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keets-writing-corner · 24 days

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Alright everyone, buckle up and sit down. I was talking with @nerdasaurus1200 on another post and came to the conclusion that I need to write Sera meta so let's freaking GO

I'm mostly gonna be talking about Sera, what we know about her so far, and what makes her tick (aka her fears) and why she's not a bitch/asshole the way apparently so many people like to portray her? (I've mostly just been hanging out with fan art and headcanons specifically about Lucifer in the fandom so I haven't seen these specifically, but someone approached me about how they liked m portrayal of Sera in my fic which was NOT that of an asshole and apparently multiple people are portraying her that way? Idk I haven't seen any but uh yeah let's talk SERA)

Characters are always the most important part of a story, and even if they're not a main character and/or the audience nor the writer know what they want/need, the writer at the very least needs to know How and Why a character makes decisions, instead of just "oh they're an asshole" So let's do that for Sera. Why is she making the decisions she's making? LETS GO

Let's start off by talking about what we know about Sera

She's at least as old as Lucifer, she was there for the creation of earth given the appearance of her silhouette in Charlie's exposition

We know that the exterminations might have been Adam's idea, but it was HER decision to approve them

We know that she's FOR SURE older than Emily

and the other thing we know for sure about her is that she is the High Seraphim (we don't know WHAT that means exactly but clearly it is a position of authority and rule)

So those are the things we know for sure:

She's about as old as Lucifer

She approved the exterminations

She's older than Emily

and she's the high Seraphim

Now I'm going to circle back to all of these points but I want to start off with her relationship with Lucifer

Unfortunately for all of us, the only thing we can say about their relationship with 100% certainty is that they for SURE know each other, either because they were essentially "coworkers" in the past, or because they're both the respective rulers of their realms (even if Sera has some people above her) and they're implied to interact with each other

(at the very least you cannot convince me otherwise that they don't interact. Someone had to have talked to Lucifer about the exterminations for him to have had "approved it" and we know it wasn't Adam because Lucifer hadn't seen Adam since he fell to hell until the finale, and we know that Sera was not only the one to approve said exterminations but also decreed that no one else in heaven know about them. She clearly must have spoken to Lucifer about it because there's nobody else left who had the authority to do that AND knew about them)

So at the very least in present day Sera and Lucifer have some sort of professional relationship as leaders. And I'll come back to this because it's implied that this relationship isn't a very good one, but first let's talk about the past

full stop, we have NO IDEA what sort of relationship Sera and Lucifer might have had when he was still in heaven. But here's the thing, even if their relation was strictly "yeah I know them cuz I work with them, but that's as far as it goes" Lucifer's fall STILL would have been horrifying for Sera to witness. He was the same rank as her, probably no other angel except the elders likely ranked higher, and they still banished him. Charlie's storybook leaves it at that, but Lucifer implies it was violent in his debut episode.

trauma is a funny thing when you think about it, you're just as likely to develop trauma by watching someone else be assaulted as you are for you to have been assaulted. And Sera was there, she likely saw the whole thing happen. So not only did Sera watch how brutal the elders could be to someone who questioned and disobeyed the order, but the fact that it was done to LUCIFER someone of equal rank and authority as her means that absolutely NOBODY is safe from the elders

and this is without taking into account that on some level, she and Lucifer had to have been close. There are no other seraphim in heaven besides her, the elders (who appear to be rather hands off and uninvolved) and Emily. Emily was likely created as a replacement for Lucifer, so at the time, it was basically just her and Lucifer as the only seraphim up there. They not only worked closely together, they likely had a close bond as well. Now I have my own head canon preferences as to what kind of bond, BUT let's ignore that and look at 3 options (although there are likely more, but huuu this post is gonna be long already so let's not push it yeah? )

option 1: equal peers. You are Sera and you've known Lucifer all your life. You two have "grown up" together, learned about the world and your powers together. You're comrades in arms! You know all of each other's secrets! You lean on each other for support as you lead heaven together. You work together all the time. Sure, he can be a little excitable at times but it's so much FUN right? This guy could be your bestie/brother. And you sit back and watch as the only ones with more authority than you, skewer him and banish him to hell for having questioned the order and now there's a metaphorical spear against your back at all times because you know it could have been you instead, and it could still be you if you don't behave

Option 2: Lucifer is your mentor. He's taught you everything you know. The ropes, your powers, the world. He's fantastic! You admire him greatly. He has such energy you could never hope to match. You put him on a pedestal, and in one fell swoop the only people he answers to destroy your mentor in front of you. You are now alone, without any more advice or guidance other than a warning to not step out of line as your mentor once did

Option 3: Lucifer is your apprentice. He's adorable! A little over enthusiastic but who doesn't love someone who's passionate about the things they like? He brings a wonderful energy and vibe, and... he's your responsibility. You try to reign in his wild energy only for the elders to step in and banish him because you failed him and now you know that the elders could do that to you too

So, I'll be honest, option 3 is NOT the one I'm biased towards, but if it ends up being that one, it would make Sera's behavior towards Emily extra heartbreaking. She already failed one apprentice, she will not fail another one, right?

Either way, Sera is terrified of going against the elders because of what they did to Lucifer in spite of his rank. She knows first hand how harsh they can be and because of that, she will do everything in her power to make sure nobody around her falls into the same fate. No one will ever question the elders again, and she will lie and withhold information to make sure that happens

And we're just talking about the INITIAL banishment.

Now why would Sera bring this up, unless what she was most afraid of wasn't even the initial banishment, but of the suffering she clearly knows comes afterwards? And why would she care or even know about the suffering? Well, if it's true that she and Lucifer were close, then regardless if she was spying on him or not the way we know heaven can do, she still watched a cute enthusiastic little angel go from this:

to this

all because because he suffered.

