#the one handed sword wielding is just

[bri-sonat]

#brienne of tarth #don’t ask me how many times i’ve watched the first gif #i have no reasonable answer for you #the one handed sword wielding is just #it’s too good #and i’m Feral #mine #bri-sonat

[wanyinchen]

uh oh you hurt his demon, whoospies

He may be a big softie but DO NOT push his buttons.

Hello everyone! I'm "new" to the fandom :D (LIES i have been lurking for the last two years before summoning the courage to draw for it, yes, i am like that, unfortunately)

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #i just wanted more sword wielding aziraphale ok? thats a thing that makes me so interested about him #like he is created to be God's heavenly warrior and not just ANY warrior. but be one of THE guardians of eden. I imagine that God #wouldn't just hand that job to just anyone ya know? #the dichotomy of aziraphale: 1) this heavenly warrior who is created for war and to defend his charge viciously against all threats #and 2) this softie who does not like to fight and anxiously worries about things. who frets and fusses about his clothes and all #the gentle things in life. who loves food and tartan blankets and soft waistcoats and creamy trench coats and books and nifty #glasses and being comfortable. but most of all he loves his demon more than anything. the very thing he was supposed to fight against. #the very demon he was supposed to hate with all of his might. and whoopsies he has have fallen in love with the demon irrevocably. #AAAH AZIRAPHALE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA #sha's artsies uwu

[thermodynamic-comedian]

y'know, probably because i hate simple power dynamics a lot, but i really love how weird and complicated power dynamics are in tlt.

like, in gtn, harrow makes the assumption that coronabeth is "the dominant" in her relationship with ianthe, but we as the audience know that ianthe has power over her because of coronabeth's secret, and coronabeth often ends up coming across as more submissive in her interactions with ianthe.

harrow holds a significant amount of power over gideon, but gideon also holds more power over her than she herself is aware of, because all of gideon's actions affect harrow.

john is the most powerful character in the entire series, but his personality is so docile and non-confrontational that even as god, he's more likely to obey than demand.

then, and thank you tamsyn muir so much for writing them the way you did, there's characters like cam and pal, who seem to have no power dynamic at all. they're equals. camilla obeys palamedes, but not because she has to, rather because their goals almost always align. palamedes takes camilla's advice and supports her in any way he can, not because he's afraid of her or she holds power over him, but rather because he trusts her to know what to do. they work as one.

that's why paul can exist as the perfect lyctor, because they're made up of two souls working together, rather than one soul consuming or suppressing another.

#with that being said #i do still think that if jalecto acheives perfect lyctorhood alecto's soul is still gonna be a bit stronger than john's #but y'know what? to me that's how it should be. #that as a power dynamic feels natural. #just like camilla and palamedes becoming one feels like the right thing for them #john becoming just a part of alecto seems like the perfect end for him. #oh also somewhat relevant to this post: the general idea of the cavalier/necromancer dynamic is so interesting #technically the necromancer holds the power. but the cavalier IS the power. #the sword and the hand that wields it etc etc #also necromancers being physically weaker and often smaller #whereas cavaliers literally have to be strong for their job #creates another interesting dynamic #the locked tomb #tlt #tlt spoilers #gtn spoilers #htn spoilers #ntn spoilers #paul tlt #palamedes sextus #camilla hect #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #ianthe tridentarius #coronabeth tridentarius #john gaius

[ilynpilled]

Jaime thought back on the head he'd given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked. — Jaime IV

"He will bring a rose for you," her father promised her, but a rose was no good, a rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. — Brienne VIII

[not-an-anagram]

The "While you were busy being heterosexual I was studying the blade" meme implies that sword skills are inherently homosexual. Likewise, dual wielding swords has been commonly used as a euphemism for bisexuality. Ergo, the use of three swords can be interpreted as a declaration of polyamory. In this essay I will

#while you were busy being heterosexual I was studying the blade #dual weilding #three sword style #sword #sword skills #ok you got me this is just about zoro from one piece #seriously who else wields three swords? #anyway #what im saying here is that zoro has two hands #I specifically ship Zulu and Zosan but it works with other ships too #the point is #polyamorous roronoa zoro #roronoa zoro

[tinyetoile]

more character designs for my cluck AU

Heroblight Ganon and Cucco Zelda. 

