[ghostpajamas]

(talking to myself about my oc plot) this shit is mad interesting #layers (remembers ive only posted like 2% of it) youll just have to trust me

[crabussy]

shirt that says I HATE WHEN CHARACTERS WITH UNUSUAL BEHAVIOURS AND MANNERISMS DUE TO NEUROLOGICAL DIFFERENCES GET "CURED" AND BECOME "NORMAL" on the front and "bye" on the back

[crabussy]

the ONLY time I'm fine with this is when the character is STILL unusual after whatever event changed them, just in a different way. bonus points if they're upset about the change. EVEN THEN YOU (pointing my fingers around at no one) ARE ON THHHIIINNNNN ICE

[crabussy]

"but why do you hate this? isn't it a good end to a character's arc?" my actual physical neurological structure deviates from the norm in ways that CANNOT be "fixed" and I like it when characters are like me and can still have fulfilling story arcs and loving friends [:

[crabussy]

this includes characters who say things that don't make sense, have memory issues, behave irrationally, and more. I'm talking about characters who represent a wide range of neurological differences. not just autism or adhd!

[agentromanoffsir]

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe) gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers momg | gif gallery 99 gif shop | 3d gifs 123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages cbox | add a live chat box moon phases | track the phases of the moon gifypet | a little clickable page pet adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet tamaNOTchi | virtual pet crossword puzzle | daily crossword imood | track your mood neko | cute cat that chases your mouse pollcode | custom poll maker website hit counter | track how many visitors you have

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

[citoyenneelerriel]

another day I realized they are actually like

anders: I can fix her…I would make her worse…

her: (just hate the concept about "fix"🧍🏽‍♀️)

commission art done by 东海波臣

[boomer-mythology-destroyer]

[malwarechips]

"i think", i say, about my own ocs, who i made,

[productofaritual]

Love character relationships that can only be described as "whatever the fuck these two have going on"

[citoyenneelerriel]

slightly relate to last repost, maybe i am just self projecting but i do always wonder if the circle has some principles and rules about hairstyles haha…

[stonesense]

might i get some spare vivienne thoughts,, outfit wise but also maybe in general, i love getting your thoughts on her

so let’s say the obvious to begin with: i think vivienne’s outfits are some of the best-looking that dragon age has ever put out. it takes a lot to make someone genuinely look fashionable and at the top of their game, and personally—in my deeply, deeply uneducated opinion—i think they achieved it. and a great fashionable look of course fits vivienne and her storytelling in a way i don’t quite feel it does for, for example, neve. so let’s take a look

these variants of her robes are just really good shapes. i like them. on the left, the enormous imposing collar like the petals of a flower, the big fashion shoulders, the protective plate over her chest adding some sense of practicality and even the impression of armour for our knight-enchanter. the winged elements on her boots bring in a little detail of the traditional fur and feather elements of past dragon age mage outfits, but now in all smooth steel rather than “wild” and subject to natural flaws. then there’s the prominent lacing across the front because, hey, it’s almost as if this character is tightly self-controlled! the design uses lots of vertical stripes and everything is symmetrical, which is all very typical language for communicating a more rigid character who is in command of her appearance and is aligned with Order and living within “the rules”.

on the right is a little bit more of a toned down practical gear vibe but once again there’s a lot of emphasis on the collar and neck area which gives her this imposing leader’s silhouette even when in drab tints. she has this sort of fan shape behind her head that is similarly very regal and also gives me kind of the vibe of... a lizard’s frill... or the hood of a cobra...? i get ‘venomous’ from it which ties into the snake imagery in her tarot, the wyvern quest with its poison/medicine dichotomy, and typical ‘venom/poison = political manipulator/smooth talker’ symbolism. her skin being covered head to toe but in a very form-fitting way says “sexy but untouchable”, and the understated embellishments say “damn this is how good i look when i’m not even really going for it :/ my best looks would probably kill you”. as before, everything is immaculate, everything is symmetrical, visible flaws and irregularities are Not Allowed.

