#emma blake

[askyea-poesy]

And then she stopped believing in fairy tales, not because she was too old, but because she realised that maybe happily-ever-after just wasn't meant for her..

Emma Blake

[badass-at-fandoming]

Happy VtM FangFest24!

Despite my current level of Busy, I really wanted to meet @fuckyeahlabynight's Fang Fest challenge! Tarot is such a fun idea. 😁 Earlier this month, I ran a poll on what to draw, and "portraits of different canon characters" won by landslide. Here's the first half! As a further treat, I paired each character with a flower whose meaning brought out more elements of their character and card. All flower meanings are from A Victorian Flower Dictionary by Mandy Kirkby. Find it on Indiebound here.

If you'd like to squeak in entries for this challenge, check out the kick off post here! I babble more about my character & flower choices below the cut.

Day 1 - Ramona as the Fool - Daisies double down on the "Innocence" theme of The Fool. From the Clan Novels to her appearance in LA by Night, Ramona goes on a wild journey which attempts to break her. Against all odds, she survives and comes out stronger, choosing kindness, art, and whimsy in LA by Night instead of brooding over the shitstorm she was forced through. It's like, at first Ramona was innocent, then she chooses the innocent happiness of small joys. Yeah, she'll do what she needs to survive—but she doesn't let the experience overtake who she chooses to be.

Day 2 - Ambrosio Luis Moncado as The Magician - HEAR ME OUT. He's the Magician Upright and Reversed. Moncado has plans upon plans. They succeed much more often than not, but Moncado also gets in his own way sometimes. The flowers are geraniums. The pencil thin leaves convey ingenuity—yes, Embracing Lucita was a good, unexpected idea—but red geraniums indicate stupidity. Maybe if he drank more respect women juice, she would return his calls.

Day 3 - Ming Xiao as the High Priestess - In her mortal and immortal roles, Ming Xiao acts as an advisor and knowledge keeper for her communities. She also has a terrible habit of withdrawing and not sharing tidbits. Maidenhair fern seemed a perfect fit: it references the feminine and it conveys a sense of secrecy.

Day 4 - Emma Blake as the Empress - I think Emma Blake deserves nice things and barely got the chance to stand on her own. Her "flower" is actually wheat. Emma is essential to the The Victorian Trilogy, just like wheat is a building block of civilization. The narrative wants to grind her down and devour her, like the violence done to wheat to make bread. Wheat is a staple—but for the gluten intolerant it's a poison. There's also the association with Ceres, the mother who, in her rage and sorrow, created winter over her stolen child. I'm like, really happy with this pairing, can you tell

Day 5 - Baron Samedi as The Emperor - What a fun dude. Though he's not always a good father/sire, Baron Samedi takes care of his clan, even at the risk of his own life. The leaves in his pocket are sorrel, which stands for parental affection.

Day 6 - Hesha Ruhadze as The Hierophant - Hesha's story is all wrapped up with faith and spiritual institutions: either following their precepts or secretly defying them for a greater good. Why is he naked you ask? the monocle stays ON during sex Ignore that. Look at the passionflower. Look up a picture of a passionflower. It stands for faith and looks like an alien.

Day 7 - Ilias cel Frumos and Sascha Vykos as The Lovers - This choice was very obvious, haha. Without Ilias, Vykos' life is full of disharmony, arguments, and hatred. United, they blossom. The flowers above them are lilies of the valley for "return of happiness." The drawing is a redraw of this picrew

Day 8 - Karsh as The Chariot - Just like chamomile ("energy in adversity"), Karsh does not quit! Cut him down; he returns stronger! In v5 Modern Nights, I think Karsh would be conflicted over his position in the Camarilla, and the Chariot brings out that tension. B. Dave Walters performed a fantastic Karsh in LA by Night, and I used his outfit and picture from We're Alive: Frontier as an artistic reference.

Day 9 - Halim Bey as Strength - Halim is a gentleman, through and through. He gently persuades, deftly handles his British customers, practices compassion gracefully, and endures like one million billion microaggressions without snapping. That takes strength. The dahlias are for dignity, which he has in spades. The decolonization comment came from me wondering how he feels about the British monarchy these nights. Like how Hesha is wrapped up with faith, Halim is wrapped up in colonization.

Day 10 - Aristotle de Laurent as The Hermit - This one was easy. Since he finished The Book of Nod, Aristotle seems to be quite content puttering around his collection and directing Lucita, Anatole, and Beckett to dig sites. He was The Hermit Upright. With their associations in mythology, queerness, and loneliness, hyacinths seemed a good pick. The purple shades add in the message "please forgive me," which reference his and Beckett's falling out. When he betrayed Beckett, Aristotle's Hermit card Reversed.

Day 11 - Beckett as The Wheel of Fortune - This card fit the (un)lucky Cuthbert "Gehenna is a cycle" Beckett so well! Aristotle and Beckett's portraits mirror each other, because I wanted to tease out their potential for reconciliation. I've drawn Beckett before, but this one came out looking younger and softer to me, which calls back to Beckett's neonate days. The two chrysanthemums symbolize truth (i.e. his constant goal) in British culture. In China, chrysanthemums are, among other things, symbols of the queer male community. Cause, yanno, they kind of look like buttholes. 😅😂 I had to do it do 'em okay

[sims-and-counting]

Another “From the Vaults” from Gen 5 as I gear myself up to writing the wrap up of Gen 8 - Flora and Emma’s university graduation! Emma was the original intended heir for this gen, but she ended up becoming so non-fundie that it just wasn’t true to the ‘fundie sims’ blog any more. I played her for a while (and have lots more posts from her if anyone wants to see them), but obviously ended up abandoning that generation after I lost inspiration.