She watched him question, get banished, suffer, and change into someone she didn't recognize, in real time. And the worst part is, she's not only scared of what happened TO him, she's personally scared OF him and what he's become. He might be fallen, but he's still a powerful angel

And this segways into another bullet: she approved the exterminations, but WHY

Charlie's intro implies it was as some sort of punishment towards Lilith who was rallying the demons and they felt threatened

But clearly there's more to this

So first thing I'd like to point out, Sera doesn't look happy about this decision. She mentions as much in the song "You didn't Know" when she outright tells Emily "It was such a hard decision" and earlier in the same episode she outright tells Adam she wouldn't have approved of this if she had known it'd make things "worse"

But this is incomplete. Something doesn't make sense. Sera clearly meets with Lucifer for certain matters as previously established, and Lucifer, in spite of his initial trauma "NO CHARLIE DO NOT TALK TO HEAVEN" knee jerk reaction, never doubted that he COULD in fact get her a meeting with heaven. He outright tells her at the end of episode 5

He never says, "I'll try to get the meeting". He says straight up, I can do this. There isn't a doubt in his mind that he can get this meeting. He knows Sera will meet with him/take his call (idk how he contacts heaven) and will agree to the meeting. We don't really know WHY Sera agreed to this if she thought it was a bad idea and never really intended to entertain the idea to begin with, going as far as to tell Adam to rig the results and calling Charlie misguided. So what's up? Why on earth would she agree to it? Well...?

Sera is scared of the demons of hell, hence why she approved the exterminations, but she's even MORE scared of Lucifer and folded to his request. (or idk maybe there's more going on here and she feels guilt about what happened to him so she folds to him sometimes idk, but for the sake of this meta, SHE'S SCARED OF HIM)

but here's what's kinda weird. Charlie's storybook only mentions LILITH'S involvement with the demons rising in power, not Lucifer. Sera later claims that they were uprising to Emily as the reason she's scared of them and that it's her job to keep everyone safe.

Clearly SOMETHING happened between the creation of Hell and the exterminations being approved that involved BOTH the sinners AND Lucifer that made Sera scared of both. Sera doesn't seem the type to fear without reason. She fears questioning the order because that incurs the elders' wrath. She fears the elders because of what they did to Lucifer. She fears angels falling because she saw how much it hurt Lucifer. Sera is not the type to fear randomly. Clearly there is some sort of thing that happened that made it clear to Sera that Lucifer is to be feared enough to fold to his requests and that the sinners are dangerous enough that it justifies genocide.

And now to bring back the whole Sera is older than Emily. Emily didn't know this otherwise Sera wouldn't have needed to tell her. AKA Emily wasn't even around when said conflict happened. Sera not only had to go through something that clearly traumatized her to the point where she agreed that genocide was a reasonable response, but she had to go through that ALONE. Trauma is hard enough to deal with, but to have to navigate it alone really gives it some steroids it has no business in having

This genuinely makes me wonder how long the exterminations have to have been taking place. It probably took a WHILE for hell to gather up enough numbers that they started making buildings by the look of Charlie's storybook, AND THEN did something against heaven, so this was not happening from day one of hell, far from it. And this also makes me wonder how old exactly is Emily? She strikes me as extremely young

season 2 come out please, I'm working from CRUMBS here, there is so much we don't know

But yeah, all of this to say, Sera isn't just some alpha bitch who's prejudiced against demons (not to say there isn't bias there, there ABSOLUTELY is, ugh) but at her core, she's a leader who underwent a lot of trauma and she's full of fear and she makes decisions, rational, moral or not, based off of that fear. And yeah unfortunately, fear, especially trauma based fear, messes with us in ways we never would expect

a kind man may suddenly resort to violence. The confident argumentative person, may instead end up frozen. Someone who thought they valued their family all their life instead runs away. We may regret what we do in moments in fear, we might even logically know that we're making bad decisions, or decisions that go against our morals. Sera CLEARLY hates that she made the decision to approve extermination, but she holds onto it steadfast because it alleviates the fear

Funnily enough, I don't particularly LIKE Sera. I dislike her microaggressions towards Charlie and her attempts to sabotage her efforts at the meeting by calling upon Adam. But as a writer, looking at the clues I got to say she's a very interesting character to me. She seems like a reasonable authority figure, but she's so full of trauma that she's letting her fear make all of her decisions for her

#hazbin hotel #Sera #sera hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #lucifer #Meta #Analysis #character analysis #ugh I wanted to talk about so many other things too #but they would derail the overall topic of SERA #so idk maybe be on the look out for more meta from me?#I almost went off on a whole tangent on how Lucifer and Sera respond to trauma in an eerily similar way #Lucifer was so desperate to just give Charlie whatever she wanted #but the second she said the magic trauma words #there was no hesitation no thoughts on his part just immediate IDEA SHUT DOWN #like the way when you touch a hot surface and the signal of HOT doesnt even reach your brain #your spine just yeets your hand away from it before you can even process what happened #that's what happened to Lucifer #he heard HEAVEN and immediately said NO #Sera is similarly also shutting down ideas from Emily due to #get this #THE SAME EXACT TRAUMA #(lucifer's banishment by the elders)#idk it's pretty fascinating #but yeah Sera isn't a bitch or an asshole she's just scared #for herself but especially for the people she loves

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cuubism · 7 months

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hello friends. despite my 9 million existing dreamling wips i'm feeling the need to branch out a bit for the sake of my mental variety. what pairing other than dreamling should i write a little something for? could be romantic or platonic

other way of phrasing i guess: any pairings you really want to see more fics for in the fandom?

