable cutscene.

so there are four parts to my beef with Deadfire Edér, the first being more nebulous and having to do with his Overall Vibe, the second being the orlan racism (we'll get there), the third being the way him being unromanceable was handled (which tbf largely comes from me being disappointed because I, Personally shipped it, but I do have some gripes with how it was executed from a storytelling standpoint), and the fourth being his companion quest, which I think contains the strongest cases of He Would Not Fucking Say That. (if you just want to know what I referred to in the tags of that post, just skip to the fourth point, titled The Companion Quest.)

Deadfire spoilers from this point on. (also SORRY, this is long, you've enabled this, I'm just going to spell out ALL of my beef here so I no longer have to retype it. this is also very biased on account of me preferring POE1 Edér and my specific reading of his character. if you, the person reading this, got something different from this character and prefer it to my vision, cool! you might get some entertainment out of seeing the hole I dug myself into.)

TL;DR I feel like Edér's Deadfire writing had a change in characterization that I didn't enjoy, and that it drops the ball on things that Pillars Of Eternity and The Reaping (Edér's short story) set up in a way that just makes me feel bad.

The Overall Vibe: this is honestly take-it-or-leave-it, but I feel like Deadfire dumbed him down somewhat? like he has great lines still, there are moments where he's shown to be observant and calls people out on their bullshit, but... idk. I feel like the companion and NPCs treat him with much more scorn specifically related to him bring a Dumb Farmer, and the thing is that... it's kind of presented like they're right? There's a Serafen banter where Serafen kind of says that Edér's a no thoughts head empty kind of guy, which... he's not? Or, at least, that's not the kind of person he's been shown to be in POE1 and in his short story (The Reaping). The vibe I got from pre-Deadfire media was that if anything, Edér is an overthinker, constantly questioning the people around him and himself. He has his blind spots, for sure (orlans.), but he's very concerned with doing the right thing, and he can often offer insights into why people act the way they do. He's critical, and he's empathetic, and... that's just not there in Deadfire, because I guess "Edér is your himbo tank buddy" makes for a better punchline. (<- salty)

and this is me getting REALLY petty, but his Deadfire voice being significantly deeper/more gruff doesn't help matters. like, PLEASE, go listen to the audio of him talking about the farmer and his Hollowborn child in POE1, or him saying ANYTHING at all about Woden. You can hear his voice break. You can hear the sincerity and the uncertainty and the anguish. you don't really get that in Deadfire imo

The Orlan Racism: idk, chat, I agree that the guy is weird about orlans, I wish we had any actual dialogue about that instead of just watching him put his foot in his mouth over and over (we'll GET to the rejection dialogue.), but like I think we could do better than this.

my beef isn't with Edér having prejudices, but with the... general way it's handled? his Hiravias banters are probably my favorite Edér Orlan Racism content across both games, because Edér says a stupid thing, gets yelled at by Hiravias, feels bad about it, tries to backtrack, and backpedals right into another microaggression. But also, there's more to his relationship with Hiravias: they chat about their shared experiences with violence, women and recreational drugs, and it sounds like Edér actually kind of relates to him. Not in a deep way, but in the way that lets them trade stories and go "hey, that happened to me too!". This makes me feel like the orlan microaggressions are something that's baked into Edér's cultural background to the point where (as he says himself) he doesn't understand that it's bad, or why Hiravias would take offense. it's funny, right? or it's a compliment? and he feels bad when he realizes that it's not, because that's not what he was trying to convey.

the Serafen banter could *maybe* be chocked down to the same kind of ignorance, but between that and Edér rejecting an orlan Watcher specifically on the grounds of them being an orlan (which from a Doylist perspective is a LIE, by the way)... idk, it feels like it's veering more into "he doesn't see orlans as the same as other kith", which is kind of not the vibe I got in POE1? and it's kind of played as like, well what can you do, he's just ignorant/prejudiced like that, which... feels bad? considering that the Watcher, potentially his best friend and moral compass, could be an orlan? if he was so prejudiced towards orlans, wouldn't he have not put so much stock into them in the first place? also, might be just me, but combined with the "FARMER /derogatory" of it all it almost feels weirdly classist? like, ah yes, the hick farmer is racist, what can we do. he can't possibly learn or have second thoughts about this. he can't possibly rethink that mindset, nevermind that his entire arc up to this point was about his entire worldview being shattered, he's just so set in his ways, you guys! isn't it funny how awkward he is!

anyway, I've read reddit comments that went "well some people in real life are like this", which, fair! but also, this is a fictional character that serves a purpose, and I don't think that's the best direction to take him in. it's fine if we disagree on this.

The Unromanceability: well, clearly I came out of POE1 an Edér/Watcher shipper, and from the tag dives I've done, I clearly wasn't the only one, and I also wasn't the only one disappointed by what we got in Deadfire (I also understand that companion romances were promised but not which companions, so people went into Deadfire on release fully intending to kiss Edér. and to all those people: I'm So Sorry.)

anyway my thoughts are that him not being romanceable is, like, fine. we could just do a fated besties HawkeVarric situation and whoever wanted to ship it could do it in fic. it would have literally been fine.

what we got was a) the option to confess to Edér and be rejected by him, b) this banter.

let's break it down.

the confession: let me preface this by saying that I know that people have interpreted Edér's rejection as him being aromantic, to which I say, cool! honestly, if I wasn't already deep in the Edér x Watcher romantic trenches I might have picked it up. but it is what it is.

a few things that I have a bone to pick with here.

as I've learned from going through the game's text files, Edér will start his rejection the same way, but will have a different reason for it depending on who the Watcher is. if the Wather is an orlan, he'll claim that back at home orlans and folk "just don't mix" and he hasn't gotten over that; if the Watcher is a man, he'll say that he's not into men and (I KID YOU NOT.) will hit you with an "in another life, maybe" (WILD IN A WORLD WHERE THERE'S REINCARNATION.); if the Watcher is a non-orlan woman, he'll claim that he hasn't really "felt like that" about anyone since Elafa.

so let me get this straight. the orlan and male Watcher lines are basically a lie, right? because he still rejects you if you're NOT an orlan. "maybe in another world" is a lie, because if you're a folk woman, he'll STILL reject you. there IS no universe where he reciprocates. so... why did he SAY that? why did he talk about orlans? WHY did he say "in another life" to a male Watcher, implying that under different circumstances he would have, if he just wouldn't?

