not broken, just bent @mlledevoltaire - Tumblr Blog

"Close the door, will you?" Art for the amazing fic "it's beginning to get to me (no one knows what this fight's about)" by ewelinakl

mlledevoltaire

ahhh, the author of the fic here! I'm so glad you enjoyed it and huge, huge thanks for taking your time to draw this beautiful art to one of my favourite scenes. you did such a great job at capturing all the little details like how absolutely done Izzy is then, how tired and helpless. I love it so, so much 💙

#izzy hands #ofmd #ofmd fanart #my writing #a pirate Triptych

sibmakesart

OKAY IM READING A Pirate Triptych by ewelinakl

ITS AMAZING

(mind the tags)

#still not over the fact yhat Sib drew art for my fic. i stare at it daily #ofmd #my wrtitng

sibmakesart

When you're on the morning watch and your husbands are fucking horny all the time

#tag yourself: i'm Ed #god i love it when Izzy has age appropriate body #a bit of a belly those glorious tiddies 10/10 incredible #omfd art

sibmakesart

#steddy hands #so beautiful so peaceful 😭💙💙💙#ofmd fanart #also the details are incredible as always #i would die for your izzy

sibmakesart

#i so love these #he really is so baby but in a very twisted way #and some ot these pieces really make me want ro write an our flag means death/dishonoured crossover #izzy hands #ofmd fanart

sibmakesart

OKAY IM READING A Pirate Triptych by ewelinakl

ITS AMAZING

(mind the tags)

mlledevoltaire

the author of the fic here! I love your art SO MUCH. every time I see one of your works I’m just so in awe and I’m just so incredibly flattered and grateful and just generally overwhelmed to see that you’ve drawn a piece inspired by something I wrote? honestly, this is such an incredible thing to find out by the end of an awful week 😭

thank you so, so much 💙

#i'm definitely crying #SIB MADE ART FOR MY FIC ARE YOU FCKN KIDDING ME???#i'm so 😭😭😭😭#also the details in this #the rings!#both of them!#Ed in the background!#Izzy my beloved 😭#god i need to yell into the void for a solid week #thank you thank you thank you #ofmd #my writing #(sort of)

kaelleid

Izzy Fic Recs Pt. 2

My favorite of the Izzy fics that I read the week of May 22-May 28th. See other weeks here.

The Dress That Makes The Man by ketchuppacket

Izzy has to dress in drag for fuckery reasons. It gets both more and less complicated from there.

Marks the Spot by Snits

Izzy takes his job very seriously, and Stede learns that his actions had consequences.

Izzy’s Boys by TallowFallow (Izzy/Lucius)

During an attempt to get drunk on shore leave, Izzy finds Lucius in a horrible situation. And even though he swears he hates the boy, he can’t just leave him to fend for himself…

A Pirate Triptych by ewelinakl (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Stede finds an unlikely ally in his quest to get Ed back. (It’s Izzy.)

more vivid than sunsets, brighter than stars by bemusedlybespectacled (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

If Izzy were in a better mood, he’d remember that Stede doesn’t host picnics and read bedtime stories and organize educational vacations because he’s lazy or stupid. It’s just that these things make Stede feel happy, and they (mostly) make the crew happier as well, and Izzy wasn’t the only one worried about how close they all were to dying in that storm. Or he’d consider waiting until he’s calmed down, because he always regrets the things he says in anger…

Epiphanies at dawn by julidoesnotwrite (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

An unusually slow and quiet morning in the life of Israel Hands gives him the opportunity for his first lie-in in bed in decades.

a little backup (in case the scene gets nasty) by oopshidaisy (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Ed gets stabbed. Izzy handles it well.

presence series by hawkeyedkoi (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Edward and Stede unlock Izzy’s praise kink and take full advantage of it.