I want to make clear that Link’s spirit has been evicted from his body, and that’s Ganondorf’s consciousness that has taken residence within it, so the character technically isn’t an evil Link.

Ganondorf doesn’t actually like being in Link’s body very much. He misses being tall, and buff, and not constantly hungry. Zelda takes offense to this, because at least he’s not poultry, thank you very much.

About Link’s injuries: While fleeing from the rampaging Guardians 100 years ago, Link tried to block a laser blast with his shield, and while his reflexes saved his life, his left arm was still severed, and the flaming debris from his exploded shield burned his face and ear. The Sheikah managed to recover the arm and put it in the Shrine of resurrection with him, which reattached it, but while it’s still useable there isn’t much feeling in it, and his left eye is blind (Ganondorf compensates for this with the Malice Eye in the helmet). The malice on his face covers the burn scars and clouded eye.

#link #princess zelda #cluck au #botw #botw au #calamity link #heroblight ganon #still dont wanna put this in many main tags lol... #the way link's supposedly fatal injuries were represented in the game always felt a bit lackluster to me #i know they didn't want to make it too graphic for obvious reasons but he just looks... a lil dirty... #so i wanted to ramp it up and damage him for real #i imagine an in-game fight with heroblight ganon would be like. he'd start out with additional mechanical arms made from guardian parts #wielding an axe and a spear #and you have to engage him while zelda (back in her human body) uses the light arrows to shoot them off #and then she'd shoot the guardian eye to disable the laser blast from it #which would start phase two where he pulls out a sword and activates a shield (the yellow circle on his left hand turns into one) #and you fight him in a sword battle #also link is not wearing clothes under all that malice. they corroded his boxers to nothing

[starkcontrasts]

the ghost of visenya targaryen yelling explicatives and trying to rip aemond from vhagar's saddle mid-air so he can fall to his tragic death: we have lost sight of the plot!! this is the wrong child, vhagar, i know you've gotten cataracts in your old age but rhaena i said rhaena damnit

#someone pls edit visenya pulling aemond off her saddle onto that part where he just dangled in the air for a bit #visenya targaryen #vhagar #aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #house targaryen #house of the dragon #hotd reaction #hotd #hotd episode 7 #rhaena velaryon #fire and blood #don't read any further if you want to avoid spoilers: #anyway daemon wielding dark sister aka VISENYA'S SWORD ultimately killing aemond oh ik visenya was guiding his hand

[thedragonagelesbian]

i need a fat grizzled bear of a brosca to sweep zevran off his feet. btw.

#warrior for class just bc its the one class i havent done in origins yet #not sure what weapon set tho im morbidly curious about trying to do a warrior archer build (feels like a bad idea) #or two-handed weapon #(already did dual wielding with dru and theres only one sword and shield warrior in all of thedas to meeeeeee) #im imagining a sunny disposition juxtaposed against truly a nightmarish capacity for violence #always look on the bright side. i haven't killed you YET. :D (covered in someone elses blood. and maybe his own. maybe reavercore)

[starlyht]

> level 15 game was a forced arena fight with a bladesinger wizard controlled by the dm, then the other two players (barbarian fighter and paladin).

> paladin and wizard make an alliance, which saves the paladin because wizard polymorphs him into a giant ape.

> sol’rys gets lucky enough to avoid the giant ape’s wrath because the paladin was preoccupied with the fighter and had been invisible on turn one. paladin ends up downing the fighter.

> wizard had been taking enough damage sol’rys downs him with a lightning arrow. ends polymorph on paladin.

> sol’rys and the paladin the last two standing and it devolved to him arrow attacking and hiding to avoid getting hit ☠️ both survived and won lmfao.

