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My Roman Empire

#jane eyre #charlotte bronte #roman empire

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another collage i made a while ago on shoplook . artemis

#collage #shoplook #aesthetic #artemis

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Writing Exercise: Apathy

I don’t think I can keep doing this meaningless walking in a circle. I mean, waking up, going to school, talking and socializing, none of it is difficult, per se. But there are just some things that make the apathy flare up. Comments people make, feelings you have, things that happen. It can all just become a little much. 

I try to find motivation. I promise myself things, I promise that I’ll wake up and this heaviness that’s pulling me further and further down will go away. Or I promise that I’ll forget about it. That I’ll just suddenly walk into a new room and forget why I feel so bad in the first place. 

It doesn’t work. I stare at my computer screen, at my book, at my homework, and none of it excites me. None of it talks to me like it used to. And it did used to talk. It used to constantly talk, to chatter, to offer a world that was so much better than the aimlessness of my own. 

My life is good. It is, I know this and I try to take stock of it at least once per day. I try to slow down enough so I can be present. But then I think about how I hate the phrase ‘be present’ even though it has done nothing to me at all. And then I think about all of the work I have yet to do, all of the things that I may be forgetting, did I tap the toe of my shoe when I opened that pull door earlier? Why did my mother comment on what I was eating why do I spent so much time trying to feel sad when all of my sadness is right there at the surface why do I want to be part of something so badly yet the moment I do join something I already start to hate it-

My thoughts don’t slow down in time and they bowl me over with how many are shouting at me to do one thing, blaming me for another, telling me that if I don’t tap the toe of my shoe, once on each shoe, when I open a pull door because if I don’t then clearly I’m just asking for something terrible to happen. 

I suppose it’s not really apathy at this point so much as anxiety. Lingering nervousness under everything I do, or say, or think, or wear or want to do. 

But what’s the difference between listlessness and anxiety when it feels to me as though one can’t exist without the other? If I’m nervous, then I’m listless about how I’m going to be like this forever, and if I’m listless, I’m nervous about why I’m lacking joy, or why I’m so tired when clearly there’s something to do that I’m missing, and by missing it I’m jeopardizing my whole future. 

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Author’s Note: A small vent piece disguised as a writing exercise :)

#writing #writing exercise #writer

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a whimsigoth collage i made on shoplook

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i’ve never actually made anything in whimsigoth so i can’t guarantee total accuracy

#shoplook #whimsigoth #whimsy #dark fairycore #season of the witch

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I drew this a while back on my math exam

i didn’t do well on the exam, but I think I did well on this

#Padme Amidala #padme naberrie #padme my beloved #padme fanart #star wars fanart #math exam #i'm bad at math #star wars #star wars prequels

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Because the Kenobi show’s impending has got me thinking about the prequels more than usual (which is constantly), I thought that I’d draw the ever-iconic Padme. Also, I’m reading Queen’s Hope, which is GREAT, and not just because I’m love with the senator and Sabé at once. 

Ignore that I was too lazy to clean any of the drawing up more than I did (which was half-assed in the first place), or that I can’t draw the patterns correctly, as I mentioned, I’m just lazy. Also, please ignore that I can’t do proportions, anatomy, or anything even close to dynamism - I’m working on it. I’m not Polykleitos, and part of me will always regret it. 

Another part will be proud. Ancient Greece and being a woman being a man is not my jam.

Anyway, enjoy my drawings of Padme. Because I just can’t stop, I’m drawing her dress from the Naboo Liberation Parade. So that’s great. I love drawing individual petals. Don’t look too close at these drawings, and, as always, have a lovely day/night <3

#Padme Amidala #star wars fanart #star wars #padme my beloved #padme naberrie #padme fanart #queen amidala #senator amidala #amidala

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What We Do In the Shadows

MINOR SPOILERS FOR WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS SEASONS 1-4! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

So! I’m going through my second watch through of What We do In the Shadows because I’m not emotionally ready to move on, and I was thinking - again because I’m not emotionally ready to move on - each line of the theme song corresponds to the portrait of the character that the shot focuses on. 

So, I thought, why not go through how I think each line connects to each character instead finding something else to do with myself. 

