#ymeri

[twiggies-draws]

Absolutely stunned by this gorgeous piece I got from @defenestratin , who I loredumped about Brad and his anxieties and struggles, and they came back to me with this stunning piece and I'm still AHHH over it <3

I really love the elements that he put together for this, and the really broad overview of this is Brad's struggles against Ymeri, and his hopes that Atreia can free him (which goes in... some directions).

Unlike on Bluesky I can yap to my heart's content here so I'm going to do that while I'm extremely sleepy and then go to sleep and then wake up and be like huh.

Brad was born and raised well entrenched in Ymeri's rule of the Plane of Fire, and within her cult (musing maybe he was part of the Tongues of Ymeri, since she got a bit more lore in the Rage of Elements book, but I've always kinda did a handwavey 'the cult'). While he and many of the fire elementals had some light mind enchantments over them to embed loyalty, this was also supplemented with a lot and a lot of propaganda such that even if the enchantments were broken, most would not question anything and would still instinctively follow her commands. Even with his escape to the mortal plane, thereby weakening the direct link he has to her, the connection he still has with her both via her demi-deific abilities and how he was raised to think his whole life is something he is constantly fighting against to not get pulled back to her especially as she gains interest in her lost sheep. Ymeri's symbol, the four longswords, have pierced him long ago, and he can't escape it so simply.

When he learned about the Garnet Brand, and thus the existence of a different fire lord, Atreia, he grasped onto that hope like nothing else. Hoping that if he could find and free Atreia, he might be able to help with freeing him from Ymeri. A selfish goal.

The shattered sunglasses lens on just the one side I think also shows a lot of how much of his emotion gets hidden behind them. It feels like, the revealed eye makes him look so so much more desperate, than if you cover up that eye and look only on the non-shattered side. And that is a big thing with Brad is him hiding himself. The entire persona of Brad is him hiding. But sometimes he can't always do that, especially when it comes to Her, and the guise falls. Plus, part of what causes him a lot of trouble later on with Ymeri is that he kept on kicking the problem under the rug without communicating his struggles with others thinking if he ignored it long enough it would be fine.

The notes of the hair starting to ignite too, a callback to Logi, Brad's "other half" so to speak. That Ymeri's pull is working, always has been working, but also that he's still a part of himself that he cannot bury forever.

But gosh GAHHH you see how AMAZING a job they did!!! Go look at his art it's awesome sdfkgjsdhf such amazing attention to detail.

[ghoulgeists]

arent you tired of being nice. dont you wanna just start setting things on fire.

a comm for @twiggies-draws of brad and his deity ymeri! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! mwah

[twiggies-draws]

anyway. puts him back in the torture nexus (his own mind)

Continuing to bully Brad, handed a writeup of Brad's angst over to Antarija for this commission to make something out of and once again!! Super outdone themselves!! The composition they came up with is AMAZING and the rendering is *chefs kiss*

Just going full in again on his fear of Ymeri but how he can't help but be submissive.

[twiggies-draws]

Commissioned Antarija once more to do a piece with Logi (aka Evil!Brad) at some sort of ceremony. Asked them to help me with designing a ceremonial outfit for him, and all the concepts looked so good! I ended up focusing on this one for this piece, but they're all so cool so I want to share them all as well. <3

I love what they ended up doing with the whole composition and background too, since I wasn't completely sure what I wanted besides a vague 'warmongering fire deity ritual' and gahh this is so perfect.

[twiggies-draws]

did you ever talk about evil!brad? like, whats his deal? why is he evil? tell meeee

Omg okay so.

Evil!Brad aka Logi while I call him an AU, is actually also Brad in his past (at least in my most commonly used Brad's history). The origin Brad you could say. But obviously there are also AUs where Logi never becomes Brad, or Brad returns to being Logi forcefully or not.

The reason he is the way he is is because of this Pathfinder Demigod called Ymeri, the elemental lord of Fire. Notably, in her stats in Pathfinder 1e, she has the ability to control fire creatures and it notes as flavour text that they instinctively follow her commands.

With Ymeri being particularly warmongery and power hungry, when she took over the plane of fire after getting rid of her rival fire lord, I expanded on this subservient controlling idea. Obviously she has built a large dedication of a cult to herself, and while her influence over fire creatures in general is there, she spread her influence much stronger on those that she had more oversight over within her own (very large) cult. While she had the ability to control, she's (unfortunately) not a true god after all so she couldn't keep Every Fire Being Ever under a direct mind control. Plus that would just be silly, she needed good soldiers who could make good decisions in her wars. Instead she used a combination of her abilities to have a softer and more broad charm of "stay loyal to me" over them, and combined with her status to be able to change the narrative and build propaganda around her, she builds her army who will unquestioningly serve her. Even if her charm over them would break at any moment, its the sort of subtle blanket of an enchantment that they likely won't even realise, because they were used to everything else anyway. And Logi was born and raised within this environment.

Thus it is 'easy' to see why he's evil. All his life he's worked in the service of a God (demigod, but she doesn't like that narrative), how much she loves him, how much she could destroy him, this mix of adoration and terror, and I mean she also gets to feed him things that fire beings love doing. Few better outlets for your natural desire to burn than to destroy dissenters and those pesky earth elementals 😊

And thus it continues as is, Logi was rising in the ranks in the cult/army and was definitely in the position to start becoming a general or tactician.

For the AUs where he didnt stay Logi forever, there were various very specific situations that led to Logi suddenly breaking free and fleeing, which then had him take up the name of Brad and his extremely fake personality to cover up the guilt and shame and fear of what he'd done. But one doesnt escape Ymeri so easily. And while she initially did not care or even really notice, and Brad's reception to her weakened when he escaped out of the plane of fire into the mortal realm, he was still connected to her and her desires were still fed through and he had to keep shoving down his desire to return himself. The fact that Brad was an overcorrected mask while Logi didn't have proper free will also fed into a lot of issues for him where he couldn't figure out which side of him was real (the answer: neither!!!)

As Brad grew stronger she gained a vested interest in getting him back, a useful asset. Some other series of events happened largely spurred by the fact that Brad never fucking talked to anyone about his issues and lied all the damn time which landed him back in his home, and he got grabbed right back up by Ymeri who was expecting him and forced him back into Logi, putting him through a sort of rehabilitation. She's not stupid, raw mind control forever had too many potential holes but thankfully she knows exactly the right things to get her toy back in form for her. It's unsustainable and cruel to not let an animal follow their instincts, he'd he much happier in his proper environment...

(Art by antenenaa)

[eddyymeri]