Treading isn’t Swimming by IWillBeYourPet (Ed/Stede/Izzy)

Stede wants to teach the crew to swim, Izzy thinks the idea is stupid (and has nothing to do with the fact that he can’t swim and is nervous to be in the water). Everything goes wrong. Nothing works as a catalyst to talk about feelings as well as near death experiences, and even that is still iffy for Izzy…

mlledevoltaire

#A Pirate Triptych is the best izzy series in the fandom #and it does not get nearly enough attention

thank you so much 😭💙

#somebody recommended my fic!#omfd #my writing

bemusedlybespectacled

hi :) what are your favourite ofmd fanfics? i need recs

OH BOOOOY HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE

Okay, I am being careful here and only recommending completed fics – I do have some that are ongoing but I hesitate to rec anything that isn't finished. I'm also not giving all my bookmarked fics, just some of them, otherwise we'd be here all day. For all of these, I am going to stress that you should mind the tags for these fics because my tastes tend to run violent.

STEDDYHANDS - Stede/Ed/Izzy

A Pirate Triptych by ewelinakl: Hands down my favorite fic in this fandom, of all time, a fucking SAGA that's intricately plotted and emotional and SO WELL WRITTEN, FUCK.

Luck of the Devil by @itsclydebitches: A fic that was written in response to a prompt of mine on the kink meme (which was "we need more near-drowning whump this is a disgrace") and absolutely knocked it out of the fucking park. Actually, while we're at it, let's just say "anything of Clyde's is a fucking banger" and leave it at that.

Above All Else by kaelleid - Another fic for a prompt of mine (which was "have Izzy sacrifice himself, maybe an 'I'm Spartacus' thing?"), this one also fucking excellent.

x marks the spot by @second-hand-heaven: The fic that got me invested in this ship in the first place (it's Nova's fault that I am this unhinged) plus another fic that's more a prequel.

couldn't good be good enough? by RarePairFairy: This is the one fic I absolutely refuse to spoil because it took my breath away the first time and is still fucking sweet.

revolting displays of intimacy by givemebaretrees: This is another author where just everything they write is a fucking delight, but this one in particular is my favorite.

a little backup (in case the scene gets nasty) by oopshidaisy: They have a bunch of other fantastic work, but I like this one because it's self-contained and somehow both really romantic and tragic and fucking hilarious.

gimme gimme gimme (a man after midnight) by vvorm: Unhinged Stede meets fucked up masochistic Izzy and it's AMAZING.

wine-dark seas by Juniperly: Come for the Steddyhands, stay for Izzy getting in a very cathartic bar fight with Calico Jack.

BLACKBONNET - Stede/Ed

i don't know anything (but i know i miss you) by @andillwriteyouatragedy: Made me cry actual literal tears, even during rereads, and that is extremely rare for a fic. They're also just an excellent author and everything they post is brilliant, but I'm gonna give a second shout-out to through quaking, through crazy because 1) unhinged Stede gives me life and 2) it somehow manages to have the OT3 without actually having it.

O happy living things by tiptory: I think this might be the first fic I ever read in this fandom, period, but even if it's not, it's really, really good. Love me that anxiety shit.

OTHER SHIPS

sacrament that should be taken kneeling by holograms: It's Stede/Lucius, and I'd go so far as to call it aro-allo in that they spend a lot of time developing the friendship between Stede and Lucius and then they have non-romantic sex and it's fascinating.

i'd talk with the devil but i wouldn't know what to say by anirondack: Ed/Izzy, but the main draw of it for me is the whole developing-Blackbeard-the-myth as backstory. It's AMAZING.

...yeah. I have a lot. And this isn't even all of them.

#somebody recommended my fic!#'favorite'#brb gonna go cry in the corner 😭#ofmd #my writing

In your opinion is there any way a westerner can write a Slavic or Russian inspired fantasy without coming across like the Greg trilogy?

yes! a great example is The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. she's a westerner but she approached the topic with respect and care, evidently wanting to do it justice rather than just use it for aesthetic. the issue with the Greg trilogy isn't the fact that the author is a westerner, it's the fact that she made no effort to understand the culture she wrote about.

grandinventor

At the risk of sounding like a Jindosh apologist here (I am.) I will preface that Jindosh is a bad guy, he has either killed people personally or got them killed for experiment purposes by his Clockworks and has dissected the dead so he is not good, he is a villain, I acknowledge that.

