clevermird

[clevermird]

Page 1

[clevermird]

Sith Inquisitor Storyline: Drunk History Version

Y’all, and by y’all I mean one person (@sith-shenanigans thank you very much), asked for it, and I live to repeat this over and over for others’ amusement, so here it is. Have my summary of the pinball machine that is the Sith Inquisitor storyline, from memory, originally drafted a while back in DMs with a friend who’s never played SWTOR. Spoilers for the Sith Inquisitor storyline, obviously.

Without further ado: Let us begin.

- So your story begins as a recently sort-of-freed slave walking off a ship and onto Hell: The Planet. (The nonhuman Inquisitor immediately experiences 2483947 microaggressions.)

- You have to compete with a bunch of other people! Only one of you is not going to die and the overseer has already picked his favorite, seemingly purely because he happens to have red skin. They will both (the overseer and Teacher’s Pet) proceed to be as annoying as possible for the rest of the Korriban story.

- multiple people try to kill you, but you’re the protagonist, so fuck them

- “Teacher’s Pet, you go to the library and translate these texts. Protagonist, you go to this ancient tomb and figure out how to retrieve an artifact from a lock that no one has been able to open in ten thousand years.” “Libraries are boring anyway. Yawn.”

- You finally get to smackdown with Teacher’s Pet, which is satisfying as hell. Unfortunately the overseer gets pissy about it. Fortunately, the Sith you’ve been competing to be the apprentice of decided she liked you early on and has also been playing favorites, so you don’t die immediately.

- your master is great! much more into positive reinforcement than most Sith.

- at some point you semi-accidentally steal someone else’s cult on Nar Shaddaa and now they worship you as a nigh-on god. whoops. you just kind of… leave and let them run their own business. you pay them visits later in the storyline.

- you also become part bug so you can go skinny dipping in radioactive waste. it’s fine, we promise.

- your master is trying to steal your body because turns out she’s actually really old and kind of dying so she plans on kicking you out of your body, transplanting her own soul in your place, killing her old body, and assuming your identity after “you” “killed” “your master”! that’s not great, better not let her do that.

-  you successfully didn’t let her do that! wait, now she’s sharing a body with one of your companions, an ancient monster who you kind of forced into submission and who serves you rather unwillingly now. there is apparently nothing that can be done about this so sometimes your eight-foot-tall monster not-friend talks in a high, unnervingly smooth feminine voice and tries to convince you she’s on your side now that she’s forced by this new body to not harm you. this is also not great but what are you gonna do. he is also Not Pleased about this by the way, and really who can blame him.

- some darth on the dark council named Thanaton decides to get pissy with you for reasons I don’t remember and now he’s trying to kill you. what the fuck.

-  he actually almost does kill you but your old master’s other apprentices, who are now your apprentices, save you from the brink of death.

- (the apprentices, by the way, are very sweet and I love them. they’re murdered by thanaton almost immediately.)

-  your solution to “I need more power, fast”, for some godforsaken reason, is “I’m going to learn to walk the line between life and death and EAT GHOSTS” and I wish I were exaggerating this

- you go out and eat a bunch of ghosts of old Sith on various planets

- subpoint to this: on one of these planets, you accomplish this by coercing the ghost’s descendant, a Jedi padawan named Ashara, to get the ghost to appear so you can eat him. You end up murdering her masters in the process because one way or another they find out about your plan. She is understandably horrified by this turn of events and, feeling she has no chance of returning to the Jedi, reluctantly joins your crew and either (Light Side Quizzy) learns to balance light and dark sides of the Force and becomes ultimately stronger for it, or (Dark Side Quizzy) lives in abject terror of you for the rest of the storyline. I love her dearly as well. fortunately she is not murdered by thanaton.

- congrats! you ate enough ghosts to have enough power to beat thanaton up!

- unfortunately, you have Ate Too Many Ghosts Disease now and need immediate medical attention.

- your mind kind of just Shatters and you may or may not have hallucinations for a while iirc. either way you need help or you’re just gonna disintegrate slowly until the ghosts overwhelm you and take over. you go to Voss and participate in some wild Force ritual they’ve got to take care of that. it’s a fun time

- your body is also having a bad time and that also needs fixing; I don’t remember where you go for this (Belsavis, I think?) but you end up checking out a machine made by a long-dead alien civilization and the machine turns out to a) be sentient and b) be responsible for CREATING A GOOD PORTION OF THE GALAXY’S NEAR-HUMAN SPECIES, IF NOT ALL OF THEM, AND DISSEMINATING THEM TO THE GALAXY AS PART OF THE RAKATA’S EXPERIMENTS ON CREATING FORCE-SENSITIVE LIFEFORMS IN HOPES OF KEEPING THEIR OWN SPECIES FROM DYING OUT BECAUSE THEY WERE SUPER RACIST AND EVENTUALLY THAT RACISM KICKED THEM IN THE ASS IN THE FORM OF A MASS REVOLUTION THAT WIPED THEM OUT COMPLETELY BUT THE MACHINE IS STILL HERE

- all right I’m calm sorry I derailed for a moment

- I have a lot of thoughts about things

-  anyway the machine bUILDS YOU A NEW FUCKING BODY and you’re good to go now

-  (by the way, depending what species you’re playing, it’s entirely possible you learn at this point that your entire species only exists because of this machine!)