#i actually do have one someone asked me for ages ago i've been meaning to get to so i'll try to do that too #bonus points if it still involves dream bc you know i love dream XD #probably wont do any romantic pairings /between/ the endless because well yeah #but open to exploring pretty much anything else... feel free to send whatever if you want. dont worry about if i'll like it #if i can't vibe with it or find it uncomfy i just won't write it no harm no foul #not me soliciting little prompts fully knowing that motivation is a fickle beast and who knows if i would get to writing them XD i want #to though! or like. idk. if anyone wants to share headcanons about their favorite pairings i am happy to receive them #the sandman #a couple that are bouncing around my head already:#rose meeting desire. this could be really interesting i think (they are of course her grandparent)#calliope and lucienne post-calliope's imprisonment: i think their dynamic could be interesting since they both have/had close relationships #with dream. but of course calliope's relationship with him fell apart. i think lucienne with whatever context of it she had would probably #be sympathetic to calliope's perspective but still staunchly On Dream's Side so the speak bc she is ultimately very loyal to him... could b #an interesting convo.#additionally - calliope and johanna. both suffered things recently. both had curious interactions with dream where they recently saw both #his vicious side AND a kinder more understanding side of him... [dream gave rachel a peaceful death at johanna's request etc]#but they've come out of their suffering really differently (granted it was different types of suffering. but)#wow here i am asking for people's ideas and then just coming up with my own XD #anyway #wait two others: i'm fascinated by the potential dynamic of lucienne and the corinthian they only had like one short scene together in the #show but can you imagine. spending eons being loyal to dream and then going opposite directions with that loyalty. being among dream's inne #circle so to speak except lucienne is her own entity while corinthian was /created/ by dream. they have the most fascinating venn diagram o #personality traits and narrative positions...#secondly. and this is kind of crack. but like. imagine johanna and corinthian in the same room XD 'hi i'm an exorcist and this is my pet #serial killer' 'yeah my lord gave me a vacation to go kill some demons' why doesn't he try to kill johanna? bc she tried to destroy him #first time they met and he can't help but respect it XD

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astronomodome · 9 months

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Tumblr Poll Tournaments & MCYT

So a while ago I made a post expressing my frustration with the way a lot of tumblr poll tournaments seem to exclude mcyt characters- or if they are included, people in the notes are rude about it. The first situation of these- the poll organizer including rules against submitting characters from mcyt- is something I can easily quantify. I've crunched some numbers in order to find out two things:

How common is this phenomenon, really?

Why does this happen in the first place?

A note before I start: I'm not blaming the poll organizers for this, and I don't want anyone to get angry at them for excluding mcyt. At the end of the day, it's up to them to curate what they want their poll to be, and if they don't want to deal with the toxicity that often comes with letting mcyt characters run (or if they just don't like it for whatever reason), that's their decision. Trust me- poll organizers have to put up with a lot of shit already, and I don't want to add to it, regardless of their opinions on mcyt. If any poll organizers recognize their own words in the later part of this overview, they can contact me and I'll remove it. This is also why I have chosen not to identify the blogs from which I took the examples- I mean no harm to any poll organizer. They are a symptom of a much larger problem and they haven't done anything wrong except be a little misinformed at worst.

Excluding mcyt characters from poll tournaments really isn't that big of a deal on its own- though it is frustrating- but it does speak to the larger attitude of the general tumblr population towards mcyt. While not without its flaws, this can be used as a metric to measure the extent of this attitude and maybe get a hint of why it exists.

...Please note, also, that most of these polls date back to around March-June 2023, when poll tournaments were a big thing on Tumblr. Not super outdated, but I still should note that opinions might have changed since then.

Also also, be warned that there are examples below of some organizers being pretty toxic! It's not a whole lot, but if you don't want to expose yourself to that, maybe pass on this post!

With that out of the way, let's get started.

Part One: The Numbers

The first thing I decided to do was figure out a rough percentage of how many poll tournaments have a rule that excludes mcyt characters from being submitted. To get a sample batch of poll blogs, I used one of the blogs that pits the winners of tournaments against each other and checked each blog included in that. This ended up being a more tedious process than I had thought, since there's a lot of variation in the way poll organizers, well, organize. I ended up with 123 blogs sorted into three categories.

The first category included tournaments where a rule for or against mcyt characters wouldn't really make sense, for a variety of reasons. Most commonly, the tournament was between letters of the alphabet or animo acids or government agencies, not fictional characters, so I counted them out. There were also a handful of blogs where the contestants were determined by the organizer, not by nomination at all. Combined, blogs that did not fit my criteria made up 60/123 of my samples.

The second and third categories were the blogs that either had a rule against mcyt characters, or didn't. Most of the blogs I looked through had rules I could find, and some were more thorough about it than others. For my purposes, I counted the blog as a no only if they explicitly had a rule against mcyt characters, or clarified later that they weren't allowed. Most poll blogs didn't mention mcyt at all. (This will become relevant later.)

Of the 63 blogs that fit my criteria, 11 (17.5%) of them had a rule against mcyt characters, while the remaining 52 (82.5%) did not.

To me, this seems like pretty good news! I had honestly expected the percentage of blogs that excluded mcyt to be much higher. This is definitely a good sign! But I wouldn't really jump to assuming that mcyt characters would actually be accepted in all of these blogs. I will explain this in the next part of my research.

Part Two: The Examples

The second thing I wanted to find out with this research was why organizers end up having rules against mcyt in the first place. Is it just the bad reputation the mcyt space has (largely a result of one green man in particular)? Let's look at a few examples of poll rules against mcyt characters. Some of them are from my sample blogs and some of them aren't.