Now with that out of the way I wanna criticize the narrative surrounding him and his mansion and how it sometimes falls flat on it’s face trying to demonize them thanks to a lot of points my friend @divaythfyr brought up. I’ll put all of that below the cut:

Keep reading

mlledevoltaire

I agree wholeheartedly! the game tries to make us hate Jindosh by peppering in those implications that he cuts up cats and tortures children but there’s no proof for any of that?

What I find striking about the design of his house is how much he wants to protect his privacy. He knows that people will inevitably violate his boundaries and he just tries to make it harder for them by building a clockwork house and hanging up passive agressive remarks to just let him have his damn sleep. And then the audio commentary he does when he figures out someone has broken into his house – not only is it a protective measure for himself, but also a way to intimidate the potential opponent, make them reconsider their choice to break into his house.

Tbh, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him, creating those urban legends. He doesn’t seem particularly social (which is perfectly reasonable), so maybe he just tries to keep strangers away.

I always find it so iffy that out of the three natural philosophers we see in this series, Jindosh is the only one presented as straight up evil and irredeemable, even though Sokolov and Piero did the very same things back in the day.

grandinventor

Yeah I agree! (and thank you for joining the Jindosh apologist train). Like I feel they try to make him worse than he is and I wonder why didn’t they just make him worse?

[ SPOILERS BELOW for people who might’ve not found everything in the games ]

Dishonored has a very sneaky way of telling us the truth about the characters. It’s usually done subtly, through notes and environmental storytelling. For example I just replayed The Royal Conservatory and found this note from the Howlers. Now for people who like Paolo and sided with the Howlers in the next mission, this note tells us that they can be more cruel than Paolo tries to sell them and they were in fact threatening a innocent bartender here - so you kinda know that Paolo is overselling the whole “I care for the little people and the workers” (he does…but he cares for power more).

So when it comes to Jindosh…there is nothing. You are told he is evil. He tells you himself that people who enter die and then he dissects them for study. Meghan says he is evil. Sokolov says he is evil. Hypatia says he is evil. And at the end of the day you get some lukewarm “He killed a cat”, “he electroshocked a baker”, “he did [vague] crimes against his [vague] peers and almost went to prison for it”. Like with the Howlers they weren’t playing. You are told they are bad. Then it’s hinted they might be good. But then you find evidence they are bad. With Jindosh you are told he is bad and it never escalates. All the badness feels like it’s there to justify his ending. Why is there not a note about him killing like kids or whatever they want him to do? I feel like they just changed his character halfway and never made him as evil as they wanted, but also not quite as good either.

In the first game you knew Sokolov is bad. He did experiment on people, even if for a “good” cause. He was a misogynist. He did animal experimentations too, the heart says it and also there is a book where he says how he invented whale vivisection. So like he ain’t exactly a good guy. They wanted to make Jindosh worse but didn’t give him quite the push. And it’s a shame, he is one of the best characters in Dishonored :/

mlledevoltaire

Yup! Honestly, he has such phenomenal potential but most of it is wasted. I replayed his level so many times, checked every corner of his vault in DotO and found nothing of substance. There are so many vague claims and bits of gossip but if you look for proof that he really did something appalling... there's none.

You know he's fascinated with the Outsider but his interest seems perfectly harmless in comparison to Sokolov's rituals and human sacrifice, or what Delilah's coven does.

There's the story of the dissected cat but the Heart never specifies if it was alive at the time. It could be that the young, curious Kirin found a dead animal and decided to perform an autopsy. I'm sure a mother would still be distressed by it, but if you take a step back and think about it, there's a world of difference between autopsy and vivisection. And the fact that he figured out an alternative source of energy so that Karnaca could produce its electricity using wind rather than whale oil, makes me think that he's not a big fan of getting all bloody.

You don't see a single child anywhere around him and if you think about the childhood he had, it just feels so out of character to assume he would've hurt kids.