> nothing is funnier than me asking if i can do something or be like “no actually i’m so hard to hit that i can make you reroll your attack! :D” or “oops sorry i’m invisible you can’t see me!” and the dm being like “yeah lmao gloomstalkers are so annoying”

i love my bitchy drow guy like at higher levels he’s so fucking annoying <3

#me when the paladin was about to die but sol’rys had to burn his fourth level spells on cure wounds . #and the paladin lays on hands to heal for 40-something hit points : D: #player : your reaction was PRICELESS BYE . #dm : oh i was expecting y’all to roleplay a bit . #me : if you tell him to fight to the death he’s making sure he’s the last one standing fuck the rest of yall . #literally got by bc of shadowy dodge . #i didn’t even have to use uncanny dodge . #letting everyone else kill each other and then picking them off from a distance WAS the roleplaying i fear . #tfw his preferred fighting style is dual wielding short swords . #but this ends up being a ‘survival ranged fight’ as far as he’s concerned . #man knows he can’t 1v1 a towering half orc paladin . #yup that’s him ! #i didn’t even go the multi class assassin route just straight up ranger . #but a 15 level gloomstalker is hilariously cracked . my man is cracked .

[mirage-of-the-virtuoso]

"Again."

The blue sapling lunged at the violet mesmer, who deflected the sword attack with their scepter, clones appearing out of thin air. In response, the trainee formed a phantasm of his own, then disappears into a cloud of smoke. As the mentor's clones looked wildly for their target, the trainee leapt out of the shadows and struck the other sylvari, only to once again be deflected.

Being spotted, the blue sylvari teleported backwards and swapped weapons, from a sword and torch to a staff. The skill difference was noticeable the moment he swapped sets.

More and more of the trainee's clones appeared, shattering just as fast. The sapling got close, appearing as one of the clones before casting a chaotic storm and leaping backwards, a similar purple aura swirling around him. Before long, more clones appeared once the phantasms expired. It didn't help that there was an occasional sharp pain from a mantra sent their way. A quick pinch to throw them off-rhythm.

Too bad it doesn't quite work on them.

The trainee was distracted by a clone coming for him, practically demanding his attention. A quick close-range shatter or two, and the trainee was gasping for breath on the ground.

"Again."

The blue sapling cast a healing signet, blinking away to the edge of the ring and casting more clones before swapping back to his sword and torch, leaping forward for a flurry sword strike. Once again disappearing into the air, the violet mentor cast one of their phantasms to again distract the sapling. The sword mesmer leapt out from the side and shattered his clones, a crystalline shield preventing him from harm for just a second or two. A second is a lot of time in battle.

Two more clones appeared from the blue sylvari, and all three sprinted towards the mesmer mentor.

Having had enough of this, the mentor used a shatter skill, dazing the trainee so much that he dropped to the ground.

It's now that the mentor notices the flowers in the blue sylvari's white leaves.

"That's-"

"Again."

The mentor caught him by the wrist when he swings, twisting it behind his back and pinning him to the floor.

"That's enough, Chrysallus. You need a break," the mentor firmly stated.

The sapling, Chrysallus, struggled to get free. "I can- I can get this, Auri!" he grunted, fighting to stand. "One. More. Time."

Auri, the mentor, sighs. "You're obsessing again, Chrys. This perfectionism of yours is getting out of hand. No one learns everything in a few days."

"I can learn this!"

"You will wear yourself out first, then where would you be? This would get you killed in a fight."

Chrys finally stops struggling. He loathes giving in, but he didn't have any more energy to keep fighting.

Auri lets him go. "We'll call it a draw-"

"Don't pity me, I lost."

"I'm not pitying you, I'm acknowledging your progress," the violet sylvari huffs. "Stop shooting down praise that's rightly earned, you will not get anywhere being difficult like that."

Chrys sheathes his weapons, still looking irritable. Auri approaches and embraces him from behind. "Why don't we go into the Garden of Dawn? Unwind for a little while? Treat the bruises?"

After a moment of silence, Chrys pulls away and tugs them by the sleeve of their shirt. He never was particularly verbal when frustrated.

They link arms with him and lead the difficult sylvari away from the training ground, over by a small pool. Both of them dive in and swim to the other side, being met with a brightly lit space paved with smooth rocks and a small waterfall at the end. They sat down in front of it, and Auri wasted no time meticulously untangling some flowers from Chrys's hair.

"Aurienal." Hearing their name, they made a hum in response. "Do you know of any other sylvari like me?"

"Like you?"

