#sserpentiine

[foreverofbalance-blog]

Repost don’t reblog. Use the letters of your muse’s first name to describe their personality.

tagged by jaiwilcox

Melancholy

Astute

Adamant

Tempestuous [although only those who know her really well would know that… Honestly, her uncle(s) would probably be the only ones to truly understand to what extent.]

Tagging: winewomenwit, rogucx, opcrasxngcr. sserpentiine, markedbyfate

#aspects of balance #winewomenwit #rogucx #opcrasxngcr #sserpentiine #markedbyfate #// feel free to ignore this #// Just tagging in case anyone wants to do this who hasn't already :')

[foreverofbalance-blog]

Meta + a partner from one of your fave threads ( you pick which )

SEND META! + A URL TO HEAR ME RANT ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP MY MUSE HAS WITH ANOTHER MUSE

// The partner that I’ve written with the most and also holds claim to a lot of my favorite threads is ardeth-bae who writes for both markedbyfate and sserpentiine. 

Okay, so the relationship with both of these characters is so important to Maat. I’m telling you, I don’t know how many posts I have made in reference to this.

ARDETH BAY [ markedbyfate ] 

Ardeth Bay, despite existing in the 1900s, is one of the first people she ends up befriending, and he is literally the first person that she ever fell in love with. [For more on how that happened, you can read this post.]

I mean, just think about this. 

I’ve written that she had criticized/mocked the Greeks for years over their (multiple) love affairs with (multiple) mortals and how much Chaos it had wrought, and then the first person she falls in love with is, in fact, a mortal. And what makes it even worse is that its unrequited and she knows that nothing can or should happen. She knows that eventually, as with all mortals, he’ll die, and yet she still can’t quite stop herself from confiding in him, trusting him as a friend. 

In many ways, both through his help to maintain balance and through his seemingly unwavering belief in her ability, he manages to encourage her, to give her a reason to keep trying even though it all seems to just be falling apart. Even though she has existed for millennia before this, Ardeth Bay is so freaking important to who she is.

APEP [ sserpentiine ]

And then there is her uncle, Apep. I’ve made multiple long rambling posts Maat’s relationship with her uncle [ some of the more important ones are here and here and here and here ] , but perhaps the most telling examples would be found in my stories section and in my detailed character intro.

Honestly, what happened with her uncle––him being overthrown by Ra and the others––and how he reacted to it, has shaped almost everything about who she has become. Her ongoing battle with him has continued to define her. The two of them, as ideological opposites, are inextricably linked, to the point where one can feel when the other is in pain and one is influenced by the other. When Apep leaned completely toward Chaos [destructive chaos], Maat was forced to lean completely toward Order to maintain (or at least attempt to maintain) balance. 

She wasn’t always a stick in the mud. She was a quiet child, serious about learning anything she could, but she used to also be full of wonder. I have a whole tag devoted to astronomy and space simply because the stories Apep used to tell her about the celestial sea always fascinated her beyond any explanation I could give. To the point, in fact, that he turned over at least some of his control over the stars to her [ and you can read more about that here ]. 

But as I’ve mentioned in my RP threads and in general posts/ask responses, Maat today is very deadpan, very ordered. She has no choice but to be. She is carrying the entire weight of Order on her shoulders and the strain of having to fight to maintain Balance. 

So, out of all of the deities (and any of the characters that Maat has interacted with, Apep is probably the most important to who she is [though her ‘creator’ would pull a very close second if only for the role he played in creating this situation with her uncle].

BRI [ardeth-bae]

Now back to your original question, I’ll talk about the RP partner behind these characters.

What can I even say about Bri? I could give an entire lecture on why she’s awesome.

Bri was one of the first RPers to actually give Maat the time of day, and what’s more she has put up with all of my random questions, babblings, and sporadic thoughts/headcanons. I cannot even begin to explain how different Maat would likely be if it hadn’t been for her Apep. There was so much depth that was added and so much that developed when the two of us started RPing and then talking in messages about the relationship and the headcanons and how everything fits together and why. You guys have not idea how much I have to thank her for this story we’ve put together and for Maat becoming one of my favorite OCs that I’ve ever written.

Beyond just plotting, however, Bri is one of the most amazing people. As young as she is––something that is unfairly stigmatized a lot in the RP community, especially here on tumblr––she is so intelligent and well-researched and talented [both as an artist and a writer] and just unbelievably incredible. She is extremely knowledgeable about ancient Egypt as well as the myths surrounding that culture. All of that has played a role in her Egyptian characters that she RPs, and all of them are so high-quality because of that knowledge, whether she believes me or not.