And when you look at his inventions -- the clockwork soldiers are the only thing that has the ability to hurt anyone. And they still don't attack blindly or unprovoked. They're more of a safety measure than murder machines, even though, of course, they're capable of killing. And other than that, the things he made are... good? The windmills, the silvergraph, the prosthetics, a music box, a toy. There's nothing inherently evil about those.

And we have no idea how he ended up working for Luca Abele and how much of a say he really has in what he does.

The non-lethal scenario in his level feels so disproportionately cruel because we have no tangible proof he deserves such a horrific end. The game essentially forces you to lobotomise a neurodivergent character of colour for what feels like no reason at all, and idk, I just find it so appalling.

grandinventor

Keep reading

mlledevoltaire

I agree wholeheartedly! the game tries to make us hate Jindosh by peppering in those implications that he cuts up cats and tortures children but there's no proof for any of that?

What I find striking about the design of his house is how much he wants to protect his privacy. He knows that people will inevitably violate his boundaries and he just tries to make it harder for them by building a clockwork house and hanging up passive agressive remarks to just let him have his damn sleep. And then the audio commentary he does when he figures out someone has broken into his house -- not only is it a protective measure for himself, but also a way to intimidate the potential opponent, make them reconsider their choice to break into his house.

Tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if it was him, creating those urban legends. He doesn't seem particularly social (which is perfectly reasonable), so maybe he just tries to keep strangers away.

#super incoherent sorry #i just thing jindosh is a character witj such amazing potential but they completely blew it by making him Mr Evil McEvilson #and the most horrifying non lethal solution #this poor guy deserved better

syntia13treeman

Random fic rec, Dishonored edition

Today I bring you: “The Prince, the Guard, and the Many-Eyed God” by ewelinakl The Old Gods of Tyvia choose strange paths for their children. Slackjaw’s path leads through the criminal underworld of Dunwall and into the arms of a Watchman. or (spoilers by me): How Slackjaw, contrary to the Heart’s prediction, did eventually learn that his father was a prince, but only after falling in love with Geoff, saving Black Sally, supporting the poor of Dunwall, accidentally awaking the old gods of his people and making an enemy of Granny Rags, and also getting kidnapped by the Royal Protector but before he told off both Corvo and Sokolov for their double standards, reminded Ace!Daud that relationships don’t have to involving sex and Thomas is right there, and also dragged young Kirin Jindosh kicking and screaming from the path leading towards Delihla. Oh, and there’s also Russia-inspired history added for Tyvia, to go with the new Old Gods of Tyvia, and un-hostile takeover of said country.

A little ofer 55k words - a delicious juicy fanfic-steak to devour when you’re hungering for new Dishonored content.

@incorrect-dishonored-quotes, @corruptedbonecharm, @sphyrne and any other Dishonored-centric blog - can I bother you to reblog? This fic deserves so much more love than it’s currently getting. :(

mlledevoltaire

I'm the author of this fic and I just accidentally stumbled upon your post while browsing the Kirin Jindosh tag (for reasons that may or may not be related to a follow-up fic) and !!!!!!!!!!!! thank you so, so much for all your kind words, OP, you really made my day 😭💕💕💕

#i didn't expect to see such a kind review 😭💕#I'm glad you enjoyed my fic!!!#amd thank you for recommending it!

logarithmicpanda

Thoughts on subjectivity and quality, spoilers for Raya and the last dragon below:

So I watched Raya yesterday and since I've been looking through reviews and opinions (mainly I wanted to know how the movie was received by South eastern asians in terms of rep but this isn't what I'll be talking about here as it's not my place) and it's interesting to me that people seem to find the movie awesome or underwhelming. Among the later category, people seem to agree that the pacing was too fast and badly handled, but what I loved about the movie was precisely tied to that fast pacing, and I think it derives from a divergence in readings

The people who argue the pacing was too fast focus on the fact that peace was reached again very soon after the people who had turned into stone were released, and that as a society, it didn't make sense (which is fair! Peace probably wouldn't be reached that fast, and these countries still have issues to work through and amends to make!)