"These damn flowers. Pesky little things always being an inconvenience."

"Well, you refuse to take breaks when you need to, these 'pesky flowers' make it easier to give you that time," they reply. "A strange little quirk, but it's benign, for the moment."

"Hmph."

Once the flowers are picked out, his mentor pulls him back to relax against them. "So, your body has a visual cue. If you had continued as you had, you likely would have forced yourself to collapse."

"I would have been fine!"

"I'd have to drag you to a mender on principle." That response earned a growl. "Don't growl at me, kitty cat. You're the one being difficult."

"I am not a damn cat."

"No, but you share a lot of similarities with them!" Hearing Auri laugh, Chrys just huffs in annoyance.

"You're lucky I tolerate your pet names. But I don't want you using them in front of others."

They rest their forehead on Chrys's head, feeling him relax a little. "Not one word. But I reserve the right to call you 'kitty cat' when you're being difficult."

"Oh shut it, I'm not doing it on purpose."

Auri helps him settle, noting his yawn from exhaustion. "I know. Now get some rest. We'll get some food once you've recovered more of your strength, my treat."

#chrysallus #aurienal #crystal echoes: aurienal #crystal echoes: chrysallus #oc lore #catmander chrysallus #mender aurienal #sylvari oc #i just bounce around little details like this in my head like a windows screensaver #personal story lore #for context: chrys wields staff and sword/torch - auri wields scepter/focus? #might be off-hand sword. i gotta check again #edit: i forgot there were utility skills that also summoned phantasms and i found the one auri used. still unsure if their off-hand in this #by the looks of it; auri used scepter/sword in this one with the double deflection and many clones

[medicinemane]

Seriously, it would be a mercy to kill me. I'm begging for help dying. Do you not see why it's fucking torture to keep my alive while living with her? I'll never escape her, like there's just no practical way to make it happen

And yet, till I get my act together and find a way to die already, show must go on

#you can't stand still; no matter how miserable you are there's shit you got to do #lord knows I'm bad at it and it takes me forever; I'm not even close to good enough or getting enough done #but still... I slowly work at it and occasionally do things like get rid of the trailer by myself #and in return I get lovely anons telling me to stop using my one point of socialization and to go get some help #my misery repulses them and I really need to fix it before I get back on the internet #and I'm so sleep deprived and in so much pain from having to be a therapist today; especially with how bad it was today #that I'll just be blunt that if I could distill every bit of pain I feel #I'd fucking seep it into people's bones when they say shit like that #I want to see how you deal with it; I want to see if you writhe just by living my life #I've told you all so many times that I'm bitter and cruel and that you only don't see it because I'm polite #there's a reason I identify so much with Soulcutter as a sword #and it's because I'd call it the sword of depression almost as much as I'd call it the Tyrant Blade or Sword of Despair #the way it's described; like it drains the will out of you meaning that even the idea of holding it aloft becomes tiring #...I could fucking wield it; I know how #that's not a blade you draw; you rest your hand on the hilt and let the misery eat into everyone carving them up #and you realize how pointless it is to even bother keeping your hand there and let it go limp and slide off #and frankly if I had it I'd be real tempted to carve a path of despair through the world... especially anywhere policy makers were #I'll work with everything I have to make sure no one ever feels like me; or as few people and make them feel as little of it #but it would be a lie to say I didn't want to force you all to feel it exactly as I feel it #then you come back to me and tell me all the ways I'm not doing enough and need to fix my depression this way or that way #you feel the decades of total isolation and you tell me if I'm doing as badly as you've decided I am

[joycrispy]

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #I have no idea if I've made a coherent point here but I'm tired of this being in my drafts; RAW FEELINGS IT IS #it's about being sent to destroy and instead staying to love and protect and nurture I'M CRAZY I'M CRAZY RAAAAAAAGGHHHH #gnu terry pratchett

[violent138]

While I'm sure bad guys in Gotham have learned over time that the Bats don't kill, that even after bashing your teeth in they'll flag down an ambulance or dump you unceremoniously at the ER, it's still a shaky trust.