“Don’t sing if you want to live long” - Nandor - Al Quolanudar does not exist, nor can he immigrate to the US due to his inability to say God and his lack of impetus to study for what is required of him to even get that far in the interview anyway. In a way, his song, or his value, is not useful in the world that he lives in - he doesn’t have his wives (yet), Madeline is dead because of the heart attack he gave her, and he isn’t useful on the Vampiric Council - that’s what Nadja’s for. His song, or his purpose, isn’t really relevant anymore; he has lost what life he had. Alternatively, you could think of Nandor’s ‘song’ as the wishes he gets from Djinn (author’s note: is it the Djinn, or just Djinn because I’m still a little unclear on it) and think of the line above as a reference to how quickly Nandor is using them up in a frivolous pursuit of happiness that he has no real sense of - he couldn’t even remember which of his wives that he really loved, and even when he finds Marwa, he changes her without her knowledge to just be a presence - not even really a partner. He’s using all of his wishes on something that I ultimately think won’t bring him any happiness, because a) he won’t have that power at his fingertips and will miss it greatly and b) all of his wishes were sort of meaningless because they all built to hollowing out Marwa, making her too perfect or too much of a blank space for Nandor to project the feeling of companionship onto. 

“They have no use for your song” - Nadja and Laszlo - both musically inclined, but their musical talent will go unrecognized in the industry. They won’t be known for their singing, or indeed at all by a wider populous. They may be immortal, but it’s only in a literal sense, neither of them will be remembered by humans (not that it really matters considering they all die anyway). No one has use for their music because other people have already popularized it and it was, quite literally, ahead of its time. When Nadja is on the worldwide Vampiric Council, her idea for a vampire nightclub is immediately shot down, and she herself talks about she didn’t really speak up and express herself. In contrast, Laszlo’s influence on young Colin’s life is almost all consuming. Laszlo imposes a strict curriculum of ‘not being boring’ on young Colin, even though it’s shown that it’s not really working for young Colin. In short: Nadja’s song is dismissed and kept silent, Laszlo’s song flourishes over young Colin but is ultimately harmful, especially with regards to his rehearsal schedule and isolation from his peers. ‘They’ (whoever you decide ‘they’ may be for Nadja and Laszlo respectively) don’t have a use for what Nadja and Laszlo have to say. 

“You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead; you’re dead and out of this world” - Very literal, they all died and became vampires, something that isn’t widely believed in, a supernatural underworld. I can personally totally hear Sean saying ‘that’s out of this world’ if he ever found out that Nadja, Laszlo, Nandor and Colin were vampires, no matter how unrealistic that reaction would be. 

“Now your hope and compassion is gone” - Guillermo - it’s more indicative of his journey throughout the series, how hopeful he is to become a vampire and how dedicated he is as a familiar, but over the course of the series this hopefulness erodes and he started to go after what he wants for himself - he doesn’t feel particular compassion towards Nandor and the others in the same way that he used to. He doesn’t have any realistic hope that he’ll ever become a vampire, and he doesn’t feel for Nandor in the way he did in Season 1. Even is Guillermo is still a very compassionate person, especially towards his family and other familiars, he is embezzling to provide for his family and give them everything they could ever want, something that I don’t think he would have done in Season 1 because it was stealing from Nandor and the others, it was stealing from his master, and that was both not kind and detrimental to his desire to become a vampire. Now, he realizes that he doesn’t have to be so concerned, because they are immortal, he is not, and he can actually benefit from this whole arrangement. He is smart and way too cool to keep putting up  with them without any sort of compensation. 

“You’ve sold out your dream to the world” - Colin Robinson - He literally feeds off of people’s energy and emotion. He works a mid-range job, a place where people go to let their dreams die so he can feed. Colin doesn’t really have any aspirations beyond feeding, he specifically goes to places where he finds all of the despair that he can - like the City Council meeting, “a smorgasbord of banality and despair.” If he were not an energy vampire, it would be a no-brainer to say that he was an office drone, he’d sold out his ambition and hope and joy for a cubicle. It’s the exact impression that he likes to give (or at least liked to before he died and was reborn-ish). And when he becomes a theater kid, he is sort of sold out by Laszlo and Nadja to save the club (admittedly what pays for their lifestyle, but it’s still being paraded around for his interests - and sold out in a way that Colin doesn’t like, as shown by his annoyance with Laszlo about his rehearsal schedule and his forced isolation). The connection between Colin and this line is very shaky, but I think there’s something there. 

“Stay dead, stay dead, stay dead; you’re dead and out of this world” - Again, pretty literal, they depend on not being alive to continue living, if they go into the sunlight or eat human food or participate in a lot of human activities they could die, so they really have to stay dead or they’ll really just die forever. And even if there was a way for them to reverse their vampirism, the world would have moved on without them, they wouldn’t have any way to cope with just being regular people. They’re safer as vampires, they are safer in shadows. 