Type 1: Not understanding the difference between real people and characters in mcyt

The majority of the rules against mcyt I saw were of this type, and honestly, it's pretty reasonable. It's a pretty major debate in the mcyt community over whether mcyts' characters are separate enough from their content creators to count as fictional. However, there are a considerable number of mcyt characters who are explicitly stated to be different from their cc in the same way as a character in a movie played by an actor is different from the actor playing them. Excluding all mcyt characters for being 'real people' is just incorrect, though I can kinda understand where the organizers were coming from with this one.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of poll blogs had a rule against submitting real people. There's a possibility that some poll organizers might have lumped mcyt characters as real people even if they didn't specify it explicitly. Therefore, an attempt to actually submit an mcyt character into one of these tournaments might be against the rules based on what the organizer thinks. I have no way to quantify this, which is why I said earlier that the results of my initial test might not be accurate.

Type 2: 'Problematic fandom' (toxicity warning for some of these)

This type of rule is usually broader than just mcyt, but lumps it in with other fandoms known for being associated with bigotry (often hp, which is... yeah i'm definitely not going to argue in favor of harry potter but yikes. really? we're as bad as terfy potter? really.) At least one of them let dsmp characters in with the exception of dream, which is a lot fairer than... some of the others.

If we want to give the organizers benefit of the doubt here, we can say that these rules are made to keep the poll less toxic than it would be otherwise... but to be perfectly honest, some of these might be more about that phenomenon of purity culture that has had a habit of popping up in fandom spaces since forever. That's a whole other conversation I'm not ready to have now, but it comes as no surprise to me that mcyt has become a little taboo in some places (likely to a large extent because of dream and all the drama he's generated). There's also no telling whether the poll organizers in these cases even know that there are other smps besides dsmp... but that's besides the point, since there are other dsmp characters that aren't associated with dream at all. Excluding them reveals a misconception about the mcyt genre anyway. And of course, I think we can all agree that some of these are just pretty rude.

Which brings us to our conclusion.

I feel like a lot of the toxicity towards mcyt as a genre and mcyt characters boils down to people either not really understanding what mcyt is (i.e. mcyt -> minecraft youtubers -> real people) or hearing stuff about dream and assuming the entire mcyt space is reflective of that. Of course, it's a frustrating issue that some people think this way. I think it's nice to be reminded, though, that this sort of thing isn't very widespread. Alongside the bad examples, I saw a lot of organizers confronting their preconceived notions: one organizer let in an mcyt character after admitting their 'unfamiliarity with the source material', another allowed mcyt characters 'on the condition that you can explain how they are a separate character' and a few others fiercely defended mcyt characters against toxicity in their polls. Every day we grow as a community and we can't let a few people with misguided notions of what we are keep us down. Keep watching, keep creating, and as Zedaph once said, It's okay to be silly!

#this ended up being a larger project than i expected. i hope it doesnt ruffle anyone's feathers too much #i don't like dipping my toes into discourse-y stuff but i thought this was pretty fascinating #if anyone has any questions or imput feel free to speak up #i don't bite and i love discussion #mcyt #astro speaks #idk what else to tag this as. i dont want to be spamming fandom tags for this #but i also want people to see it since i worked really hard on it #so uh. i dont like to beg for reblogs but if you find this interesting at all please consider reblogging

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jasontoddenthusiastt · 4 months

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“Jason should get over being upset about his death” - he has, he wasn’t angry at Bruce or the world because they failed him and he ended up dying, which he made clear plain as day and that’s about the most reasonable a person who went through what he went through could be

anyway I don’t think these people realize how gory being bludgeoned to near death is, and maybe it's because of the limitations of the medium that scene was presented in

#not to mention he had to process the added heartbreak of his birth mother’s rejection/betrayal at the same time #like yeah he was cocky and smiling in the uth movie go Jason go but that’s also the same movie that drastically changed the context #and tone of that scene by erasing Sheila #kelseethe #I remember the first time reading aditf I got flashbacks to a Korean horror movie that still puts me in a weird place #anyway it was about a serial killer who went around killing people by beating their skulls in with a hammer #one of the plots was centered around a victim who didn’t die after the first attack and even managed to escape at first #long story short she was running around trying to get help and the cops were useless + he ended up finding her again and finished the job #sfx brains skull blood and viscera everywhere #and that’s exactly what happened to Jason you just didn’t see any gore because it’s an American comic #nor did you hear his screams and the sounds from metal making contact with bone and guts #and like I said the uth movie was pretty sanitized too same for the titans show which also downplayed his death lol #anyway I think it’s really forgiving of Jason not to blame Bruce or anyone else for the fact that they let the circumstances lead to that #and to instead only criticize how nothing was done in the aftermath #Idk I always found it a bit fascinating how it doesn’t seem to have dawned on most people including his fans #exactly how violent that experience was

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otaku553 · 1 year

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Marx concept doodles part 2 electric boogaloo

I enjoy the cape but im still not sure how to handle coloring it without overwhelming everything else

Also long hair updo ideas :)

#kirby gijinka #marx kirby #I love feeling more comfortable designing characters with long hair now #before I think a lot of my characters had short hair for my own wish fulfillment and projection of my gender ideals #now that I’ve had short hair for so long I’m a lot more comfortable with playing around with hair length in character designs #I really enjoy putting up hair in a tight updo as a show of like. character restriction or self control #with marx in particular I think pre-nova it’s a pretty clean updo with few stray strands of hair #then immediately after receiving nova’s power he gets to let loose for the first time and all the hair fans out a lot more #and for star allies he has a much healthier balance between the two with more flyaway strands #but then the more power of nova he uses the more his hair is disheveled and falls out of the jester cap #anyways idk #the state of hair is such a fascinating thing in characters because it’s one of the easiest things to change about a character I think #while still being recognizable as the character that is #a lot of the design for my pink oc had a similar idea where they have their hair pinned tightly and then hair falls loose as they let loose

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fluentisonus · 8 months

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triumphal arch, orange, france

+ close up of naval scenes

#this whole thing was incredible but I just thought the naval scenes in particular were fascinating. sorry abt the quality though they were #pretty far up so I had to zoom in more than I'd like #look at the ship details there though!!! that mast!!!#<- & the way they're not like. whole ships? it's almost idk. a little abstract #all the prows...........#thoughts #I wish I had more detailed photos tbh but it was really hot.

