Bregan D'aerthe
Still on a mad BG3 kick… so here I am doing more FR stuff in my spare time! Redid an old Bregan D'aerthe piece from 2010.
Tried for a "Randomly stumble upon a hidden area in the Undercity Ruins only to be greeted in the dark by an unusual collection of brigands led by an even more unusual drow" type scene, because lord knows I desperately wanted that to happen.
Modelled Jarlaxle's face after Richard O'Brien (because if you're as old as I am and you've seen him on The Crystal Maze… you'll know why I can't imagine anyone else as Jarlaxle).
Hi guys, sorry for the hiatus. Been going thru some changes in life so I was trying to adjust to that >.< So please have Steph and Cass as pokemon trainers as compensations!! I had so much fun doing this in Pokemon's artstyle, such a fun and distinctive style to do.
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.
cult jokes are a symptom of and contribute to the simultaneous sensationalizing of cults (cults are all dark cloaks and animal sacrifices and devil worship and group suicide and despicable/unhinged beliefs) and diminishing of cults ("uwu come join my CULT XD we're gonna make cookies and WORSHIP SATAN teehee"), but i'm realizing how they go so hand-in-hand with the mindset of "only ~stupid/evil/crazy/etc.~ people could possibly join a cult. if it were me i would simply not fall for cult propaganda."
the diminishing part means that people don't take you seriously if you say you're an ex cult member or talk about your experiences in a cult or believe you are a current victim of a cult, because cults are just silly little groups that have weird beliefs but are otherwise innocuous. the sensationalizing part means people will also not take you seriously because if it was Actually a cult cult, that does harm and has evil beliefs, you should've known better because any reasonable person would have seen through it. the other side of "only an [xyz] person joins a cult" is "i am not an [xyz] person so i will never join a cult or be victim to propaganda and other cult tactics." the other side of "if it were me i would simply not fall for propaganda" is "someone falling for propaganda is fully a choice and a personal failing on their part." and combined they make: if you were [xyz] enough to join a cult and fall for propaganda, that means you deserved it.
people who would never make jokes about any other kind of abuse but feel perfectly fine making cult jokes used to kind of baffle me, because why is joking about personal abuse a problem but large-scale/group abuse is fine? why is it suddenly funny when you're the one that wants to perpetuate the abuse? but if your belief around cults is: "your experience wasn't that bad [diminishing], and if it was that bad [sensationalizing] it was your own fault and personal failing [i would simply not fall for propaganda], which means you deserved what you went through [only stupid/evil/crazy/etc people join cults]" and you don't understand how cults or cult tactics work, cult survivors/victims probably feel like a fair target for jokes (they are not, to be clear).
So EA/Bioware were retweeting all the negative comments towards Larian,huh
Can't say I'm not surprised by that. A lot of the ones doing so are pretty big names that could definitely improve their games and yet they wanna complain as if fans are expecting 'too much' from them. Like we should just accept getting half baked games all the time...really showing their arses, aren't they.😅
I think what these devs don't comprehend and why they are panicking is because they think everyone wants them to do all the same things when x game becomes popular. And they know they will fail because it happens Every Single Time.
You can't copy paste someone's work and think that it will be revolutionary. It's the same thing that happened when skyrim had huge open world then they all did that. But they do this to themselves!!! They want constant big successes without creativity. Now they whine in advance saying they can't do this. Good. Nobody wants the same game but worse released 500 times.
It reveals their way of thinking, they do the "copy homework" thing because they think it's expected of them. This is what they mean by the "new standard". Their brains immediately leapt to "we now need to replicate everything about the style and scope of this game."
NO. That is not the standard. If only they embraced their own style and leaned into their own strengths and listened to feedback.
Bioware's stupidity in particular is truly incredible. because they achieved this at one point, they were a success story with Baldur's Gate. Then they went on to make games that people still consider some of the greatest rpgs of all time, they "set the standard". But then they refused to listen.
Because every company tries to appeal to the masses, they try to entice the playerbase of different games. But actually they just lose their own players. Oh by the way, dear tumblr staff... does this remind you of someone?
I’m so happy with this gradient it’s soooooo smooth. This shawl is a real challenge to knit both because of the structure of this yarn and the actual pattern itself is written in a way that’s really frustrating, but at least it’s beautiful enough to only be slightly extremely annoying.
girl help the ocean was a recurring character motif in my third life grian fanfiction I've been writing on and off since 08/2022. girl the ao3 comments are going to correct me on when grian got obsessed with the ocean