So that was my analysis - I doubt that it’s meant to line up that way, and even if it was intentional I’m sure I’m not the first person to talk about this. I just thought I’d share how I thought each line corresponded with each member of the main cast. 

Have a lovely day/night!

#what we do in the shadows #nandor #nadja and laszlo #nadja my good lady wife #lazslo cravensworth #he's my best friend he's my pal he's my homeboy my rotten soldier he's my sweet cheese my good time boy #wwdits #guillermo de la cruz

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Just a Little Padme I drew. Sorry for the creepy eyes and the wonky earrings 

My reference is from this post: https://trimcoast.tumblr.com/post/171323143133 - their art style is to die for and they also have an etsy shop, which I unfortunately can’t find. Either way, I hope you enjoy :)

-Rosebush

#padme naberrie #padme fanart #padme #padme amidala #star wars #star wars fanart #look at this angel

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A (Not so defensive) Defense of Bo-Katan

Okay! So, I have a hot take that, if I’m being totally honest, don’t know how hot it really is. But I like Bo-Katan Kryze. There, I said it. I couldn’t really tell you why, objectively speaking I wouldn’t say she’s really a good person. Like, at all. But I still like her. 

Here’s why (kind of):

I respect her. That’s really what I can attribute liking her to. Respect. I respect her drive (it’s about power, we stay hungry we devour, etc.), I respect her determination and tenacity, and I do sort of agree with her when it comes to Satine’s rule. I do not agree with her methods for getting her point across, but I get where she’s coming from (author’s note: this is coming from my fairly limited knowledge of Mandalorian culture, and there is a fair chance that my understanding takes in legends, regardless of whether I’m trying exclusively to work in canon or not). 

I feel like Bo-Katan has tied so much of her identity to Mandalore and the darksaber and securing Mandalore, and that makes me so sad for several reasons. 

1) I think she wants to bring an era that Manadalore hasn’t seen in her lifetime. Even when Satine was ruling with her ultra-pacifist ideals, there was Death Watch and admittedly Bo-Katan herself opposing her. Even if Bo-Katan will not want to admit the extent of her part in the turbulence surrounding the Mandalorians, I think it ultimately came from a desire from Bo-Katan to give the Mandalorians what she sees as the most stable way of Mandalorian life, which leads me into my next reason.

2) She wants a revival of what she thinks is traditional Mandalorian culture. Since that way of life worked for so long, it seems to be the only way to bring back Mandalore as it once was. Uber-Pacifism, while it was sort of working, wasn’t true to a lot of the values that Mandalorians had kept previously, and while a war-lord fueled Mandalore isn’t great either, I do think that it is relatively closer to was Mandalorians used to be - a culture who was certainly violent, but not without cause or honor. That’s why she wants the darksaber so badly - it’s the traditional way to legitimize someone’s rule, and without it Bo-Katan couldn’t consider herself to be the Mand’alor, nor could she have her contemporaries do the same. And though she has accepted it without winning it in a fight, that was only with the blessing of other Mandalorians.

3) Bo-Katan wants to get Mandalore back for her sister, while simultaneously surpassing her. Bo-Katan, appropriately, has very little right to mourn her sister, given that she and Satine were at odds during Satine’s reign. But revenge is a good motivator, and to me, it sort of comes off like ‘no one can do ___ to my sibling except for me’ but in this case it’s more about deposing her sister or murdering her or some such thing. She wants to take the throne for Clan Kryze, and to keep it longer and more assuredly than her sister, as well as giving a huge middle finger to all of those people who she did not deem worthy to be Mand’alor. 

I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but it makes me so sad, because Bo keeps on missing. She has the darksaber, gives it away because she did not get it legitimately. She hunts Moff Gideon until she finds him and the darksaber, but it ends up going to some guy who’s from a sect of Mandalorians that she finds to be extremist. Every time that Bo-Katan has had a chance at getting what she wants, she is thwarted by extenuating circumstances or her own principles. Even when she held the title in the Imperial Era, she was jolted out of her position and had to start all over. And she didn’t keep the darksaber when Sabine and Ursa gave it to her thanks to the Great Purge of Mandalore.

And while I do think that Bo-Katan shouldn’t really have the darksaber again (I don’t think that she would do what she thinks she would be doing), I can respect that she tries so hard, and continues to try. Her methods are mad sketchy (we do not stan Death Watch in this house), but I still (to a point) agree with her principles, and I see where she’s coming from. 

