spottedenchants

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One does not simply move when kitty on lap

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The Mighty Nein as textposts 44/???

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Finally! Wizards I can draw in classic wizard aesthetic!

#!!!!!!!!!

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i still won't draw him consistently but at least we've branched from the rbf i got excited about matt talking about him in regards to the m9 show and took a break 2 doodle him today :]

#i love him sooooo

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In honor of me finally picking a title for it, here's a teeny bit of Eyes So Blue and Hair So Grown for WIP Wednesday :3

~

“Yasha, you-.”

She raises her brows, curiosity blooming plain by the tilt of her head.

“You asked me…”

And Essek takes a breath, rushes. No turning back.

“You asked me, a bit ago, if I love him.”

The phrase is still such an odd texture on his tongue.

“Caleb.”

That’s much more to his taste.

“I did.”

Yasha’s face lights up as she leans closer, looming with her chin on her hands.

“I did I did. Why? Did you tell him?”

“Not, ah- not….” 

Though her enthusiasm strikes a far field from overwhelming, retreat is surely still an option. Worms shoveled haphazardly into their crumpled cans- who is Essek if not a coward.

But- Yasha’s demeanor softens some, simple inquisitiveness again wreathing her face as her shoulders ease.

So Essek draws more air- deep, as if to appreciate the fact he’s able to in the first place. ‘As if’, sure. Not much an approximation.

Perhaps he can share this thought after all.

“How to put this….”

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Lil’ Caleb doodle 🧡

#mua

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This was entirely tangential to this post from @utilitycaster which is why this is its own post, but the tags made me think about what feels most compelling about Liliana to me, and it's really because there's such an interesting approach to redemption in terms of the sunk cost fallacy to be had there.

There have been plenty of comparisons between Liliana and Essek, but I don't think they're really situations that can be compared. Essek had done one horrible thing (that was of relevence to the story; it is implied that he's taken other actions that he feels were wrong, but we don't know what those entail nor do the Nein care enough to ask, so per narrative convention, they do not matter for analysis) and was only still involved in it to the extent that he couldn't take it back, so to survive he had to continue covering his tracks. But he was also incentivized to otherwise act in alignment with the group that was not those on behalf of whom he had made terrible choices, because he was still living in the Dynasty, and as such wasn't actively perpetuating those actions beyond the cover up.

Liliana on the other hand is acting with the Vanguard and has been furthering if not personally committing atrocities on their behalf for a number of years, continuing to the present. Like Essek, she believes her involvement in the cause to be a difficult choice that was made for noble reasons, and now can't see a way out. But she is also relieved to be told to stay, though at the point that they discuss her leaving, she is alone and outside the immediate range of contact or oversight from the Vanguard. It seems reasonable that she could disappear with a decent headstart, and perhaps become untraceable quickly enough to be safe from anyone following. With this context, returning to the Vanguard with the intention of feeding information to the opposition feels like the riskier choice, but crucially it is the devil she knows.

I actually liken this more to Cassandra de Rolo than Essek. Cassandra was manipulated against her brother by the Briarwoods, but this was also spurred by having watched Percy seemingly leave her for dead. There are legitimate reasons why the Briarwoods, as the people who rescued her and then kept her alive for many years, are the easier option in which to place her trust. She knows what she's getting from that vantage point and how to handle it. She doesn't inherently have faith that someone she only knew as a young and helpless child, who ran from the hardships she's faced, would have the strength or willingness to do what she has found necessary for survival.

I think that Liliana's actions are more willful, not least because she was not a child nor in mortal peril when she joined the Vanguard, but she sees herself as having made difficult choices when only faced with difficult options, and I do think they have been difficult. She didn't want to leave her family; she doesn't want to hurt the young Ruidusborn under her care; she is probably genuinely sorry that innocent people were considered a necessary sacrifice for what she sees as the greater good. It is psychologically taxing to feel as though one is always picking between bad options, which is a significant contributing factor for why people buy into a sunk cost for so long. And over time, those hard decisions become easier, because you know what to expect from the outcome. Though Liliana is well aware that she might be killed for a misstep among the Vanguard, she already knows how to act to maintain their favor, but how she might be received on Exandria by those fighting the Vanguard, even with the Hells vouching for her, is anyone's guess.

This is a very real reason why people remain in cults and struggle to push back against this kind of conditioning: because the decision to leave feels more immediately perilous than the decision to stay. (On a certain level making these kinds of choices and actions habitual is a fundamental basis behind a lot of military conditioning.) And if you are acting in the interests of your own survival, but that survival comes at the cost of that of countless others who have not, in fact, made any threat or harm against you to begin with, then is the nature of your survival morally defensible?

This analysis isn't a question of whether Liliana will commit to her role as double agent and turn fully against the Vanguard, or even which one of these is a "better" story; this is about what the story might say if she doesn't. Yes, she might commit to a different path than the one she's on and make an effort to redeem herself, but it is also a perfectly coherent and interesting story if she doesn't.

#brrrrr fascinating

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EYES SO BLUE AND HAIR SO GROWN

xhorhas kiiiiiiiiids

~

Essek scans the poems and prayer before him.

His eyes catch on ta’ecelle as if by rote, and he immediately considers elsewhere.

What’s something innocuous enough to keep himself out of the depths of embarrassment….