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uhbasicallyjustmilex · 3 months

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so one of my friends used to work as professional handwriting analyst, and this evening she finally indulged me and looked over alex and miles’s handwriting and oh my god it's SO interesting.

#it's pretty detailed so it'll take me a while to type them up but i'm more than happy to if people are interested!#also they do feel pretty personal and in depth so idk i'm almost on the fence about whether it feels appropriate to share it??#but also it is obviously subjective and just one person's opinion so it shouldn't be read as definitive fact or anything #idk #let me know your thoughts #i'm kind of torn #but i SO want to be able to talk about it with people here because i suspect a lot of you will find it as fascinating as i do!#alex turner #miles kane #lulu posts

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yaeggravate · 3 months

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Hello my immune system is trash but I'm starting to feel a bit better 😅 I have so much to catch up on! Btw have you come across any connections/symbolism for the half cloth/wing half fur/boa cape that Kaeya and the Hilichurl Rogues wear? Looking at it a bit more right now I think it's actually hair? On the hilichurl? It's hard to actually know what is and isn't attached to them without seeing their face 🤷 Thanks to the caterpillar quest I got to take some decent shots of Kaeya next to an anemo rogue and it's just funny seeing him wear a crystal fly around his neck (unlike the hydro one that I could see at least? Who with the coral is giving more Enkanomiya vibes) after the anemo crystal fly spiral lmao but back to the outfit it's less about what that could mean and more where that outfit is drawing its inspiration from and what information that might give to the lore if we look into that background

first of all, MUTED-HONEY!! i'm relieved you're alright because i was starting to get a little worried there, sending good vibes your way🙏🏽!

actually, i'm glad you mentioned this because there is another species that wears a fur boa cloak thing 😏

as for why kaeya only wears half of it, it's hinting towards him being half-see[gunshot]

#i don't really have anything to add for now but it is pretty interesting how dain clothar etc #dont have that boa thing like you said in your other message... hmm i wonder if columbina does 👀#.txt #oh and i never noticed the anemo crystal fly 👀👀 fascinating #i think the rogues wearing a half cape thing is probably just an aesthetic choice bc characters in this game arent allowed to go full cape #but with kaeya its a deliberate character design hinting at something deeper #idk how familar you are with ff sephiroth but that dude is the one winged angel and guess where he's from? NIBELHEIM 😮#NIBELHEIM -> HOME OF THE NIBELUNGS -> ALBERICH

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kinokoshoujoart · 6 months

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30 days of Harvest Moon day 18 - relaxing in the hot springs / nostalgia

“You’re pretty daring, aren’t you? Shall I wash your back?”

>Yes

>N..N..No

could only think of my snes wife Eve at this prompt! even though it wasn’t the first harvest moon game i played i have the most nostalgia for these hot springs, and the gratitude i feel towards them for letting me clear out my entire farm in a single infinite night

…Hey, I’m just kidding.

#30 days of harvest moon #bokumono #my art #hm snes #harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon snes #hm snes eve #hm eve #suggestive #obviously i have a type #… even with how odd the translation is and how limited the snes is her dialogue is pretty interesting #she’s still a really fascinating lady to me #she teases a lot but. she’s more looking for a reaction than anything #idk she’s just lonely #i love her

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supahstarrr · 5 months

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rock trolls [sketches]

#trolls #queen barb #sunny's art #val thundershock #im getting more comfy drawing trolls now :D #this was pretty fun although im kinda hungry and i need sleep since i was up all night drawing #drawing them both was pretty interesting bc i loved experimenting with the shapes nd stuff since in general #i just wanna see how i can draw trolls with different shapes. thus i drew poppy (a more rounded character) and then after that #i decided to draw these queens. who would have more sharpness to their design in my style #drawing val was slightly more interesting. considering that i find it fascinating that shes like an 'edgy' character but #with more roundness to her design yknow. like she does look spunky and sharp to an extent but not as much as barb #so it was interesting to see how my design of val would balance out sharpness and roundness #im really unsure if ill do like. a final piece with these sketches. i mean it would be cool to try but idk

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hum--hallelujah · 8 months

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the THING about Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes is that, #1, it is one of the most melodically satisfying songs I've ever heard and that's why it was one of the first FOB songs I actually listened to of my own free choice, and #2, it makes people crazy insane bc so many of the lyrics simply make zero sense on a surface level EXCEPT "I'm half doomed and you're semi sweet" which IMMEDIATELY gets across its point and acts as a thesis statement to the song, thus allowing an understanding of the rest of the lyrics to fall into place

#especially the second verse I still have to think about a lot bc it sounds like nonsense until you really dig into it #but I tend to interpret it as actually somewhat literal #a lot of truck stops have fancy painted porcelain or glass doll displays or souvenirs (which is how I read the lizard scales line #which is also funny bc usamerican truck stop gift shops often make zero sense in most ways skskskdkdn)#and it's kind of like this weird futility. like it's pretty on the surface it's nostalgic but it's also SO out of place #and probably cheap and veneered as well #which is.... absolutely fascinating in the wider context of folie and its creation #something something music industry something something the band itself at certain points in their history (especially #right before the hiatus)#idk man. all I know is that disloyal order is insane and also insanely fun to sing. the melody is just OUGH I wanna drink it #she speaks!#m #fob #fall out boy #folie a deux