But in my opinion, the movie is only superficially about wars and politics. The crux of it, what touched me to my core, is that personal narrative of Raya and Namaari: the notion that the way we cope with hurt isn't viable as a long term solution. That healing from a wound doesn't stop at protecting oneself from being wounded further, but realizing that by shutting others out, the wound can only fester.

Let's look at it in terms of Raya's character arc:

Raya starts off suspicious of other nations, but her father's words and Namaari's friendship lead her to open up.

Namaari backstabs her, and consequently makes her partly responsible for breaking the world.

Instead of fixing her mistakes, Raya focuses on getting her father back. She cuts herself to human contact entirely, the first person she creates links to in six years is Sisu, and she's not even human, Raya trusts her because she's a dragon (incidentally, it's hinted that she gets several run ins with Namaari, who seems to be the only constant in her life)

Sisu tries to show her that she needs to trust people, but several incidents comfort Raya in her ways - but at the same time, she is forced to ask for help. It's an help that she is moneying and so the only help she will trust at that point.

Sisu finally convinces Raya to try to reach Namaari after showing her that last time the world was saved, it was because her family trusted her even though they had no tangible reason to (as Sisu doesn't have any "fancy" power unlike her siblings, she may seem the least reasonable choice but trust doesn't work that way. It's not really trust if you're just following logical arguments, is it?)

Namaari tries to betray them again, but hesitates, and instead of reassuring Raya, that hesitation brings back all her doubts. She stops trusting Namaari and that's the reason why Sisu is killed.

Raya fights Namaari with all her strength, and wins, but Namaari throws in her face that they're both responsible for Sisu's death. She is right, and isn't trying to save herself at this point, just to make Raya see the truth. And Raya, to Namaari's surprise, sees it (with the help of the family she found along the way)

Raya realizes that the only way out of this mess is to give Namaari another chance. She is the one who convinces her friends to trust her, and that act of trust saves the world and finishes Raya's healing from that very first wound six years ago.

Looking at it like this, yes a lot happens and a lot is left to subtext, but I think the point was to show the entirety of the arc, and that was, in my opinion, the only way to make it believable and ring true. I found it well done, and my emotions through the movie were in tune with Raya's. Of course she can't trust Namaari again! Of course she's just being sensible and protecting herself! Of course... She is isolated and lonely and wounded. Of course what she really needed was to take a leap of faith. (There was a lot of crying involved in the last part of that movie lmao)

---

Tangentially, Namaari's arc is also very interesting and echoing Raya's.

From Namaari's perspective, she is given a mission to save her people from starvation, but realizes that her enemy has a lot in common with her (I believe the whole dragon nerd part and her gifting Raya the necklace was not a calculated act on her part, she is a child at that point). Still, they are living in luxury and she's not, so she betrays Raya, but she is responsible for breaking the gem.

The implication is that she spends at least part of the next 6 years chasing Raya, though her reasons for doing so are less clear. She doesn't believe Sisu is at the end of the rivers, and she doesn't look particularly interested in getting Raya's fragment initially. But at that point, she has lost her faith in dragons and every other nation is blaming hers for the breaking of the world. Maybe that's why she's after Raya, actually.

Then she learns that Sisu is alive and the legend of her childhood was real. For the first time, she sees a hope of redemption, but her mother twists it. Because they can't trust the other nations not to punish them, they need to come out on top if the world is restored.

Namaari sets out to do her mother's bidding, but seeing Sisu again makes her hesitate, and she almost trusts Raya again before she snaps and they both kill Sisu, confirming her mother's bias.

Except her mother gets turned to stone. Namaari loses the fight against Raya and thinks she's lost it all, but she realizes that things would have been different if she'd been able to trust Raya earlier, and she tries to make her see that.

When Raya trusts her in the end, Namaari too is healed. The assumption isn't that she is forgiven, but that she deserves the opportunity to make amends for the wrong she did.

---

Anyway that ran long but I love that movie and how it handles its themes, I love that we're not spoonfed every detail but a lot is conveyed through subtle details, and I totally ship Raya and Namaari. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#interesting :o #gotta watch it at some point 👀