- (anyway.)

- okay, mind fixed, body fixed, ghosts consumed, we’re good to go! time to murder a dark councilor!

- “we do that”

- except you don’t because you’re on corellia and this dipshit challenges you to a kaggath without really ever explaining in detail what a kaggath is or what the rules (if any) are, we just know it seems to be the ancient and very formal Sith way of saying “meet me in the denny’s parking lot at 3am if you want an ass-kicking”, and then hE RUNS OFF TO DROMUND KAAS WHICH DEPENDING ON WHAT GALAXY MAP YOU BELIEVE IS UP TO FIVE DAYS’ TRAVEL AWAY

- YOU’RE CANONICALLY JUST CHASING THIS LITTLE BITCH THROUGH SPACE FOR FIVE DAYS AFTER HE CHALLENGED YOU

-  he then goes to the Dark Council to try to convince them to help him kill you and you literally have to just go to the Dark Council chambers too and kick in the door and go “HEARD YOU WERE TALKIN SHIT” in front of everyone

- (which to be fair is basically Sith philosophy in a nutshell)

-  Ravage and Marr spend this entire council meeting just exchanging tired glances and going “no, fuck you, why can’t you kill them, they’re your problem. fight for our entertainment now. fuck you”

- (Darth Baras did this exact same shit earlier the same day, by the way, with the Sith Warrior. and by “earlier the same day” I mean “like fifteen minutes prior to this.”)

- you fight Thanaton. to no one’s surprise, because you’re the protagonist and because he’s being a little bitch about it, you kick his ass and slaughter him in front of everyone

- half the Council stands up and you just kind of go “oh shit I’m gonna die”

- but no

- you’re being promoted

- congration you done it you’re a dark councilor now

- someone complains because wait, they’re not even a darth, you can’t be a dark councilor if you’re not even a darth

- first person responds with “well fuck you then, we’ll make them a darth. hey you. your name is Darth Nox (dark side)/Imperius (light side)/Occulus (neutral) now. take a seat”

- “but - what?”

- “take a fuckin seat, babe”

- “o- okay" 

- “you run the entire Ancient Knowledge sector now, by the way, despite the fact that you may or may not be illiterate due to having been raised a slave, because that was what Thanaton ran and we only have the one job opening since the Warrior just killed Baras”

- (the Warrior, freshly coined the Emperor’s Wrath officially, waves from their corner where they’re cleaning Baras’s blood off their boots)

- “I - okay, I guess”

and that’s the Sith Inquisitor storyline. That’s a wrap, folks, roll credits. if this gets enough notes and/or if literally anyone says they’d like to see it I may also post the Imperial Agent and/or do other class stories, I enjoy these way too much

[clevermird]

Yes!

Should I continue? 👉🏻👈🏻

[clevermird]

[clevermird]

Archon Izuael of the Kabal of the Sanguine Briar, Former Incubi of the Shrine of the Coiled Blade, Ynnari. Commissioned by Orillion

[clevermird]

Alerith Vaech - eldar corsair

[clevermird]

I have to choose Ginger simply because she deserved better :(

Fictional Horse Tournament

Group Haley - Round 1

[clevermird]

shading colour tips

hey yall its me the Art Mom™ to help you shade pretty

rule 1: DO NOT SHADE WITH BLACK. EVER. IT NEVER LOOKS GOOD. 

red- shade with a slightly darker shade of purple

orange- slightly darker and more saturated shade of red

yellow- i think like..a peach could work but make it a really light peach

green- shade with darker and less saturated shade of blue or teal

blue- shade with purple

purple- a shade thats darker than the purple you’re using and maybe a little pink (MAYBE blue)

pink- darker shade of red

white- a really light lavender or blue..or i guess any really light colour??

black- okay listen dont use pure black to colour anything unless you want to leave it with flat colours because you cant really shade black lol

grey- a slightly darker shade of purple or blue (less saturated)

brown- slightly darker and less saturated shade of purple or red

aaaaand thats all i got lol. let me know if there is anything i should add to this list!!