One that is easily shaken seeing a child wielding a sword in the dead of night; nobody wants to learn how that is handled nonlethally. Or bad guys just surrendering one late night after running into an alley and Nightwing's standing over their unconscious buddy, holding the gun he wrestled away. They watch Red Hood break into the place they're robbing with a crowbar in hand and just decide they'd rather not chance it. They see a shadow that could be Black Bat and-- you get it.

#I love the idea that so many things can kill you in Gotham that the Bats are one of the only things a humble goon can trust #only in gotham #batman #batfam #dc comics #damian wayne #nightwing #red hood #batfamily #robin #jason todd #dick grayson #gotham city

[prokopetz]

On the one hand, it's true that the way Dungeons & Dragons defines terms like "sorcerer" and "warlock" and "wizard" is really only relevant to Dungeons & Dragons and its associated media – indeed, how these terms are used isn't even consistent between editions of D&D! – and trying to apply them in other contexts is rarely productive.

On the other hand, it's not true that these sorts of fine-grained taxonomies of types of magic are strictly a D&D-ism and never occur elsewhere. That folks make this argument is typically a symptom of being unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons' source material. D&D's main inspirations are American literary sword and sorcery fantasy spanning roughly the 1930s through the early 1980s, and fine-grained taxonomies of magic users absolutely do appear in these sources; they just aren't anything like as consistent as the folks who try to cram everything into the sorcerer/warlock/wizard model would prefer.

For example, in Lyndon Hardy's "Five Magics" series, the five types of magical practitioners are:

Alchemists: Drawing forth the hidden virtues of common materials to craft magic potions; limited by the fact that the outcomes of their formulas are partially random.

Magicians: Crafting enchanted items through complex manufacturing procedures; limited by the fact that each step in the procedure must be performed perfectly with no margin for error.

Sorcerers: Speaking verbal formulas to basically hack other people's minds, permitting illusion-craft and mind control; limited by the fact that the exercise of their art eventually kills them.

Thaumaturges: Shaping matter by manipulating miniature models; limited by the need to draw on outside sources like fires or flywheels to make up the resulting kinetic energy deficit.

Wizards: Summoning and binding demons from other dimensions; limited by the fact that the binding ritual exposes them to mental domination by the summoned demon if their will is weak.

"Warlock", meanwhile, isn't a type of practitioner, but does appear as pejorative term for a wizard who's lost a contest of wills with one of their own summoned demons.

Conversely, Lawrence Watt-Evans' "Legends of Ethshar" series includes such types of magic-users as:

Sorcerers: Channelling power through metal talismans to produce fixed effects; in the time of the novels, talisman-craft is largely a lost art, and most sorcerers use found or inherited talismans.

Theurges: Summoning gods; the setting's gods have no interest in human worship, but are bound not to interfere in the mortal world unless summoned, and are thus amenable to cutting deals.

Warlocks: Wielding X-Men style psychokinesis by virtue of their attunement to the telepathic whispers emanating from the wreckage of a crashed alien starship. (They're the edgy ones!)

Witches: Producing improvisational effects mostly related to healing, telepathy, precognition, and minor telekinesis by drawing on their own internal energy.

Wizards: Drawing down the infinite power of Chaos and shaping it with complex rituals. Basically D&D wizards, albeit with a much greater propensity for exploding.

You'll note that both taxonomies include something called a "sorcerer", something called a "warlock", and something called a "wizard", but what those terms mean in their respective contexts agrees neither with the Dungeons & Dragons definitions, nor with each other.

(Admittedly, these examples are from the 1980s, and are thus not free of D&D's influence; I picked them because they both happened to use all three of the terms in question in ways that are at odds with how D&D uses them. You can find similar taxonomies of magic use in earlier works, but I would have had to use many more examples to offer multiple competing definitions of each of "sorcerer", "warlock" and "wizard", and this post is already long enough!)

So basically what I'm saying is giving people a hard time about using these terms "wrong" – particularly if your objection is that they're not using them in a way that's congruent with however D&D's flavour of the week uses them – makes you a dick, but simply having this sort of taxonomy has a rich history within the genre. Wizard phylogeny is a time-honoured tradition!