i feel personally less convinced by the versions of her design which show cleavage. like, as a homosexual, i can’t say i don’t see the benefits, but as a thinking person talking about storytelling, i think the closed-off look where she is definitely still hot but very clearly Off Limits feels more true to the character and simply more unique & interesting. and there’s something i dislike about the darkest skinned female companion having to have like an overtly sexy design for us to eye up while still not being someone you can romance. more of a vague thought than a full condemnation. on the other hand, vivienne is a character who plays into the roles she is given by others, for example that of the lady of iron and the horned villainess, because she believes that if you openly accept such a reputation and wear it like armour, it can’t be so easily whispered behind your back and turned against you. it gives her a sense of control, however real or not real, over how she’s perceived. so you can certainly make the case that a more sexualised style of dress is a continuation of that theme and characterisation, showing her publicly embracing the seductive archetype of the mistress who gained access to power through a sexual relationship, rather than trying to deny and evade such a reputation and thereby letting others know it can hurt her. so i think there is a line of thought where there’s merit to this. mixed feelings.

on the subject of the horned villainess: the hennins! i personally am quite excited by the hennins, simply because medieval headdresses are cool and interesting and so underused by modern media. however, i could wish for a little intentionality around vivienne’s shaved head and what it means for her not to grow out her hair. vivienne experienced racism in orlesian society and maybe it would thus make sense if either she didn’t have access in those social circles to people who knew what to do with her natural hair—exploring an aspect of what it means for the circle to separate mages from not just their families but their cultures—or her natural hair was simply not considered acceptable and fashionable by the predominantly white orlesian nobility. instead of mimicking orlesian styles with wigs, she opted for the hennins that became her iconic silhouette. but it’s an ugly meta narrative that of course there was little actual intention behind this choice when bioware itself had as little space for natural hair as this theoretical orlais, and simply didn’t put the effort into making any textured hairstyles for this game aside from closely shaven heads.

otherwise, i think maybe it would have been a fun idea if she wore her hennin all the time including in skyhold, representing a distance she maintains and a role and costume she is still wearing, and you only saw her without it during high approval cutscenes like her last moment with bastien. it at least seems unlikely to me that the eternally composed socialite would ever have a bare head (or in general anything less than her Full Look) while out adventuring or in courtyard cutscenes. given the necessity of the hide helmet toggle being active, i wish they’d worked something out to keep hers as a default look. uhhhh also i think it could be cool to have a short story or high approval scene or something where they reveal the horn design is based on, like, the demon she faced in her harrowing. again, “take what could hurt you and wear it like armour” is the whole concept here

my more general note is that i would have liked to see vivienne’s looks a little more reflected in overall orlesian fashion. you don’t want to see her look standard, but imo she stands out too much where she should clearly belong. even if you want to say she’s a leader rather than a follower, people should then be trying to pull off what she has going on. that or go all out and deliberately present her as a fallen power who is now out of favour and out of step with trends, but that’s a completely other concept that would require reworking the whole design and parts of the character

[loopofrosewood]

the Thing about the cassvivi banters to me is that vivienne literally does genuinely like her. cassandra is doing this whole thing where as soon as she met vivienne and vivienne was like, a person with desires and goals, she went from ideal mage to power hungry in cassandra's view and has her whole song and dance about that but vivienne "admires [cassandra's] determination" and tries to coach her in being better at politics to attain her goals while also simultaneously being incredibly frustrated with cassandra's lack of ambition at the same time

and then it never really.... gets resolved on vivienne's side? like we see cassandra's end of the dynamic pretty clearly i feel with her trespasser comments where she gets to go all aggro "Most Holy is a tyrant" but vivienne never gets an even very subtle moment on screen about how this person she liked to some extent didn't like her and she didn't seem to realize it. which would be particularly damaging to her on multiple levels!

[the-cryptographer]

The thing is I'm not sure that Vivienne can possibly avoid knowing that Cassandra dislikes her because, even if Cassandra rarely says anything outright to that effect, Vivienne can hardly start a conversation with Cassandra that Cassandra does not respond to tersely, defensively, and dismissively. Cassandra repeatedly refuses to accept any form of compliment from Vivienne. Cassandra will go out of her way to position herself in opposition to Vivienne, even when by all accounts they agree with each other. It's hard to find any on specific banter to quote with this, because it really is all of them in an ongoing pattern.

Vivienne: My dear Cassandra, I am impressed with how well organized the Inquisition was in the aftermath of the Conclave. Cassandra: It was chaos, I would hardly call it organized.

Vivienne will be like, 'hey, your organisational skills impressed me,' and Cassandra will be like, 'my organisational skills sucked, fuck off'.

