yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.
to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!
i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.
also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.
they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.
they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.
i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.
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so glad the hearth timeline is like… slightly more understandable than before. previously i had freminet down as being given to the hearth at about 5, arle killing the previous knave when he was about 8, and the twins being taken in a few months later at about 12 when he was still 8. for my au, that makes them about four years apart, which feels slightly large of an age gap but ultimately it works better than making them a year or two apart.
apparently, canonically arle was 16 when clervie died at 16, 17 when she killed the previous knave, and then spent an unknown amount of time in prison before becoming a harbinger and taking over as the director of the house of hearth.
freminet was taken in during the year between clervie’s death and crucabena’s death. the twins were taken in a few months after that.
if freminet was taken in at 5-6, the twins taken in around 9-10, that keeps the age gap between the trio as well as explains the ~10 year gap between this and canon. that would make freminet 15-16 and the twins 19-20, which fits them really well. i wish arlecchino was older, though; she definitely feels older than ~27.
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Thinking about ‘The Long Game’ and how the Doctor says Adam is Rose’s boyfriend and she immediately says “not anymore”
And just the entirety of her on-off relationship with Mickey
I feel like there’s something to be said too about how it’s implied Jackie is always with a new man...but she always loved Pete
Idk where I’m going with this exactly but I feel like dating for Rose must have been a very casual thing she learned from Jackie, I really never even got the sense that she and Mickey were in a serious relationship (neither one of them treated it that way honestly)
Maybe it’s why it’s so impactful when she talks about how the Doctor isn’t her boyfriend because he’s more important than that
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Something about Whit’s character that I don’t see a lot of people talking about is how often he is willing to hide things or even just straight up lie in order to protect people.
In the CH1-9, he lies about being friends with Charles in order to prove his innocence, and mind you not only has Whit not known Charles for more then about three or four days with the only interactions between them being Whit teasing him, but Whit outright admits in CH2-2 that he used to be the most judgemental of him
Now obviously Whit and Charles became friends after the trial, but the point here is that in Chapter 1, Charles is not someone that Whit particularly knew, and yet Whit still chose to lie despite the small chance that Charles was actually the culprit.
But the instance I really want to talk about is in CH2-11 when Whit hides David’s secret from the rest of the cast. This isn’t an Eden situation where she was threatened into keeping quiet, Whit chose to keep quiet about David’s secret despite it being a massive piece of evidence and potentially risking everyone’s lives in the process. David was also someone that Whit lacked any real relationship with, I think the only time the two interacted was in the kitchen in CH2-7 and that was very brief
Whit mentions after David goes into his emo phase that the reason he hid the secret was to protect David’s career, but honestly it feels strange that that would even be a concern in his mind in a situation like this, especially when like I said he barely knew or had any interactions with David. There is another reason for this behavior.
Now, in CH2-3, Charles does say something that could give a lead
Whit is a very empathetic person, and probably puts himself in other people’s shoes when it comes to situations like this. As such, he is not the kind of person to sacrifice someone else’s privacy willy-nilly as he can imagine how that would affect someone.
This also lines up quite well with his talent, I must add. As the Ultimate Matchmaker, part of his talent probably has to do with keeping people’s secrets, and this lines up with how DRDTDev describes his talent too
However, I do think there is another reason for this
I feel like Whit and Hu share a similar mindset of wanting to assume the best in others. Hu is obviously more direct with it, but I think Whit also has this mindset to a smaller degree. You could argue that this is also due to his intuition, and I’d say it is partially that, but with the whole David situation I don’t think that’s all there is to it as every other example of his intuition has turned out to be right. Whit hiding things and lying for others probably comes from a place of wanting to believe the best in them. I don’t think Whit would really care about protecting David’s career if he thought he was a scumbaggy manipulator, nor would he lie about being Charles’ friend to cover for him if he thought he was the culprit. He chose to do those things in an attempt to see the best in them.
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i have to say, i have had EXTENSIVE conversations with my friend about genderbend aus. specifically how people never do they actual character justice and just make them Pretty Girls Who Are Pretty. but you. you understand. i love you girl soukoku designs so much, they fit their actual personalities so well AND they are pretty girls.
idk i have seen a lot of girl skk designs that have REALLY put me off because they feel like. gratuitous sex appeal, and that seems really really wrong. Daz and Chuu are already purposely designed to be /androgynous/ as males, it'd be nice to have that work in the reverse too wouldn't it? That's not even accounting for genderbends that aren't strictly following the male-female binaries. It would be nice to not have to push gendered stereotypes into designs where they're entirely unnecessary right?
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🌈🌍🐉 for Carmen and Ismene?
Oh man. Big night for women with issues!!!! I went through a full spectrum of emotions answering these, thank you
[prompt]
🌈 - Do you associate any colors with them?