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elexuscal · 9 months

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a personal media opinion of mine that is spicy but also does not matter in any way: 8 times out of 10, having a title that is just the name of the protagonist is really boring

#there are exceptions of course #i'll give it to pretty much any biopic #and retellings of folk lore or mythological figures #like Merlin or Cinderalla or what have you #there's an argument there #but for the most part i think the title should tell you something about the story #and if you just name it like 'Barry'#idk. that's just a guy #that guy might turn out to be hugely fascinating #(and indeed i hope he does)#but it does nothing to make me want to check the story out #your character's name must REALLY have something going for it if you're going to make it the name of the entire work too

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skitskatdacat63 · 6 months

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— Emperor Charles VI's diary entry on Count Althann's death

[text: "My only heart, my comfort, my most faithful servant, my soulmate, who loved me dearly as I did him for 19 years, [we] had a true friendship, we were one heart and one soul, and we never concealed anything from one another. He will always be in my heart, [my] beloved friend..I. have lost everything."]

#this is like. incredibly niche.#but also hopefully a quote one can look at without context and still feel emotional damage about #idk. i think about this quote probably at least once a week and then have to stare at it and cry a bit #its just GOD. yknow??????#theres this one paper(which i linked) that i originally read as research for the AU #but i go back to it probably twice a month to reread it bcs im so !!!! abt it #i think its cause charles vi is just not that relevant but is relevant to me so to have this paper abt his personal relationships is very !#its both nice as ref for the au but also very interesting to hear about historical queer relationships/dynamics #the sections about him and his wife are very endearing as well #but god like him and count althann. im literally so invested in this 300 year old relationship #this is obviously from his death which is incredibly depressing and heart wrenching to me #but the other things he wrote about althann in his diary are very sweet to me #they were inseparable to the point of often sleeping in the same bed and charles called him his 'eternal love'#AND ON ALTHANN'S DE WIKIPEDIA PAGE IT LITERALLY CALLS HIM THE EMPEROR'S FAVORITE #anyways literally every part of this quote absolutely destroys me but especially how he refers to althann and then the ending #and its interesting to me bcs apparently his diary entries were usually pretty to the point #but when various people in his as althann died he would write these extremely emotional entries that are so </3 #if you have any questions abt their dynamic pls i will talk abt them 🥰🥰 i find it fascinating #theres a book about his diary but its in german and 500 pages and kinda hard to get hold in but maybe one day!!!#also in AU contexts: althann and charles vi would be mark and seb so take that as you will 🤭😭#as i said this is great for ref but also made me sooooo fucking invested in him #i have no idea how to tag this #historical #holy roman empire #emperor charles vi #catie.rambling.txt #historical quotes #habsburg #habsburg monarchy #ah wow if only my german prof could see me now. fucking...habsburg posting. why am i like this

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sounwise · 2 years

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“Paul McCartney’s secret love affair” (interview with Maggie McGivern in the Daily Mail, April 12, 1997)

[Full transcript beneath the cut:]

Millions of words have been written about The Beatles — but little, if anything, is known of a girl called Maggie McGivern.

Yet now it can be revealed for the first time that she is the woman who had a secret affair with Paul McCartney for more than three years.

They were the years songs such as Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever and All You Need Is Love were enchanting the world.

More pertinently they included the years in which he had his relationship with actress Jane Asher, and when he met the woman who would become Linda McCartney.

The saga begins early in 1966 when Maggie was working as a nanny for Marianne Faithfull and her husband, John Dunbar, a Cambridge graduate and artist.

Their son, Nicholas, had been born the previous November. Marianne had a third-floor flat in Chelsea, in the heart of what was then Swinging London, the capital city of the Sixties. For more than three years The Beatles had been storming the pop charts — and society.

Help! was the sensation of the previous summer and the double-sided Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out was in the charts. Beatlemania was everywhere and Maggie, through her new job, would quickly get used to rubbing shoulders with the famous.

One day when the buzzer rang on the intercom for the flat, she didn’t recognise the voice from the ground floor. The young man asked if John was around. ‘Who is it?’ said Maggie. ‘Paul McCartney,’ said the voice. ‘Oh — come up . . .’

‘Paul ran up the stairs and came in,’ she recalls. ‘Very casually I told him John wasn’t really in — and that sent us both into hysterics. We were laughing and chatting.

‘I had made a nice lunch for Marianne and a bunch of her friends but they never showed up. Paul and I sat together and ate it instead. I’ll never forget the meal — it was chicken casserole. It was such a funny introduction that it threw us both off guard. It could have been very embarrassing, but there was an immediate rapport and we just couldn’t stop talking.’

Maggie, whose once-dark hair is now dyed honey-blonde, told how she and Paul became closer in the months that followed, even though they each had a separate relationship.

Maggie had a photographer boyfriend and McCartney was seeing a pretty young actress called Jane Asher, living for a time in her parents’ house before she moved in with him.

‘It was a gradual thing,’ says Maggie. ‘From that point on Paul kept coming up to the flat. He was very good friends with John but I knew he was coming to see me.

‘He would ring and ask if anyone was there and if there wasn’t, he would come up. We used to talk about lots of things but it was obvious to both of us that our other relationships were not going well.’

It took six months before their association, as Maggie puts it, turned from friendship to love. The Beatles had been recording their Revolver album, released at the end of summer 1966.