Vivienne: Were you well acquainted with Divine Justinia, Cassandra? Cassandra: I cannot claim to have known her well. Few can, except perhaps Leliana.

Vivienne will be like, 'hey, you knew the Divine well,' and Cassandra will be like, 'no, i didn't, fuck off'.

Vivienne: You know, Cassandra, you really ought to have armor with gilding. Or dragon scales. Preferably both. Cassandra: Would that not be impractical?

I think this is especially evident if you're listening to the audio for these and can hear Cassandra's tone. She is incredibly unenthusiastic about all these conversations. This is not her earnestly considering Vivienne's proposition but wondering whether Vivienne might find such armour impractical. This is her telling Vivienne that her priorities and values suck. Maybe you should consider practicality more important. She's telling Vivienne to fuck off.

Here's another one. If Cassandra decides not to rebuild the Seekers:

Vivienne: I do hope you intend to rebuild your Seekers, Cassandra. Cassandra: I fear the Seeker's time has passed, if there was ever worth saving, it is gone now. Vivienne: With the templars all but lost as well? Vivienne: The threat posed by dangerous magic still exists, my dear. Someone will have to deal with it. Cassandra: Then let it be someone worthy.

She's being very firm. She's telling Vivienne to fuck off, right? If the Seekers or something like them are rebuilt, it's going to be by someone else more worthy than me. End of discussion.

But if Cassandra does decide to rebuild them, this is what she says instead.

Vivienne: I do hope you intend to rebuild your Seekers, Cassandra. Cassandra: Rebuilding is not enough. I would see the Seekers forged into something greater than what they were.

Even when Cassandra is in complete agreement with Vivienne she's still going 'NO! You don't get it! You don't understand! Rebuilding isn't enough! If we were on the same side you'd understand that, but we're not, so fuck off!'

Cassandra is imho pretty deeply hostile to Vivienne and the difference between how intimately and comfortably she'll speak with Vivienne compared to the other companions is immediately apparent. But Vivienne is pretty determined to make the best of all this, out of genuine admiration for Cassandra, or because she thinks Cassandra is her safest bet for the future of the Circles and the Chantry. She's determined to kill with kindness. She's determined to keep these conversations going far past the point that Cassandra has tried to shut her down.

Sera: They'll never really like you, Vivvy. Vivienne: Sera, dear, whatever has your scattered mind conjured now? Sera: Those nobs in Orlais. They barely like their own kin. And you're a mage. Vivienne: Your failing-- among many-- is that you presume I desire approval. Power does not require that I be "liked." Sera: Well, halfway there, then.

I think Vivienne knows this. I think she knows Cassandra doesn't like her. I don't think she thinks Cassandra has to like her.

But, yes, I do think this is all deeply dissatisfying. I do think it has to deeply hurt to be Vivienne and be abhorred by the people you feel you must spend time with in order to solidify your own social security. I think it's deeply unsatisfying that Cassandra gets to throw a cathartic little hissy fit and say she hates Divine Vivienne, and meanwhile Vivienne's response to Cassandra treating her like this is to continue to engage and encourage Cassandra, and then scoff when people like Sera think she should care about being liked. And though part of this is just the nature of inequity and prejudice, I do think it's extra dissatisfying on a meta-narrative level. So much of Vivienne's plotline in game is about the shocking twist that she is (dun dun dun) a person with feelings and loved ones. And I think, even if you managed to be fooled out of thinking there was a deeply-feeling person underneath the facade first playthrough, it's a narrative that definitely doesn't hold its own weight through subsequent playthroughs of the game where that aspect of her has already been 'spoiled'. Yeah, we never really do get to see her react earnestly to Cassandra's hostility, or Sera's, or Solas's or Dorian's or Thom's. We don't ever get to see her have a moment where she fully voices how shitty this all is for her.

