#of my character and the internal representational (if limited) options afforded to me by the game

[thedragonagelesbian]

As someone currently playing a devout non-mage trevelyan inquisitor let me tell you it's like........ not even the same game. You just fit into the narrative in a way that no other origin does.

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

Obscure Marvel fancast of the day: Ksenia Solo as Sybil Dvorak aka Skein! (Note: Skein’s background is that she was “raised by” Roma, implying she’s not Roma herself. And if she *was* Roma, she’d be a really problematic portrayal, given that she’s a hypersexual thief, so I went the idea she’s NOT, especially since she also never displays any kind of ties to Roma culture. Hence my casting her as a white woman, it seemed the more sensitive option.) Sybil is a mutant from Romania whose power is technically just telekinesis, but since she can physically “feel” the things she’s psychically manipulating, she refuses to use her powers on anything but soft things like fur, flowers, and feathers, to the point her power has been canonically re-defined as “textile telekinesis” since she uses it only/primarily on fabric when she fights (and I think writers have forgotten this is a choice rather than her actual power) I think that’s a really neat idea, and it makes for a unique psychological limitation that makes her normally-generic power (telekinesis) more distinct. Plus I can relate to just wanting to TOUCH ALL THE SOFT THINGS! Sybil’s original codename was…well, unfortunately, it was Gypsy Moth. For those who don’t know, the g-word is a slur for the Roma people. The reason for the “Moth” part is that, duh, moths like fabric (they lay their eggs in it) and the G-part is because she was said in her background to have been raised by Roma people. Of course, “Roma” isn’t the word Marvel used, they used the g-slur. But it just says she was RAISED by them, not that she IS Roma herself, and given that she’s a hypersexual thief, I prefer to headcanon she’s indeed NOT Roma and just grew up in close proximity to them (but was not “raised” by them per se, as that makes me think about anti-Roma myths spread about them stealing children---I like to think she just says that seem interesting) Anyway, little Sybil mainly kept to herself, and spent her time honing her powers until she crafted fabric wings for herself that she’s actually able to fly with by levitating them when they’re attached to her, though she hasn’t done that since she changed codenames. She eventually fell in love with an American actor who was starring in a “Dracula” movie being shot in her homeland, and he took her back to the States with her…only to leave her all alone in his big house while he went out all day. She began to suspect he was having affairs, and thus she started crashing fancy people’s parties under her “G*****y Moth” identity looking for him, and terrorizing the guests there for fun with her powers. After he died under mysterious circumstances, she was left his house and money, and she continued her hobby of party-crashing and scaring the rich, apparently just for fun now. She eventually started running “The Cult of the Sybarite” in which she provided a much lower class of people with drugs in exchange for them stealing soft objects for her. Given that she could just buy soft things on her own (especially since she could apparently afford drugs) my guess is that she just wanted to have people who loved her around…but in such a way that she controlled them and they couldn’t leave her. After being stopped in these activities multiple times by Spider-Woman, she joined up with a supervillain crew called The Night Shift and had a few capers with them, then ran with the Masters of Evil for a short time too until she was convinced by Hawkeye to switch sides. It seems her reasons for both affiliations were shallow, as she says she was only with the Masters of Evil for kicks, and had only changed sides because she wanted to see what it was like to have sex with a superhero. It was now that she began calling herself Skein, and crafted herself the very sexy costume she’s got in the image above, whereas her previous one was much more modest:

While she had been a largely cold, formal, almost unfeeling character as the Moth, only showing emotion deep down in her internal thoughts, as Skein she was extremely hypersexual, thrill-seeking, and spoke much more casually. My headcanon is that she developed a more casual command of the English language due to having been here awhile, and she became more sexual and thrill-seeking as a way to fill the emotional void and because it naturally complimented the sensual hedonism she’d shown before with her love for silky fabrics, soft furs, etc., to say nothing of the involvement with recreational drugs. She joined the Thunderbolts, a team of villains-turned-heroes, but her stay with them was brief. She was one of the few mutants to retain her powers after M-Day, and she joined the Initiative under Norman Osbourne, which assigned a “superhero squad” of registered superhumans to protect each state. Skein was assigned to the Women Warriors, an all-female team that protected Delware. Skein is considered by many fans to have been hinted as being bisexual, and unfortunately I do think of her that way. I say “unfortunately” because she’s…probably even worse representation than Shinobi Shaw? Again, she’s a hypersexual exhibitionist who mentions she owns sex clubs, she was literally a criminal just for the fun of it, her change from villain to hero is literally motivated by sex, and she seems to have no moral compass and not much in the way of empathy for other people, to the point where she didn’t care when her addict followers were trying to DROWN Spider-Woman. She’s a borderline sociopath and, she doesn’t really have any greater depth or reason for being awful (I do not count “a guy broke my heart” as reason for all this) She is TERRIBLE bi rep. Yet, I can’t shake the headcanon of her as bisexual now that it’s THERE. So, if she’s so awful, why do I wanna like her? Well, firstly, I like trash, we all know that. And Skein’s like…not actively harmful trash? She’s not really actually out to hurt people, she seems to just want to have fun and get thrills, and that makes it easy to write her befriending and interacting with other people of ANY side. I also just really like the “bad girl who just wants to have fun” thing, because it’s so far removed from how *I* am, I’m a shut in goody two shoes nerd, so playing someone like Skein would just be such a cut-loose fantasy. Skein gives no shits! But what makes her different from a million other “thrill-seeking sexy bad girl who gives no fucks” characters, who are abundant in comics, is her tactile obsessions. That’s what got me interested in her in the first place, that this person is just obsessed with soft textures SO MUCH that she pathologically limits her own psychic powers because of it. I don’t believe that Skein is hypersensitive or autistic or anything, but as someone who is, and has sensory issues because of that, I really relate to that, I just dig it more than I can reasonably express. Plus, I feel like it makes her powers more unique, and it means she can spin up dresses and stuff…or unravel a greater villain’s cape, which she did once! I love that!