One evening McCartney, John Dunbar and some friends returned from Paris with some demo tapes of the album and played them for Maggie. ‘There was something in the air that night and that’s how it all started,’ she says. ‘He ended up staying the night and we went to bed. It was wonderful.

‘The next morning was one of the most previous moments of my life. We didn’t say much but it was such a tranquil, pleasant feeling — made all the more so because we left things unsaid. He stayed with me until lunchtime and we chatted and larked about. Everything with Paul was so natural. From that moment on he used to come around regularly.’

By this stage The Beatles had stopped doing live performances and tours but McCartney was putting just as much effort into recording. Maggie was frequently abroad on modelling assignments.

‘When we were having our love affair, I hardly phoned him,’ she says. ‘He used to find me wherever I was, and that was fine as far as I was concerned. He did tell me that Jane Asher had moved in with him at his house in St John’s Wood and I remember saying that it meant nothing to me.

‘Throughout the relationship I never pursued him — I just didn’t think about him having other women. My view on relationships has always been that if something works, it works. If it’s meant to be, let it be. Besides which, I had a busy life, and I was very busy living it.

‘Our relationship was a secret from day one, at first because we didn’t want Jane to find out, and later because we preferred it like that. We hardly ever went to parties. We would occasionally go to restaurants but normally we’d walk his dogs in Regent’s Park or go for drives in the country.

‘We craved isolation and I for one did not want to become an overnight superstar — I certainly wasn’t ready for that emotionally.’

Secrecy, of course, was vital for the continued success of their relationship. Maggie, who now lives in Brighton and works as a rollerblade instructor, says: ‘I don’t believe celebrities when they say they can’t keep affairs secret. We managed it quite well for more than three years.’

She described a trip to Paris in 1966 with John Lennon and The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein. All of them flew into France separately — Lennon had been filming abroad and Epstein had been away on business. Maggie and Paul, she says, traveled apart ‘as part of keeping the relationship secret’. During the five-day trip the foursome stayed at the same Paris hotel where she and Paul shared a luxury suite. ‘It was a marvelous holiday,’ she says. ‘. . . just walking around the streets of Paris.

‘My abiding memory is of me, John and Paul lying under the Eiffel Tower, gazing up at it. We couldn’t go up because we would have been recognised, and we were masters at the art of avoiding people.

‘Throughout the relationship we never met in obvious places. We would go to places like auction rooms in South Kensington, and say “whoops — fancy meeting you here”.’

By this point, Maggie saw Paul as a permanent fixture in her life, but gave no serious thought to marriage or children.

Maggie was 20 and McCartney 23 when they met. At the time, she says, she had no conception of the enormity of the scene in which she was involved. ‘I know it really sounds strange but I didn’t really regard it as a big deal. They were mad times and the world was changing. People look back on it now as an era — but all we were doing was living in it.

‘I knew in my heart that Paul was a real family man — when I was working at Marianne’s we used to spend hours just looking at little Nicholas. It was obvious Paul wanted children but, at that stage, I was in no way ready for it. I was a free spirit.’

Maggie worked for Marianne and John for about 18 months before leaving to set up an antiques stall in Chelsea Market. Even without that direct line to the famous, however, she still saw a great deal of McCartney.

She had a shared flat in Chelsea, but she was still busy modelling, and had appeared as an extra in films, including Blow-Up, which was released in 1966.

At one stage, she says, Paul had wanted her to be a chorus girl in The Beatles’ production of Magical Mystery Tour, which was screened on TV over Christmas 1967, but he couldn’t locate her and chose another girl, also called Maggie.

By now their relationship was becoming serious, she says: ‘By this time he knew that I was in love with him, and I knew he loved me, too.

‘I never told any friends that we were seeing each other — that was an unspoken rule. My mum and dad knew, but not in any detail.

‘I used to spend many nights at his house in St John’s Wood. It was a beautiful Regency house, and his garden was full of Alice In Wonderland characters built in stone. We spent many romantic times there. At the end of the garden was a glass-topped, circular, domed building where we meditated. I’ll never forget the first time he showed me that place.

‘We went inside the dome and he told me to stand on the floor. Suddenly, the floor started rising and there I was, up in the air, looking at the stars. After that we used to spend a lot of time together on the raised platform looking at the stars.

‘That’s what it was like, you see. By the time he and The Beatles were into the Maharishi and that whole scene, so was I — there were amazing parallels in our personalities.’

One day the couple went to the Indica Gallery in London with a group of showbiz friends, where John Lennon met Yoko Ono.

‘We spent more time with John and than we did with George and Ringo — we hardly saw them at all.’

In the summer of 1968, McCartney’s engagement to Jane Asher ended. Later, it emerged that she had arrived back at their house to find him with another woman — not Maggie, but an American called Francie Schwartz.

Maggie says: ‘By September 1968 I had rented a flat on my own in Fawcett Street, Chelsea. I really wanted to live alone. I hadn’t been there long when one day I got a telegram at my flat from Paul. It said: “Flying to the sun. Car picking you up at 8pm. Love Paul.”

‘I was so excited because I had no idea where we were going. A car drew up and we went to pick up Paul at St John’s Wood. As he came out he took an Instamatic camera from a fan, who was camped outside his house, and told us he was borrowing it to take on holiday.

‘Paul had hired a private jet so no one would spot us. There was a proper lounge, no rows of seats — we were drinking champagne and laughing and joking with a male cousin of Paul, and his American girlfriend. I kept asking him where we were going, but he refused to tell me.’

The plane landed in Sardinia but Maggie had no idea where she was until she spotted a sign. They had a hotel suite overlooking the ocean.