Oh for sure. On both counts, haha. I feel like this is a thing for most of my OCs- at least, it’s a major point of trying to like. Visualize a design for them when drawing. At any rate.
Carmen has always been strongly associated with red to me. It’s a very vibrant, strong color, and it’s also a very heroic and regal one. Maybe it’s just the kinds of books I read as a kid, but when I think of kings and knights, I think of crimson and scarlet and all that jazz. She’s proud, principled, and aspires to be a paragon of what she considers virtue. I’ve also always portrayed her with a rose as an emblem- a romantic symbol. Of course, the obvious flip side of that is that there’s a lot of negative association with red as well- fire and blood are the obvious ones here. She’s not fiery in the sense of raging passion or blistering anger per se, but more like… a destructive flame that would burn everything to ashes, maybe. Someone with burning ideals and zealotry so hot that it’s searing her too. Of course, the less fanciful aspect of the red is that it’s a color that was also associated with the chivalric order she was a part of in tabletop (also an anchor point of the rose). Carmen’s kind of a funny character for color though. She’s been around in some form or other for ten years or more at this point, and she’s always had the red association. It’s something that’s kind of transformed over time.
Ismene is an easy purple. And one day I swear to fucking god I will manage to color some of my art of her. Although I guess it wouldn’t be posted here so uhh maybe it doesn’t matter. Anyway. Purple. Regal and mystical. That’s the kind of vibe that I always want her to give off as a first impression, so purple is an obvious choice. I think there’s also something to purple being a kind of cool, somber color- she’s become a more mischievous character than originally planned, but I think it’s right for her to have a certain self-serious gravitas. This is a bit of an open and shut one I don’t have much more to say ^^;;
🌍 - What are this oc’s religious views?
Oh good god.
Carmen’s religious views are Very Different in Wrath from her original tabletop iteration (where her schtick is generally kind of inverted from part of Wrath), so I’m going to preface this by saying I’m answering for the Wrath iteration of the character. Carmen is a dogmatic atheist. You know the goofy edgelord atheist dialogue in this game? Honestly totally on point for her. She doesn’t believe that people should rely on the gods, and she believes that gods are ultimately all self-serving and tend to use mortals as proxies for their conflicts and the most extreme expressions of existence. The affairs of mortals should belong entirely to mortals. She’s not a person who sees the good gods as fundamentally better than the evil. In the end, they’re still imposing the same manipulative systems on their followers. They still inspire violent, irrational conflict. And they don’t “inspire” their followers. They breed helplessness. They make people reliant, cause them to wait and pray for salvation instead of searching for it themselves. The gods are cowards and parasites. And one day, it would be nice to see them torn down from their thrones.
I had to look up/double check FR lore for this one, which was half the time spent on this whole thing if I’m being real with you. Anyway. Ismene’s upbringing obviously meant a lot of exposure to gods of knowledge, and she tends to regard these deities with a reasonable level of respect. Knowledge, to her, is the highest power; those who reign over it are the highest Powers. She identified particularly strongly with Savras, Alaundo’s patron, from a precocious age- one of a number of ways she has taken aspects of the life of the one true prophet for herself. This seemed like a bit of childish fancy when she was young, but the release of Savras during the Time of Troubles gave it more gravity- another uncanny bit of foresight from the girl. For her, it seemed a sign in and of itself- thought not a person of deep devotion, she quietly claimed the returned god as her patron, developing a personal belief that her prophetic abilities had been an omen of his return and deepening her sense that she was personally connected to Alaundo. In the years between the Time of Troubles and the revelation of her Bhaalspawn heritage Ismene developed a conviction that she had a destiny to take up Alaundo’s mantle as a true prophet of Savras in the new age. Her personal dedication to the god is partially responsible for her aversion to outright lying- to speak untruth is anathema to the All-Seeing, though she never quite internalized his dedication to wholly avoiding misdirection and deceit. The revelation of her divine blood shook her faith deeply- in some form or other, her abilities originate in truth from Bhaal. Of course, with pride and precocious self-importance as the origins of her devotion to the Lord of Divination, she’s certainly able to adapt to the idea of being a demigod given time. I don’t want to say more when I have yet to y’know. Finish the original Bhaalspawn Saga. But I certainly have an idea of the trajectory of a hubristic young wizard who gets to live with the smug satisfaction that she can outfox a god.
🐉 - Very serious question… are they more like a dragon, or a unicorn?
Carmen is an easy dragon. It’s the fire thing. And the knight thing. What’s the opposite of a noble knight? That’s right, a dragon. And also being very cool despite objectively killing a lot of people, which isn’t so awesome.
Ismene is like a unicorn because she’s just so goddamn special. I wrote that sentence as filler for later but you know what? I’m right. What else needs to be said, really. And also it’s the princess-y thing. The maiden-y thing. The magic-y thing. Like. Y’know.
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