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #dungeons & dragons #d&d #worldbuilding #taxonomy #phylogeny #media #literature #history #literary history #death mention

[eiilese]

what if the strawhats had different roles on the ship⁉️ i swapped everyone’s roles except for luffy because i can’t imagine him being anything but the captain

these are loose redesigns since their canon designs don’t really read as their roles all that much to begin with. some extra doodles and ideas for this in the cut !!

nami, vice captain: i took a lot of inspiration from her beta design!! canon nami already bosses everyone around so she fits right into the role. she wields an extendable staff (usopp still makes it for her); she lost her arm over the time-skip like how zoro lost his eye. i LOVE drawing cargo pants and boots, so she ended up with a sorta bottom-heavy design. frankly it’s probably not her style but i like how she looks

zoro, the cook: my foolproof logic is zoro uses swords = good with knives. he does not use katanas to cut produce however, just normal knives. i was trying to go for “sweaty ramen guy” with the towel around his neck. the majority of the shit he cooks would probably be drowned in alcohol. he also wears his bandana the majority of the time now!! it completes the ramen guy look

sanji, the sniper: i also took inspiration from his beta design for this!!! he has guns!! and perfect aim of course. i was going for more of a mafioso look so germa 66 would be like, a mafia organization on top of all the other villain shit they already do. he has two guns but i didn’t draw a holster bc that’s annoying🤞 he lights his cigarettes with his guns. how would that even work? don’t ask me

usopp, the navigator: his artistic talent lends itself to creating perfect maps! he also still tinkers, making nami’s staff as well as having a specialty for compasses. he uses a slingshot still (no perfect aim we gotta nerf him) and shoots weather-related projectiles. his goggles serve as binoculars, they can zoom to several different distances. i drew him in his zou outfit purely bc it’s my favorite one

chopper, the helmsman: he would predominately use heavy point while maneuvering the wheel. i changed his hat up to look more like a sailor’s cap, with an anchor symbol instead of an X. to be honest i don’t have much else bc helmsman doesn’t bring much to my mind :(

franky, the musician: ROCK N ROLL BABY YEEAHHH come on his stage presence is unmatched. he’s still a cyborg, he has instruments all over his body like apoo does but they were installed manually. his personality changes depending on what genre he’s playing but rock n roll is his default B) (ex. classical calls for a refined gentleman)

robin, the shipwright: her devil fruit gives her as many helpful hands as she needs! she developed nami’s arm (definitely installed some random shit she did Not ask for). she has a robot mecha that she’s able to pilot all by herself using clones. i changed her orange sunglasses to goggle eyewear

brook, the doctor: the irony of being nursed back to health by a literal skeleton 💀the irony of being the doctor of the rumbar pirates yet being the only survivor, saving no one from the poison 💀 i went for a plague doctor look! IM VERY HAPPY WITH HOW HE TURNED OUT i was really tempted to give him the plague mask too, but i feel that would’ve changed his appearance too much compared to the others

jinbei, the archaeologist: the shape of this man demands a little pair of round glasses on his face. he’s an intellectual i tell you!!! plus still a fishman karate master. the history of joyboy and fishman island being so intertwined is how he developed an interest in history

#i would love to make more doodles of this but i don’t have the time nor energy rn oops #one piece #art #ei98 art #one piece usopp #nico robin #one piece fanart #franky one piece #nami #monkey d. luffy #roronoa zoro #sanji #one piece brook #one piece jinbe #tony tony chopper #role swap au

[wordsinhaled]

i’m so totally normal about the fact that aziraphale’s last (known) deliberate foray into the queer community was when he learned the gavotte at the fictionalized hundred guineas club (!!!) in the 1800s and now in the 2020s he’s like “grindr? what’s that?”

many are talking about his repression which is very valid… and yet the thing to me that stands out about aziraphale is that he’s actually… incredibly stable in his identity and that identity IS incredibly queer. queer by the standards of heaven AND by human standards as well

metatron describes his “de facto partnership” with crowley as “irregular.” and in fact aziraphale in his entirety is irregular. he likes and makes it his business not only to understand but to be a connoisseur of all manner of things angels aren’t supposed to even remotely care about. food. music. books. theatre. sleight of hand. and more.