Honestly, even though she’s taken a break from RPing right now [mostly due to the way the RP community has been acting as of late] Bri is one of the people that I stick around here for, and I am so glad that I met her. If it hadn’t been for her, I don’t know that I’d have stuck around here on tumblr for as long as I have this second time.

I could probably go on about this for ten or more pages on Microsoft Word, but I don’t think it would ever actually express how much I respect her as a writer and love talking to and learning from her. 

So, I guess I’ll end my ‘rant’ by saying that if you’re not following this incredible writer and amazing person, you definitely should because you won’t regret it.

#out of balance #markedbyfate #sserpentiine #ardeth bae #long post #winewomenwit

[foreverofbalance-blog]

sserpentiine

She doesn’t have a father. A Creator, yes. But not a father. At least she hasn’t had one for some time.

Yet here it is, at almost one in the morning, at the start of that mortal holiday dedicated to fathers, and as she looks out at the stars––for once finding quiet––she thinks, and thinking… is perhaps a thing she should not have done.

Because in thinking…. she soon finds herself summoning a papyrus scroll and beginning to write in the language that she knows best.

Uncle,

I know I won’t send this to you… I doubt that you’d even bother reading it if I did. For all I know you’d spit on it and light it on fire…

But that doesn’t matter. I’m writing this because I need to. I suppose that sounds selfish, but then I’ve never claimed to be perfect.

Perhaps you know that today is the day that mortals dedicate to their fathers, and maybe that’s why I’m writing. 

Stop rolling your eyes. 

You know very well that I only ever had one father, and it has never been my creator.

I’m sorry. For so many things. Maybe things that I shouldn’t be.

But I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough. That I couldn’t stop them. That I couldn’t help you. That I let this happen. I should have been able to stop them. I should have been able to do something. 

Order, Justice, Truth. The mortals say that those always win, but then I suppose we both know that’s not true. I haven’t been so naive since that night at our home when I saw for a long time.

I still don’t know why I’m writing this… All I know is that I was looking out at the stars tonight.

I still remember their names. I remember the stories. And looking back, now I remember seeing something in your eyes that I didn’t understand until I looked at myself in the mirror. 

Do you remember the night that I walked outside to find you looking up at the stars? Looking up as though you were in mourning, as though your heart had been torn out of your chest and was being held high above you?

It’s only been since I lost everything I ever cared about that I understood.

Homesickness. 

As I said. I’m not naive, and I’m certainly no longer a child. 

I’m the reason you’re still here. 

Don’t worry. I haven’t any misguided notions. You’ve made yourself quite clear. You hate me. You’re not here because of me. You’re here because as long as I exist, then the world exists and you’re trapped.

I would let you end it, you know. If it weren’t for all of the lives, all of the people, that depend upon me, I would let you. If it meant that you could be free. That you weren’t in pain anymore. I’d do whatever it took. I’d let you do whatever it took. Maybe I’d still foolishly hope that would redeem me, even a little, in your eyes.

She scribbles out an entire section, the truth of the words too much even here on this papyrus scroll she never intends to give him.

I understand now. Maybe you don’t believe me, but I understand. 

So I’m sorry for that as well. The last thing that I would ever want to do, whether you believe me or not, is to cause you pain. 

And then a rather peculiar thing begins to be noted on the page. Small smudges, almost as though it had begun to rain, though the sky was as clear as crystal, the stars watching the scene below them.

I’m rambling. I know that, but… I needed to write these things because I can’t keep carrying them, locking it away. I can’t hold the world on my shoulders. I’m not the Greeks’ Atlas. I’m not as strong as they need me to be. 

But then I suppose you’ve always known that I’m weak. You know me better than any, even now, don’t you?

Anyway… I guess I was looking out at the stars and I thought of you and…

Do you remember? All those times I said the monsters chased me. Only you and Djehuty ever believed me. Sometimes I still imagine that when I wake up to find monsters, you’ll still be there. That you’ll chase them away like you used to. That you’ll tell me stories and we’ll talk like we used to. 

I just… 

I’m sorry. I don’t think you’ll ever know how much.

And with that she rolls up the papyrus scroll, holding it for a moment before dropping her hand and allowing it to slide through her fingers and to the ground. The goddess turns and walks away without another glance.

#sserpentiine #father's day

[notyourdeity]

+sserpentiine, hisroyalgod

"Can this wait? I'm somewhat preoccupied..."