[loopofrosewood]

you know, i hadn't actually listened to most their banters instead of reading them in a year or two and yeah cassandra is way more blatant about her dislike than i remembered. it never really tracked for vivienne to miss this, but given how cassandra is speaking... vivienne playing relatively nice makes sense to me, i just wish the game ever acknowledged or let her acknowledge even obliquely that she was aware because it reads very strangely lol

and yeah cassandra definitely isn't exactly approving of vivienne in their banters, even apart from tone. i think i've compared it to her dialogue with a low approval inquisitor in the past, but even then cassandra is more direct about it with vivienne (which tracks given the inquisitor and vivienne are obviously in wildly different positions)

my supposition that cassandra had any positive thoughts about vivienne prior to meeting her mostly comes from this piece of dialogue:

Cassandra: It’s good that you recruited Enchanter Vivienne into the Inquisition. She is ambitious but has always shown sense in her dealings with the Chantry. My advice would be to watch her but heed her when she speaks. That one wastes no words.

i wouldn't exactly call any of this dialogue nice lol, but of the others about dorian, sera, and cole, this one actually contains a very minor backhanded complement. these dialogues always feel very first impression to me personally. i also just think cassandra wouldn't allow even the "shown sense in her dealings with the chantry" and "heed her when she speaks" on account of how much she tends to narrowly avoid saying anything remotely positive about people she dislikes. and then this gets immediately shattered upon meeting vivienne and she starts being more openly and solely disdainful

in terms of how much of it is vivienne just liking cassandra and how much is for her own purposes—i read it as both personally; we see a little of how she interacts with someone she dislikes but needs with a low approval inquisitor (which is a different dynamic, but the best example we have imo,) but it also can't be ignored that (unless it is suggested that she could be divine) cassandra is her preferred divine candidate (which is what a lot of vivienne's frustration with and occasional comments about cassandra's unwillingness to play the game are about at its root) and that her tone in some of their banters can get very... conciliatory? she tends to backtrack and reframe just a bit more around cassandra than anybody else

and yeahhh. like i find the other banters where she's being antagonized slightly less egregious in this respect specifically because at least she gets to poke back at them a bit more (since for the most part their actions and opinions on her are realistically unlikely to ever matter outside their direct interactions with her,) but even then the fact that a good portion of the people around her are constantly snipping at her and she just doesn't really get a chance to ever expression any kind of emotion about this sucks! especially given her introduction literally being partially engineered revenge about a racist comment, this stuff clearly, like, bothers her. i imagine given her position in the orlesian court and everything surrounding all that, it's probably something she's used to and so is maybe not something that would make her react like it was new, but this Also doesn't get much commentary.

it's one of those things where i don't ever really expect her to be much more open with the inquisitor than she is in canon specifically because she relies on them (which has... implications about what her relationship with bastien looked like imo) but they didn't really bother to put much effort in writing around this to show it another way either so it's just sort of left there

[queam]

Serena Hawke

[sobcat]

me when there's work at work

[shouty-y]

Lesbian knights ⚔️ - Prints

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

Thoughts on the gendering of Chinese pronouns

Edit: I replaced the word “colonization” with “westernization” in the last frame for accuracy. This comic was originally intended as personal vent. I didn’t expect it to get so much attention, and I will admit I wasn’t as careful with wording as I could have been. The original comic and its wording can be found here with an image ID. 

Also can the racists and ra/dfe/ms get off my post and get better reading comprehension. This post was about my grief for western influence unnecessarily gendering something that wasn’t gendered before, not saying that gender roles and misogyny never existed in China so stop derailing the post.

[checkyourasianbias]

I was reading through one of the reblogs and was like OMG I need to bring this up again: when you’re creating Asian OCs PLEASE actually check if the name (or even FC if that’s applicable) actually matches their ethnicity/time period 😭 We are not interchangeable.

If you have a Japanese OC, for instance, but are giving them Korean or Chinese names or surnames, saying it isn’t a good choice would be a vast understatement. Even within the same country, different names make more or less sense depending on the region.

[hagiomoto]

Please increase your contribution to The Sameer Project.

The Sameer Project Official: Instagram | Linktree

We are a donations based aid initiative for Gaza led by Palestinians,

[loopofrosewood]

if anybody could ever offer me a reason for headcanoning a bisexual character as not bisexual that wasn't just some variation on "bisexuals can't experience what real i mean other queer people do" maybe i would be softer on it but everytime someone goes "i think this bi/pan character would be cooler or more interesting as a gay man/lesbian (which definitely isn't in of itself biphobic or anything)" they always add something like "because she got cheated on by a bi woman with a man! classic lesbian experience" or "bi people can't be gnc, or, god forbid, trans" or "actually they interact with other people romantically in a Queer Way which we all know bisexuals don't really do" so it's like... well! but real life biases are never reflected through how people interact with fiction and bi/pan people are unrelatable because we don't actually experience meaningful discrimination for our sexuality though so i guess it's fine.