I don’t think that she will ever untangle herself or what she thinks of herself from the darksaber, Mandalore, and being Mand’alor. Both because she doesn’t want to, and because she has been doing it for so long that her entire adult life, and even some of her adolescence has been consumed with this objective. Never mind that it ties into Mandalorians being intensely Mandalorian-focused, caring primarily about their fellow Mandalorians and the Way (and its variations).

Essentially: I think Bo-Katan is complicated, and though my thoughts on her character and motivations may be incomplete at best, I still don’t hate her. She’s honorable and principled, and she sticks to those principles with an almost fanatical zeal. She shouldn’t get to be Mand’alor, though. I don’t think that after she has done so much damage that she should get what she wants. Her unwavering attachment to her ideals has resulted in terrorism, so she’s not good. But I respect her. 

My source for a lot of the material in this post comes from this article about Bo-Katan on Wookieepedia: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bo-Katan_Kryze#Biography

#the mandalorian #mandalorian #bo katan kryze #bo katan #mandalore #darksaber #satine kryze #star wars #the clone wars #star wars rebels #clan kryze #sabine wren #ursa wren

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An Open Letter to Ikaris (Eternals)

MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING FOR THE ETERNALS, IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE SPOILERS DO NOT READ ON UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE (which I liked a lot, obviously there are some problems, but no movie is free of them and we got Makkari, Druig, and Kingo all in one movie so I’m satisfied)

Dear Ikaris,

I don’t know what you were trying to accomplish. It’s perfectly fine that you have faith in the Celestials and confidence in your purpose, but at what cost? Are you really willing to kill your friends, your family? Your wife (I’m not sure if you and Sersi ever divorced but you were married at one point so i’m just going to run with it)?

You told Sersi that if your memories were wiped, you hope that you’d remember her. But why not never forget? And that begs a bigger question - if you and the other Eternals have been doing this for millenia, then what has stopped you from forgetting her before? You have probably gone through the same song and dance of introducing yourselves before completing your mission. How many times do you think you fell in love with her, or she with you, or you with each other? How many times do you think it would happen again before something went wrong like with Thena?

How can you possibly expect the Eternals to stand on your side when you ‘killed’ Ajak, the Prime Eternal, their leader, their friend. I only put killed in quotes because Ajak is immortal, meaning that she quite literally cannot die. Just because her body ate it doesn’t mean that she is dead. She’s isn’t invulnerable, of course, that’s not part of the immortality deal. She simply shifted into another form, her power and her essence lives on through the deviant that took her power. You didn’t kill anyone, Ikaris, but that doesn’t mean you are absolved from responsibility. You used Kingo and Sprite, you deceived everyone, and then at the end you ran away from everything. 

Sprite was right when she made that story up about you. You’ve flown too close to the sun, and I don’t just mean literally. You thought you could have it all, and if you couldn’t have it then no one else could. It’s no wonder that Ajak didn’t choose you. Aside from attempting and sort of succeeding to murder her, you have such a stick up your butt that the only thing you would do as leader is go mad with power and try to do something even more stupid than what you’ve already done. 

You said that you loved Sersi, but can you really call it love if you’re willing to ‘kill’ them? If you’re willing to sacrifice them for a higher purpose that you’ve never truly interacted with? What makes you so special? As far as I’m aware, Eternals are expendable. Powerful, autonomous, yes, but at the complete mercy of the Celestials. You’re never going to rise above that, you’re never going to be more to them. 

I think that you’re jealous and you’re afraid, so to deal with that fear you try to start over, but the problem there is that the fear isn’t going to go away - it’s just going be locked somewhere else until you reclaim it or it comes back and you have to start over again. And if you wanted to remember Sersi, all of Sersi, then surely you would start cracking under the weight of millions of years of memories, good and bad. I think you’re also possessive, and you don’t like that you didn’t get the control you wanted, or even the illusion of control.

Worse than all of that, instead of facing the consequences of what you have done and all the people that you have hurt, you fly into the sun, you leave everything behind and you run away. Apparently what you’ve done is too much for you to bear, and so you decide that for everyone else’s sake (supposedly), you’ll fly into the sun. Just like a coward. You’re a coward. 