#sserpentiine #hisroyalgod #v; not a queen; a goddess

[albiino]

sserpentiine​

❝ ..... Urhm... Fella, you have a little...          Uh...Is that blood on your face?❞

#[ SHRUGS AT YOU #I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING OKAY ] #v; undecided #sserpentiine

[mcntiroso-blog]

Oh my god

this is like the cutest thing that's happened to me I know i'd be devastated if I lost my medjxi/sserpentiine if I changed fandoms and we had to part ways and like this cute little thing just HAPPENED that made me appreciate my online best friend even more

#medjxi #sserpentiine

[iwriteforsanity]

Musings of a writer…

You know. The thing I find both odd and oddly endearing with Maat and Apep of mine and Bri's RP/headcanons is that no matter what he does or how much she would like to sometimes, they can't break the ties. As ideological counterparts, they are completely connected, more so in fact (at least with Bri and mine's headcanons) than any of the other deities. Everything with one affects the other in some way whether they'll admit it or not. That's like that thing I wrote into my story "The Serpent's Lament" and that I've mentioned in RPs, they're connected enough that one always knows where the other is. It's like an invisible string tied between them. What's more—and I'm not sure that I've put this one into words anywhere—I think Maat feels everytime Apep is killed each night, like a hollow, aching feeling, and she nearly holds her breath until it goes away. Because if it goes away, that means he's alive again. And that's the thing with Maat. No matter what Apep says, does, et cetera, (and some of that stuff can be REALLY hurtful and she's got some scars from some of his words), she really does still care about him, though you would have to press her to get her to admit that. Think about it though. Apep raised her like she was his daughter. He cared for her, taught her, defended her from monsters. He was warm and loving where most of the others (aside from Djehuty) were not. The shift to what he is now and between the two of them only happened because of her creator (Ra) and the other deities who were greedy and "afraid" because Apep was older and more powerful than the rest of them. And I think, while she does blame Apep to some extent for allowing them to change him like that, mostly she blames them and herself, maybe even mostly herself. After all, she's Order and Balance and Justice. She feels as though, young or not, she should have been able to do something and to help him. I guess, in some ways, she feels as though she deserves his rage. But in the end, no matter how much she hates herself, she can't hate him. And, at least based upon some of the posts Bri has made and the headcanons we've built, he can't entirely hate her either, as much as he tries so that he can "protect" both of them. (This is to protect them both from "when" one of them does finally fall and from her being used to get to him.) That's it, really. They both still care. Neither can fully cut ties or even fully hate the other. I mean, think of how many times throughout history that one or the other could have had the upperhand and didn't use it to get rid of the other when they clearly could have. Maybe that's why she still, perhaps naively, hopes (deep down) that one day he'll stop lashing out (at least at her if no one else) and they can be close again. That's really what has hurt her most out of everything is the rift between them. She's an island without that connection. In a lot of ways, Apep, strangely enough, was the one who connected her to the world/to people. Without that balance between them, she (Order) is often a cold and distant concept, to both men and deities, with few exceptions (mostly Djehuty and probably Ardeth, for obvious reasons). As a sidenote, Bri knows this, but I really would love to explore, at some point, what would happen after "The Serpent's Lament" and "Matters of Absolutes." I won't give any spoilers if anyone wants to read that still and hasn't yet, but it really is another shift between the two and it reveals so much—both to themselves and to each other—and I'm so curious to see what that new change would bring. I have no doubt that, whether Apep would change much or not, Maat would change. Anyway, I'm sure there's more that I could have and likely wanted to say about the odd relationship between the two but there's some of it.

#babblings about the babies #foreverofbalance #sserpentiine #ardeth-bae

[mulierxmilitis-blog]

sserpentiine

and here's apep with the weather

#{ is this a wtnv thing } #sserpentiine

[listenwellallofyouarchive]

sserpentiine replied to your post : ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡...

((SHOWING U MY LOVE SHHH))

BUT YOU ARE SENPAI U R NOT SUPPOSED TO NOTICE ME

#sserpentiine #the mun speaks

[mabeliistic-archive]

&. sserpentiine ;;

                    ' YOU'RE FUNNY. '

#sserpentiine #《 ℙ summer never ends ;; 》 #( thanks for following ! )

[foreverofbalance-blog]

28

☛ GET INSIDE YOUR CHARACTER’S HEAD! aka The Excessively Detailed Headcanon Meme

28: Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?

This is fairly simple, yet also rather difficult as well. She doesn’t really have any “best friends.” One of the closest things she has to that is her rather odd and not quite defined relationship with liivetoday. I suppose that could be considered a friendship of sorts though really she’s kind of in love with him and knows that nothing can ever come of it so that makes it difficult to quite say that he’s her best friend ? She does trust him more than anyone else, though, so he’s probably the closest she has to a friend. 

Who she’s closest to, however, even with all things considered, is sserpentiine. No matter what, she will always be more connected to him than anyone else, despite his best efforts to ‘sever all ties.’

