Let me introduce to you my newest self inserted OC, Outono!

Outono, the Court Jester, was a paradoxical figure in the royal court. With her striking beauty and enchanting singing voice, she captivated all who beheld her.

However, her attempts at humor often fell flat, leaving awkward silences in their wake. Her nerves betrayed her before every performance, manifesting in uncontrollable shakes and a flushed complexion.

Despite her comedic shortcomings, her gentle nature and sincere apologies endeared her to those around her, earning her a unique place in the court's tapestry of characters.

I cannot describe how much I fell in love with this Jester! She only existed for 2 days maybe but I wrote a whole background story around her and created multiple fake scenarios in my head. She's so cute! But also a girlfailure hahaha

i do not want to dig a hole but i am too much of a laura bailey pc enjoyer to not make this post so:

selfishness ≠ a lack of kindness 

selfishness is a theme that has come up with all of laura's main campaign pcs. that doesn't mean that her characters are always making selfish choices or that they don't care about the rest of the people they're with or that they're not good. it's just that, for the most part, the first thing they're thinking of when they take action or make choices is themselves. 

in jester and vex both it is more typical and obvious selfishness. vex's developed because she needed it to keep herself and vax alive and as safe as possible and it grew into a behaviour that she had to actively work to avoid. it's evident in her greed, her theft of the broom, her reaction to her own death which relied heavily on i'm okay/i survived to which keyleth reminded her that she wasn't the only one who had to witness and reckon with her death. in jester's case, she grew up in an environment that literally trained her to make every decision based on two things - her mother's opinion and her own. so, when she's out in the world without marion for the first time, her choices are those that will benefit her and her actions are those that consider her own thoughts and not really many others' (aside from the traveler's). 

it isn't a criticism of either vex or jester to say that they are characters who act selfishly. in fact, i'd argue that to claim otherwise does a great disservice to exactly how immense both of their character arcs are. because the nuance of both jester and vex is that they are selfish, and they also hold extreme room for self-sacrifice and empathy. vex is much more brash than jester is, and jester is much more trusting than vex, but both of them are characters who begin with selfish impulses who grow with them. neither ever truly shed those impulses, but they use them in new ways, typically transforming them into impulses towards things that are in the best interest of the party. 

you may have noticed the lack of imogen in this post about laura bailey pcs and that's because of two reasons. one, we are an unknown amount of time into her story, i can't analyse her development the same way i can vex and jester's. two, imogen's selfishness isn't the blatant quasi-self-aware selfishness that we see in things like jester complaining about her lack of money to caleb or vex stealing a broom. instead, imogen's is very internal, like a lot of laura's character work with imogen. it is a bit similar to jester’s in the sense that it comes from a lack of awareness moreso than vex’s practiced behaviour, but imogen’s is a lot more tied to inherent beliefs she has about the world and the people in it.

as a consequence of her powers, imogen sees people's thoughts as their entirety, she holds it above their actions to be the truth of who they are - to act against what they think or to say something that doesn’t cohere with what they’ve thought is akin to lying, so for her to act empathetically is to act in tandem with what someone else’s thoughts are, not how they act, which is typically not all that wanted. the same as vex’s greed and jester’s naivety, this is a trait that makes narrative sense and it’s one i find quite compelling, especially when read in the vein of someone struggling through trauma that has made them assume that the world is against them. imogen’s cynicism is coherent cynicism, i can’t say that in a similar situation i wouldn’t have the same predisposition towards the world.

the part that is particularly self-interested comes in if you look at how imogen has actually been treated in the campaign (quite well) in comparison to the cynicism that she’s developed from her past (something that speaks to a world out to get her). certainly, a bunch of shitty things have happened to imogen in the time we’ve known her, but the same can be said for everyone in bell’s hells and pretty much everyone in exandria at this point in time. but, in a fight to save the aforementioned world, imogen’s focus was getting her mother back on her side. which, while very consistent with her character and a choice that i enjoy, is a very selfish one. the fun thing (to me, obviously) about imogen is that she has, more than most, an insight into the opinions of others and she also tends to seek others’ opinions out and genuinely engages with them and supports their choices. but she still very much acts towards what she thinks is best. it’s one reason i enjoy looking at the dynamic between her and orym as one between foils, as orym tends to be stalwart in his beliefs and doesn’t care too much for other’s opinions if he’s already sure of his own, but his actions tend to favour collaboration and protecting others.