it’s the sort of behavior that would’ve gotten him othered, treated as a bit odd, in heaven even if he hadn’t chosen to consort all across the earth with a literal demon. and it IS treated that way - the fact is aziraphale even as an angel has got proclivities that set him apart from the rest of the host (even after offering him the highest position in heaven, metatron still acts deeply dismissive of him… like aziraphale’s bookshop is merely a quaint little hobby of his that can be easily transferred to another custodian, and not a literal extension of who aziraphale has become, full of his tartan and unique bibles and special vintages of wine and the books arranged in a very specific way)

so. aziraphale is a queer angel but of course he’s also queer to other humans. but in such a way that… he had his realization a LONG time ago, and put the matter very much to rest after that. aziraphale is perpetually something like several centuries behind schedule. he owns an ancient computer that probably continues to run windows 98 simply because aziraphale’s decided it should. he wears the same waistcoat and coat for generations because he simply likes them precisely the way they are and sees no reason to change them. but the idea that he doesn’t know how he comes across to others - of course he does. he knows he looks like your prim and proper grandfather and he prefers it that way

aziraphale looked around at humans in the 1880s and said: ah yes. this is where i fit. and promptly ensconced himself in that queer subculture. learned the gavotte. read his austen. loved crowley from afar. aziraphale is fiercely and vibrantly queer. just with the sort of assurance of someone who lives with his lover in a commonlaw marriage for decades and then shows up at city hall for the certificate once society decides it’s ‘allowed.’ like… he hasn’t had any need to know what grindr is because aziraphale’s ‘scene’ was a century and a half ago and it defined romance for him too.

but my favorite thing about aziraphale is how much of him is about appearances versus the truth. he can lie straight to angels’ faces and sleep at night. he knows he comes off soft but he once wielded a flaming sword. he dissembles helplessness but he’s far from it and he knows precisely how it makes others treat him. and at the core of aziraphale is rigidity, inflexibility of ideas… his sense of self is stable where crowley’s is malleable, and so on, and so on

and the fact that he’s continuously fixated on trying to misguidedly do the right thing, the fact that he seeks heavenly approval and wants to fit the world into his schema of good vs evil… in no way do i think that means he isn’t one hundred percent aware of how he feels about crowley or what it means about him by angelic or human standards. i’ve seen some folks saying that aziraphale doesn’t want to like kissing crowley and like… as much as i love me some brideshead revisited/atonement flavored angst; i put forth that it’s not internalized homophobia or queer panic but simply: “i’m trying to do the right thing for both of us and you won’t let me.” and “i wanted our first kiss to be different.” he was envisioning an entirely different flavor of romance than what he got but he emma woodhoused too close to the sun

like, y’all. aziraphale in all likelihood has a glorious collection of historical queer erotica. he just has a feathery diva coat hanging in his closet, and for what. “oh, good lord” he says at crowley’s revolutionary outfit in the bastille, while eyeing him up like an entire meal. he’s so good at affected propriety, at carefully constructed stuffiness, but between the two of them aziraphale’s got to be the one who has experience

aziraphale had been physically throwing himself at crowley the entire season. he orchestrated an entire regency ball so they could touch hand to hand. he spends the entire season (well, and season 1) looking at crowley like he’s particularly coveted. he looked at crowley before the fall like he was glorious and beautiful. aziraphale’s queer and he knows it and i think that isn’t his problem, it’s the fact that he wants to build a different sort of future for the two of them but crowley’s gone and thrown a wrench in it by reminding him of everything he can finally have. like. that’s the heartbreak. it’s how dare you make this ugly? i forgive you for our first kiss being all pain and salt. it’s my dearest, i wanted to make heaven as beautiful as you deserve. as sacred and safe for us as our bookshop. and i can do that for us, because once i held a flaming sword and i still remember how the hilt felt in my hands. and now the taste of you is in my mouth.

#coughs this is also why aziraphale’s a dom. but that’s a separate post #good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 spoilers #this continues to be an aziraphale stan account #‘aziraphale is traumatized’ and ‘aziraphale celebrates the part of himself that loves crowley’ are two ideas that can coexist #feeling a bit like this take might get me flamed whoops but. i’m deep in my az feelings tonight so i guess i’ve decided to share anyway