So far as who her worst enemy is, one might assume that is also her Uncle, seeing as she is constantly having to fight him, but, by her perception, it would no doubt be her own Creator. Out of anyone in the entire universe, Ra is the really the only one that she actually and actively hates. He is the one, as she sees it, that is responsible for her life falling into shambles and for the way that the world is now due to the conflict between she and her Uncle. What’s more, she blames him for what happened to her Uncle, for having hurt him so badly that he became what he did. That’s what she hates him for more than anything else.

#aspects of balance #sserpentiine #the favored warrior #a certain slithering uncle #the creator #anonymous

[foreverofbalance-blog]

// I vaguely remembered this from my reading/research and finally found it again. This is rather interesting. 

“ Countless genealogical lists indicate how important family ties were, yet Egyptian kinship terms lacked specific words to identify blood relatives beyond the nuclear family. For example, the word used to designate "mother” was also used for “grandmother,” and the word for “father” was the same as “grandfather”; likewise, the terms for “son,” “grandson,” and “nephew” (or “daughter,” “granddaughter,” and “niece”) were identical. “Uncle” and “brother” (or “sister” and “aunt”) were also designated by the same word. To make matters even more confusing for modern scholars, the term “sister” was often used for “wife,” perhaps an indication of the strength of the bond between spouses. “

medjxi​ / sserpentiine​, looks like the famial term Apep would have used for Maat to call her his niece is the same that would have been used for ‘daughter’! O.o 

#out of balance #sserpentiine #aspects of balance #the ancient ways

[foreverofbalance-blog]

how do you make a broad concept into a character? what elements of myth or ancient egyptian culture helped you decide/solidify ma'at's personality?

Well, the odd thing is that it had been a long time since I had read much about Egyptian myth and culture. I used to be super fascinated by the ancient culture when I was younger and then kind of drifted out of it for a while and studied more with Greek myth. I guess about a year ago I was working on another RP character (for Twitter) that was a superhero and drew on the powers/energy/magic of Maat through the use of a mask that connected the two.

I had to do a lot of research to figure out how that would work. Maat was a very important, fairly powerful goddess so obviously, it would have been really simple to overpower a mortal character. To figure out what was overpowered (and to figure out the base for Maat’s powers), there was a lot of research into what her domains were. 

To be honest, I’d actually never intended to make Maat her own character, but the more research I did, the more fascinated I got with the concept of making her a character.

What made it a little more difficult and yet more simple as well is that there aren’t many myths actually about Maat. The myths tend to center around Ra, Djehuty, Isis, Horus, et cetera. But there aren’t any about or really concerning her. 

Perhaps the one element that I was able to pull from “myth” (though more the culture than anything else), is that she often feels guilty because she can’t see to her duties as she would like. This comes from the fact that if someone had the means (such as Pharaohs and other royalty as well as those that were well to do) could pay for the correct burial rites, the best coffins, the shabti (clay servants), the various amulets that could be used to help balance the scale that would decide their ultimate fate of blessed afterlife or obliteration. So even if someone wasn’t balanced (or even close) they could technically ‘buy’ their way out of being destroyed. 

Pretty much all of the rest of it came from inferring things from her domains: truth, balance, justice, order. I decided that she was likely a very reserved person (though due to her overall dislike for her inability to carry out her duties, she has a knack for sarcasm and being generally unamused). She has a temper almost solely when someone has messed up balance, committed injustice, or disturbed order. And the thought that she is Order is what created her fear of monsters and the idea that they would be drawn to her in order to snuff out Order (another thing that is important to who she is).

Much of her character, however, has developed (or further developed and been refined) since I started RPing with sserpentiine. 

The ties between Maat and Apep are so important to who she is as a character. They are super connected and I cannot say enough how much that has helped with forming her into a… “fuller” character? If I hadn’t started writing with Bri, Maat could have been very different, and I doubt it would be for the better. Much of the complexity has come directly from establishing their past and how it has affected her coming forward. 

That’s what brought forth her rather complicated view about her uncle and his element of Chaos. It also practically wrote the tension between she and her relatives (particularly her creator). It gives depth and reason behind her lack of trust, her inability to ever drop her guard, her seemingly constant state of ‘paranoia’/hyper-awareness. 

So much of who the character is came out of developments from RPing with Bri. She’s a genius when it comes to Egyptian myth, and we’ve talked a lot about headcanons and how it all works behind the scenes, what happened in the past, how the two of them think. That has really helped a lot with the writing process and truly defining the character through contrast (and similarity) evolved through interaction. 

So honestly, I had an idea of who I wanted the character to be, but I was still developing a lot of the whys and hows. I really have to thank my amazing RP partner for helping me, probably more than the “myths” did in terms of the inner-workings and finer points.

#mxdam #sserpentiine #//...That was a really long post #//Oops.. #// I think that answered the question #//....right? :') #aspects of balance