[pixelpeoplesplayground]

Louie | Emma | Ree

@nonsimsical thanks for the edits Dani!

[nonsimsical]

| Emma & Ree |

..when Dad is trying to get a pic of your sister, but you need to include yourself!

@blessyourpixels

[brightstorm98]

For the Character Ask Meme, you must know I will ask about Beckett :D

But of course! For there is no character who concerns my fandom efforts more than the fair Gangrel boi-o!

How I feel about Beckett:

Well, to be fair, I kinda ignored him at first. My first run of Bloodlines 1 I wasn’t so much interested in the lore and just wanted to discover all the character interactions with the Anarchs that I could. On repeated play throughs however, he started to grow on me. One day I eventually looked up his character online and well, I took the bisexual vampire Indiana Jones bait hook, line, and sinker 😅 He’s an absolute delightful character - not a Gary-Stu (he has realistic flaws and has made PLENTY of mistakes over the years), intelligent and open to new ideas (big brains are SEXY), has a rather attractive character design (other than that phase in the 90’s where he had Jerry Seinfeld hair he’s always had long dark hair and I mean come on, who can’t swoon over that?), he’s a middle-aged character which, especially in modern media, you do not see that often (age representation FTW!), and of course...did I mention bisexual? I think I may have but just wanted to be sure I got that in there.

People I ship with Beckett romantically:

If you’ve never read any of the novels/sourcebooks that feature dear Cuthbert, he’s very popular with like...literally everyone and anyone he meets. Camarilla, Sabbat, Anarch, doesn’t matter. They all are hot for him, and based on some of the stuff in Jyhad Diary, goodness does he know it 😆 That said, he seems rather choosy with who he totally opens up to friendship wise, so the same can only be assumed to be just as exclusive, if not moreso, for romance.

For romance, out of the many candidates out in the night and based on Beckett’s canonically established sexual preferences:

Anatole for the guys, because come on, they have gay couple goals written all over them! Whether or not they have a sexual relationship is up in the air, but no one who has ever read anything between these two can deny that there is capital L LOVE between them. Anatole’s thrown parties for Beckett, misses him when they’re a part, and of course in the Gehenna timeline visits Beckett in his dreams to try and help him despite having met Final Death. Since he’s alive and well as of V20 and onwards, I hope one day we get a bit more of an in-depth look into their relationship because even if it isn’t “canon”, the seeds of romance have been sown for these two! (Honorable mentions go to Vlad Dracula ((yes you read that right and yes they canonically fucked and Beckett is a bride of Dracula and no I’m not making this up read Jyhad Diary)) and Hesha Ruhadze).

The female half of the spectrum was tricky. I think he will always be in love with Emma Blake, his love interest from the Victorian novel Trilogy, and since White Wolf likes to resurrect characters we saw die these days in lore, perhaps she’ll come back! I certainly hope so, that lady deserves a break. Beckett does best with a calm and dedicated feminine partner who balances out his impulsive and sometimes wishy-washy loyalties, and Emma is the perfect candidate for that. She inspires humanity and tenderness in him and he in turn gives her strength and courage. They’re just too cute together and I want them to have a happy ending some how, some way 😭 (Honorable mentions go to Lucita de Aragon and Carna the Tremere).

I also have to mention Sascha Vykos because oh boy, is there chemistry between these two in Jyhad Diary. They’ve reached a truce at the moment in the canon and Beckett finds them “handsome and beautiful”, so there is ample opportunity for a enemies-to-allies-to-lovers arc here. They both actually have quite a bit in common interest-wise regarding seeking out knowledge and looking for answers about what it means to be a vampire. Maybe the answer they’re looking for is with each other...

My non-romantic OTP with Beckett:

This has to go to Lucita de Aragon. They are just too good together as partners. While they may have or have had a sexual relationship, I don’t see them as true love interests because I think especially at this point Lucita is kinda done with men, at least from a romantic standpoint. They’re undoubtedly best friends and are able to tease one another, help each other out, and of course turn plenty of heads when they walk into the room together. Lasombra-Gangrel besties who can fuck you up, basically 😂 (Honorable mention goes to Okulos the Nosferatu. He might have gotten it if not for his behavior in the Gehenna timeline, and I know it’s pretty much ignored in the canon atm but it’s hard to just forget about. Sorry Okulos. Try not to be such a prick in the future).

My unpopular opinion about Beckett:

Hmm...this is a hard one. The only thing I could really think of is that he maybe needs to learn how to ask for help more often? He tries to be a one man show (possibly to keep people from stealing his discoveries like his adopted sire did, possibly to keep the few close people he has safe) and that gets him into trouble a lot. He’s gotten lucky and gotten out of a lot of jams on his own or by sheer luck that someone found him.

One thing that I wish would happen/had happened to Beckett in canon:

I wish we could have seen him interact with characters in Bloodlines that he later hangs out with in Jyhad Diary like Damsel and Smiling Jack. Would have been really cool to see and hear with Michael Gough voicing him!

[laughlovedreamimagine]

[lovelustquotes]

They stood there pretending to be just friends when all the while everyone in the room could plainly see that they were only existing for each other.

Emma Blake