Much of their time was spent in restaurants where, she says, they were ‘treated like royalty’. At one banquet in their honour, they walked into a room full of women dressed in ballgowns. Maggie had a T-shirt dress. ‘Paul and I just collapsed in giggles,’ she says. ‘We thought it was hilarious.’

Most of their time, however, was spent on the golden sands. Indeed, while they were on the beach, two things happened which changed the course of their relationship.

First, they were spotted by a photographer — a picture of them together appeared in a Sunday newspaper back home. The report described her as his ‘new girlfriend’.

Maggie confirmed that they had been going out together — and suddenly the world knew of their secret liaison.

More significantly, perhaps, it may have changed the way they viewed themselves.

Maggie explains: ‘We were lying on the beach just being young and in love. Paul turned to me, smiling, and out of the blue he just said: “Have you ever thought about getting married?”

‘I said: “Yes, I suppose, one day . . .” and I thought nothing more of it. Looking back, it was obviously the wrong answer. When I said “one day” I meant in six months, maybe, but not never.

‘But Paul was always slightly insecure and probably saw me as such a free spirit that he thought I was never going to settle down.

‘On the journey home we were singing Those Were The Days and falling around laughing. I went back to Paul’s house with him — I distinctly remember waltzing around the room with him.’

Paul and Maggie continued to see each other in the following months but the subject of marriage was never mentioned again, she says.

‘I suppose I assumed we would end up together but at the time I was just enjoying it all. In the Sixties there was so much going on that I didn’t have time to sit and think about the future. I suppose that, with the pressures of fame, Paul was craving security.’

He would find it, it transpired, with an American blonde called Linda Eastman.

Maggie says: ‘One day, a little while after we returned from Sardinia, I rang Paul — and Linda answered the phone. I had seen a newspaper story about him having lunch with her before that, but I wasn’t the type to ask questions or get jealous.

‘I remember Paul telling Linda to get off the phone and I asked him who she was and what was happening. He said: “I don’t know the scene, man. I don’t know what’s going on.” ’

By late 1968 and 1969, The Beatles had massively increased the following of the Flower Power and hippie movement in Britain. It was a time of freedom, free love, drugs and music.

But for McCartney it was also, it seems, a time of emotional confusion.

Maggie remembers McCartney arriving at her flat late one night. ‘He was really down and I couldn’t seem to get a word out of him,’ she says. ‘He was crying and I knew he had been stressed. I stood and held him and asked him to tell me what was wrong. Then suddenly he jumped up and he said he had to go. Somehow I knew when I closed the door that night I wouldn’t see him again.’

A couple of days later she was walking along the King’s Road when she noticed four words on a newspaper billboard: ‘Paul and Linda marry.’

‘My heart just thumped,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t believe it. He never told me he was getting married and he never told me our relationship was over. I didn’t contact him for ages. I had never pursued him and I wasn’t going to start then.

‘Not many people knew we were going out together in the first place so there was no point in telling them it was over. Obviously, I told my mum and dad but not even they knew the depths of my suffering and depression.

‘Looking back, I think I was in serious shock and it didn’t come out properly until years later.’

Until yesterday, Maggie has never felt able to discuss her true feelings about the relationship and the separation. The remarkable story emerged only after her mother, Evelyn, confirmed details to the Daily Mail.

Maggie agreed to speak only reluctantly — she said she would always care for Paul, and desperately wants to avoid upsetting him and his wife Linda, who is fighting cancer.

Subsequently Maggie started a relationship with rock musician Denny Laine and it was through him, after he joined McCartney’s group Wings, that she saw Paul again, in 1971 or 1972.

‘It was a very emotional meeting and we had a great big hug. We were standing there gripping each other when there was a tap on his shoulder. We turned around and it was Linda. Paul told her who I was and she said she had heard about me. There was, of course, an unfriendly atmosphere and we didn’t get a chance to have a real conversation.’

The next time Maggie ran into Paul she was seeing her husband-to-be, Mel Collins, whom she married in 1974 after falling pregnant with their daughter, Naiama. This meeting was also difficult, she says. ‘There were a lot of sarcastic comments towards me.’

Six years passed before she saw him again. Maggie was shopping with her daughter at Harvey Nichols in London when she decided to try on a designer dress.

‘I was looking at myself in the mirror when a voice said: “That looks great.” It was Paul . . . he was buying Christmas presents for Linda. We got talking for a little while and then just said our goodbyes. We never discussed the relationship or anything like that.’

It was only at a later meeting, at a film studio in 1984, that she remembers rediscovering some of their earlier rapport. But it vanished when Linda appeared. Maggie says: ‘Paul’s whole demeanor changed — he’s a different person when he’s with her.

‘But, to give Linda credit, although we were still uneasy we chatted quite amiably about horses and things like that. I suppose after years of marriage and several children, there was no need for any nastiness.’

That was the last time Maggie saw McCartney, but she admits to thinking about him almost daily.

‘Marriage? I’m the type to move on and live my life and not regret anything,’ she says, ‘but obviously I still feel the pain. I kick myself for that day on the beach in Sardinia.’

#nothing really new vs what's on the beatles girls website but i wanted a copy of the original interview #huge shoutout to the friend who obligingly fished this out of the daily mail historical archive for me!!! the real mvp #endlessly fascinated by mcgivern potentially being the only girlfriend of paul's that john didn't terrorize #(unless she just didn't mention this ofc which is certainly possible but idk idk the way she mentions john feels pretty relaxed)#also she comes across as simultaneously so chill and self-possessed what a cool lady #paul mccartney #maggie mcgivern #john lennon #linda mccartney #the beatles #the daily mail #paul and maggie mcgivern #1997 #1966 #1969 #eta lmao just noticed that the daily mail labeled that first photo as 'with peter asher' THAT'S BARRY MILES LADS #scans

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