[clevermird]

Dear Tumblr

If I block someone, I block them because I do not want to see their posts on my dash.

I do not want to see their posts on my dash, even if they're reblogged by someone I do follow.

#tumblr is broken

[clevermird]

There's a lot of bad writing advice out there, but I also see a lot of "writing advice" social media accounts that try to refute "bad advice" that isn't actually that bad or requires bad-faith assumptions about the advice-giver (assuming a suggestion is being given as a rule, for example, or taking slight exaggeration for effect literally).

A lot of times it just comes off as whoever owns the account feeling personally attacked because the OP advised against something the owner themself does.

#mirdmusings

[clevermird]

Review: Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley

This book had a bit of an uphill battle with me, as Beauty is one of my favorite books and another take on the story of Beauty and the Beast from the same author seemed a bit like gilding the lily. But on the other hand, Beauty is a pretty straightforward retelling and there’s plenty of room to create variations on the theme, so why not check it out? In this take, Beauty is again the youngest of a rich merchant’s three daughters (Lionheart and Jeweltongue being the other two), but when her father loses his fortune, they are forced to move to a small village and live simply in Rose Cottage, where Beauty discovers a talent for gardening. Her father hears that an old ship has come in and on the return from this ultimately fruitless journey, finds himself sheltered by a magical castle in a storm. You probably know the rest of the story. . . Interestingly, it seems that every strength of this book is also a weakness and vice versa. From the start, Rose Daughter takes a different tone than its predecessor. Gone is the practical, down-to-earth first-person narration in favor of a dreamy third-person viewpoint. This works to the book’s advantage – it is a fairytale, after all – although it does become a bit ‘much’ at points, particularly once we reach the Beast’s castle and the descriptions of flowers and textiles seem to go on and on until readers lose track completely of what’s what.  Likewise, the book has some very creative ideas for how to shake up the classic story of Beauty and the Beast, adding in a complex backstory and, perhaps most unusually, separating the “turned into a beast” curse from the “must find love or else” curse. However, most of this is saved for the last two or three chapters, leaving little time to explore its implications in favor of spending the early part of the book in vignettes with the villagers and domestic drama that, while charming, wind up crowding out the parts that readers came for. Spending too much time on setup and not enough on climax is a frequent weakness of McKinley’s writing, but this was an especially egregious example.  Yet again the duality shows up in the characters. Beauty, in this version, has a love of flowers (particularly roses) and a recurring nightmare, both of which intriguingly tie her into the story of the Beast and his enchantments. Rather than a complete stranger chosen by pure chance, she is entwined with the whole story in a way. But as cool of a development as this is, there isn’t a lot else to her character, and the same can be said of most of the others. The Beast in particular suffers from this. As the love interest, he should be getting as much focus as Beauty, but we learn very little about him and the couple has very little chemistry apart from their shared affection for flowers.  I make it a rule not to spoil the endings of books if I can help it and I will keep to that here, but I will say that I found the final twist on the classic tale to be the most unique and memorable part of the book and even if it raises some logical questions, that alone was almost worth the price of admission.  While Rose Daughter has some really creative ideas and some beautiful prose, it’s ultimately held back by flat characters and an unfocused story. I enjoyed reading it well enough, but if you’re searching for an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, there are far better choices. 

Warnings: There is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to sexual assault

Rating: 6/10

#mird reviews stuff #robin mckinley #rose daughter

[clevermird]

I dream of the day when I won’t have to look at this fucking chart….

[clevermird]

Blackshield

commission art

[clevermird]

someone: luke skywalker beat darth vader and ended the empire

everyone else in the galaxy:

everyone on tatooine:

[clevermird]

I started watching Teen Wolf because I needed something vaguely silly like that in my life and the fact that they made the hunter family's surname "Argent" is both utterly stupid and so perfect that I kinda love it.

#teen wolf

[clevermird]

Reemerging, she seats herself at the table and eyes the woman critically while she waits. She’s tall and buxom – likely a good twenty centimeters taller than Jian – with a powerful build and blonde hair tied in a soft knot at the back of her head. Like Jian, she wears a long tunic, split up the legs to allow for easy movement, with leggings and armored boots.

I wanted to draw Ayslinn from Silver Ash and Bone, on her first meeting with Jian. The green reminded me of both Biel-Tan (the craftworld from which she hails) and the Striking Scorpions (the aspect to which she once belonged and in a way still does).

#mird's art #silver ash and bone #striking scorpions #warhammer 40k #40k fanart #aeldari

[clevermird]

sample size of friends too small. what’s the best cookie (rbs appreciated)

#sugar cookies #especially with frosting