Ah, that should do.

“Take this, our word for ‘sunrise’.”

On a fresh sheet and in his cleanest script, he writes out its characters in both Wynandir and Kryn Undercommon, laying them side by side. Yasha leans closer as if straining to see, so Essek shifts the paper aside to give her a better view.

Lips pressed and eyes squinty, she gives a hum.

“Is that one word or two?”

“Two independent representations of the same word with the same pronunciation, ‘sussu’ri’.”

“Sussu’ri.”

Oh, what a pleasant surprise. Essek can’t help but angle a smile Yasha’s way.

“Perhaps you should practice pronunciation with Beauregard- she could take some notes.”

But Yasha turns her eyes to him with her brows low together, almost as if with a pout.

“Aw, don’t be mean.”

Mean?

He didn’t intend the thought to be unkind.

“Not… mean, she has a harder time maintaining the proper strength of softer sounds and you pronounced them fine immediately.”

“Well have you ever told her that?”

Despite the crinkling of Yasha’s gaze, this still feels far too much like a chide.

“It seems… needlessly pedantic, to offer unsolicited accent corrections.”

Yasha, for whatever reason, grins in full.

“I think she’d like the help from a friend.”

Ah, well, that’s….

Face warm, Essek speaks behind his quill, looks at his paper instead.

“I’ll see what I can do if she asks, then, I suppose.”

~

send me a WIP title and i'll share a snippet!

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You ever think how-- if the Nein hadn't so forcefully befriended Essek-- Bell's Hells might have ended up having to deal with him too?

Because a lot of what Essek said before making friends sounded a lot like Liliana and Ludinus' anti-gods talk?

#CONSTANTLY CONSTANTLY CONSTANTLY

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Beau beau beau

#beauuuuuuuuu

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👀👀👀

for youuuu :3

-

“Okay, well, um. Does your heart ever go just, crazy around him, where you’re excited but also kind of barfy, and also, jittery like, fuzzy, and warm- maybe a little sweaty? Or- or maybe a lot, I don’t know. You wear layers.”

“I believe, where I am from, that is called anxiety.”

Besides, any of the Nein are capable of inciting such feelings for one reason or another; nerves are hardly a distinction.

“Oh-, I-. Hm.”

Yasha slouches back in her seat, brows together and mouth pressed deep.

Dual sparks suddenly light, triumph in her mismatched eyes.

“Do you want to kiss him really, really bad and then you feel really bad about thinking about it because things are complicated?”

“Not particularly.”

Heat in his ears as he leans from her fervor, the words escape Essek’s mouth thoughtlessly, reflexively. They’re not wrong, but as with all else, they fit like a shirt to a table. Though sufficient cover when stretched, they are not made for such in the slightest.

-

send me a 👀 and i’ll post a snippet of writing that i never got around to finishing this year

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if anyone finds out when this permanent feeling of fear goes away please let me know

#ts!essek

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WIP Wednesday!

Boy it has been a bit since I've done one of these, huh? :3

~

Yasha eyes him for a moment then. 

Not piercing, best he can tell. Only ordering her thoughts.

“You’re really trying to figure out how to do this.”

Essek shrugs.

“Keeps me occupied, at the very least. Seems a worthwhile use of downtime.”

“What about your wizard stuff?”

What about his wizard stuff….

Essek lets off a sigh as he slouches against the back of his chair.

“All together, I have spent so much of my life with singular focus. It has been… nice? An interesting change of pace, I think, trying other things. I would love nearly nothing more than to reclaim my access to my own research, and resources, but. Hm, well.”

He lets the wry twist of his mouth stay.

“I’m on my way to being a dead man regardless. I am sure Beauregard would say this keeps me from trouble.”

#essek thelyss #yasha nydoorin #xhorhas kids #chanse wip #eyes so blue and hair so grown #focus wip yaaaaaaay #almost done almost done #10.2k right now and will likely be a bit longer still!! #fun thing about ts is that conversations have consequences #even if they take me several years to iron out xD

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Relationship: Essek Thelyss & Yasha

Additional Tags: POV Yasha, Touch-Averse & Touch-Starved Essek, Platonic Kissing, Character Study, BG Beau/Yasha, BG Essek ~ Caleb, Past Molly & Yasha, Past Yasha/Zuala

Words: 1.3k

Summary:

Yasha has asked before if Essek is in love with her, and he has given her a pretty definite no. He has his thing about touching, though, and that’s what this was about. A test, is what he’d asked kind of shyly. They have learned it’s apparently not hurting him to hold her right now, and she keeps her hands to herself even so.

But he’s been staring. At her mouth. For minutes.

She finally teases, sure it will make him laugh instead of leave.

“You look like you want to kiss me.”

-

AKA Yasha gets to be Essek’s study buddy

Read on AO3

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I think about that imposter syndrome story all the time that neil gaiman tells about when he was at this fancy cool event and got to talking to another neil and at one point this other neil was like wow i don’t even know why little old me was invited here and gaiman said well you were the first man on the moon. Story of all time to me such a comfort whenever i’m in another spiral yes everyone feels like this even neil armstrong

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Chen Chen

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took a pause from writing a particular scene with the xhorhas kids to doodle it instead :3

(ID in alt text)

#it they