Sincerely,

rosebush-hollow

Note: I will probably not dislike Ikaris this much forever, and I still liked the movie, but there were some things I wanted to get off of my chest. This isn’t an entire representation of how I perceive Ikaris, and I know that some of the plot points I brought up are probably inaccurate (forgive me for that one, I did see the movie a little bit ago). I’m sure that my analysis of his character is woefully incorrect, but this is just the information I gathered from the movie and how I reacted to it. Anyway, have a good rest of your day/night! 

#ikaris #eternals #mcu #chloe zhao #marvel #open letter #you've married an ikaris he's flown to close to the sun #unrelated makkari tag because i love her #marvel cinematic universe #richard madden #sersi #kingo #thena #sprite #gilgamesh #makkari #druig #ajak #i don't like you ikaris

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My Crackpot Theory (Marvel/Star Wars)

Okay, so as a little preface, I don’t really believe this theory, but I do think that it’s really fun, and I spent way too much time on it to give up now, okay? Anyway, onto my thesis:

Spoiler Warning: What If? episodes 7 and 8

Loki (mcu loki) is a Chiss, or at least has some Chiss blood in him*. 

Now, that means he has a Chiss name, and bear with me on this, I’m only doing it for fun. In typical Chiss naming conventions, the middle part of every Chiss’ name is their ‘core’ name, and the first and last parts of their name are their family names. Mitth’raw’nuruodo becomes Thrawn, you get the idea. Obviously, Loki’s core name would be Loki. But that leaves the first and last parts of his name. I have decided that I’ll use this idea to create Loki’s Chiss name: I’ll use both Odinson and Laufeyson, with some edits of course so that the core names line up. 

So, what I’ve got is Laufeyl’ok’inson. I know that it’s very rough and very bad, as far as names go, but we can move on. Like I said, the whole naming bit was just for fun. 

Moving on! In What If? episode 7, i.e. the frat boy Thor episode, we see Loki in all of his Frost Giant glory. His appearance generally goes along the lines of dark hair, blue skin, and red eyes. What physical traits do all of the Chiss share in common? you guessed it: blue skin, red eyes, and dark hair. 

Frost Giant Loki is also very tall, and the average height for male Chiss is 1.85 meters, or 6.06 feet. Now, Frost Giant Loki is much taller that 6 feet, but 6 feet is just the average height. And according to the Frost Giant What If? wiki page, the average height for frost giants is 10 feet**.  I couldn’t find anything regarding Loki’s specific height, but assuming that he is a little taller or shorter than that average, 4 odd feet is not that big of a difference for such a far-strung theory. 

Also! Both Jotunheim and Csilla are very cold places, with Jotunheim literally being the home of the Frost Giants and Csilla being “a cold world of glaciers and snowy wastes”. This is going to be important for later, to keep your eye on that. 

Later, in Episode 8 of What If?, What If?... Ultron Won?, Ultron pushes the Watcher through many different universes, one of them being someplace that looks suspiciously like Mustafar, even featuring Darth Vader’s castle***. Assuming that this is actually Mustafar, that means that the MCU and Star Wars Cinematic Universe (the SWCU if you will) are connected, in some capacity. 

It wouldn’t be too much of stretch to say that Asgard could have potentially confused or connected Csilla an Jotunheim, and the Chiss with the Frost Giants. Considering that the Chiss isolated themselves from the rest of the galaxy, it might have been pretty hard to fact check who or what the Chiss actually were. [The Frost Giants’] gift for manipulating ice could probably be explained via some sort of biotech - Chiss technology was apparently difficult for outsiders to understand, and at one point it was rumored that Chiss hyperdrives were more advanced than the Republic, which would indicate a certain level of technological advancement, maybe even enough for biotech. 

Now for the conclusion. I am fully aware that this theory is a long shot, and all the evidence is highly circumstantial, but I thought that it was kind of fun to think about. I hope that this doesn’t sound super, super unrealistic, and again, it’s really just a crackpot theory that I wanted to share. 

*all information regarding the Chiss comes from this Wookieepedia article: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chiss/Legends#Society, as well as this article about Csilla https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Csilla/Legends. Please note that this information is largely from Star Wars Legends, so it is not canon in the larger Star Wars universe

**that article is linked here: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Frost_Giants#What_If.3F_Thor_.28Earth-22260.29

***this easter egg was pointed out by a lovely individual on TikTok. Unfortunately, I failed to save the video, and I don’t remember their username. If anyone knows what video I’m talking about, or has another comparable source, please let me know.  

#mcu #star wars #loki of asgard #chiss #thrawn #theory #marvel #chiss ascendancy #loki of jotunheim #what if #fan theory #marvel theory #star wars theory