I will say that if you read him as aro it works pretty well, because it looks like he's just reaching for the nearest excuse because he doesn't have the words to explain how he really feels about romance. Which is fun. But if that wasn't the intention, then it kind of makes me feel like? he's saying the thing that would hurt the most for this specific kind of Watcher? for some reason?

the thing about him being unromanceable (and here's where the banter is going to come in) is that I just can't figure out how the game wants me to feel about the idea of him and the Watcher being together? does it want me to laugh at it? does it want me to think there's a chance? like, if you want there to be no romance, you just need to not implement it. but knowing that people (including me. I'm people) loved the character in POE1 and came into Deadfire looking forward to romance him, the explicit need to shoot down the idea twice, with someone bringing it up and Edér going "no." is WEIRD. and Tekēhu's "Ngati weeps for such wasted potential" line is WEIRD. it feels like the game is making fun of me for even wanting that to be an option. It doesn't feel good or organic. And if Edér WAS meant to be aromantic, I don't think that's the best way to convey that. It's fine if we don't agree on this.

The Companion Quest: okay, NOW we can talk about Elafa.

The Reaping is a short story by Edér's lead writer, set just before the Eothasian purges started. It gives us a look into what Gilded Vale was like in that time, what the people felt and what it was like to be an Eothasian. It's great, it's freaking sad, I really like it.

In that story, Elafa is a Gilded Vale woman about Edér's age, who he used to hook up with before the war, when they both were younger (so in their teens, I assume). He meets her for the first time after coming back from the Saint's War at a celebration, dances with her, notes how she looks older now. They're still somewhat fond of each other, and he ends up spending the night with her. He then finds out that Elafa has married since he last saw her (I don't remember if we ever learn what happened to the husband), and that she has a child that she's raising alone. Her child is Hollowborn.

I'm going to show you a few passages from The Reaping now.

this is his relationship with Elafa in The Reaping.

fellas, is this what the guy from the above scenes would say about the woman from the above scenes FIRST THING when being asked about her? in front of a stranger? (this is triggered right after recruiting Xoti.)

I don't know. maybe it's just me, but when he finds out that her son is Hollowborn, the FIRST THING he does is voice his support. the second thing he does is try to imagine himself in her shoes. later in the story he kills a man with his bare hands to save her Hollowborn son, she kills another, and they hide the evidence together.

^ he's saying that one TO HER SON. (not the Hollowborn. other son.)

fellas, is this the same people?

(^ being extremely salty)

and then, the other thing about his companion quest is These Lines

chat.... is this Edér? is this Edér "the gods really have it in for you; wish they knew you like I did" Teylecg? is this the guy specifically built up by the narrative to be your ride-or-die? the guy who saw his god crawl out of the earth and instead of doing LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE hoofed it to where he knew YOU were, to save your life?

please explain to me the purpose behind having him go "hey, you know how I said I care about you? well, I kind of didn't mean that. can we go find that woman I hooked up with and see if her second son is mine?" in the exact way he did. like. POE1 and The Reaping conditoned me to think of him as someone who understands people. who FEELS for them. POE1 and the opening of Deadfire, by virtue of him SAVING MY GODDAMN LIFE, also conditioned me to think he cares about the Watcher. deeply. sincerely. WHY is the narration trying to convince me otherwise? WHY are we throwing out every single part of the character that I originally found appealing? POE1 Edér became my favorite because he was funny, yes, but also because he was insightful; because he was questioning; because you could hear in his voice that this is a guy teetering on his breaking point and still trying to find joy in the world, trying to find something, anything that would help him make sense of things; because he cared about people, and he cared about the Watcher. he trusted you with his past, and you helped him make peace with it. he saw you through the horrors and the creeping insanity of an Awakening, and offered whatever help he could, and felt that he knew you. his world shattered during the Saint's War, and you helped him find his place in the wreckage, where something new may grow. you were with him when he found out the truth about his brother and about Eothas, and decided what it meant to him. that's FUN. that's COMPELLING. that REWROTE MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY.

Deadfire is a great game and Edér has great moments in it. But I have subjective, petty beef with it, and I also have slightly less subjective beef with the way it just chooses not to follow through on things like his relationships with Elafa and Hiravias, reducing these topics to one-liners that deny him both depth and growth, which is WHAT I LIKED ABOUT HIM. I didn't like him because he was a himbo tank. I liked the existential crisis. And we don't even GET a fun existential crisis for him in Deadfire, because it just does "is Eothas.... bad?" again. arguably the "am I a dad?" arc could have been a fun existential crisis, but I just don't like the way it was done - and resolved - at all

so... yeah.

[dyl-z]

178 | 179 | 180

cw: mental health issues, disjointed thinking, fluctuating self-worth, paranoia, disassociation, light suicidal ideation

Sirius is very much an unreliable narrator

[chiropteracupola]

granby + iskierka + keynes

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Shout out to all artists who had to work without any strong direction or instruction.

I wish you a merry “the client likes it anyways”