as i mentioned earlier, imogen is a harder case to look at because she is still in the process of her story. however, the circlet is clearly influencing how she interacts with the world and in the wake of the solstice, the hostile reaction towards ruidusborn people has started to become more and more apparent and i’m interested to see what route that ends up leading imogen down and how it will influence her relationship with the rest of bell’s hells. (for better, i think, based on recent conversations, but if it's for worse i will be just as seated and excited).

all of this is just to say, please stop assuming that claiming a character has a trait you think is a bad one is criticism or a hate post. in light of the fact that i know that people who don’t believe this will continue to not believe this, i’ll encourage anyone confused about the ability of a character to be good and kind and selfish all at once to look to what the text itself says, specifically scanlan’s words to pelor when asked what vex means to him:

“Her name is Vex, and she is greedy and mean sometimes, and she can steal a lot. She’s a little bit not the greatest person, but her flaws highlight everything that is right about her, which is she does all these things to protect her friends and her family. She would give her life for any of us and for anyone who was truly in need. And she’s not perfect but she’s the most perfect of all of us.”

would you look at that... an ability to be a multitude of things, some in conflict with one another. i know that's hard for fandoms to believe, especially about female characters with agency, but i promise its true!

Pomni after seeing all the horrors silliness of the Digital Circus.

Yeah I made that in 1 hour + 30 mins I'm so proud jahfhshajajahah

Inspiration 👇

before design refinement and after refinement

her name is kurma (she/they)

Caine and Pomni falling in love in the Circus and making it out together only for Caine to realize how warped all their personalities were compared to who they actually are in reality, but especially Pomni’s.

Okay literal train-of-thought word salad from here on out, prepare yourselves accordingly.

• Like he knows Pomni as an anxious little jester but they love each other and she’s cute and funny and affectionate and all that fun stuff. But once they’re in reality he follows her like a lost puppy because he has no idea how this place works and gets to see how she actually lives.

• Pomni is basically an accidental femcel when it comes to vibes. A complete girlfailure, if you will. (socially isolated, chronically single brunette with glasses, you get the idea)

• A “nice relaxing night for her” is playing a random YouTube video essay that’s like three hours long while lounging on the couch and not wearing pants, eating an entire bag of chips and probably hitting her bong. She gave up on dating in college due to failure after failure so she’s accepted that she’s gonna die alone… or rather she says she has. (She read that “I’m not doing to be loved in this lifetime, am I?” quote in a TikTok slideshow and proceeded to down an entire bottle of wine that night while sobbing)

• She wanted to get a cat to ease the loneliness, but she doesn’t feel good enough— a cat deserves more than just a shitty apartment with a wreck of an owner in their mid-20s.

• He goes back to her apartment— it’s dingy and shitty but it’s the closest place to the office that she can afford. Her half of her pantry is ramen she bought in bulk. She’s medicated to high heaven and her kitchen counters look like a pharmacy.

• Pomni is either so fucking embarrassed when Caine sees how her life is in reality or the Human Depression™ in her Human Body™ has already set back in by the time they get there and she’s just miserably accepting of it. There is no in-between.

• She showers for the first time since The Incident (she didn’t need to bathe in the DC, her clothes were literally attached to her body there/hygiene was a total nonissue in that world) and she just breaks down and spends a good 30-40 minutes taking a scalding hot shower (as all the depressed girlies do) while sobbing her heart out. It’s cathartic as fuck to be able to lose her shit for once without the threat of abstraction, but it also hurts so fucking badly at the exact same time.

• Something about mental illness in real humans versus their digital avatars really messes with Caine. At the very least he could create a zany adventure to get their mind off of things, but then there’s some days where Pomni just stays in bed all day and doesn’t say a word. This world is so harsh and dull and colorless in comparison to the world he was made for, and there are fleeting moments where he wonders if it would’ve been better if they had both stayed there.

In the end, it is misogyny but in the form of that Imogen (and most of the female cast, if we are being fair) gets reduced to just being a woman to the point that criticizing any real flaw, wrong doing, or "hey i personally maybe perhaps don't like that she did this" is turned into an attack on her because she is a woman, because after all, all women are perfect and so so dainty they must be protected (sarcasm)

Without mentioning the attacking real women in the name of the fictional one

It really is the "God forbid a woman do anything" but in it's worst form

Sorry for venting, been having thoughts about the fandom for the past 5 years

YUP. I do recommend Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya which I devoured in like, one sitting over my winter break and posted a bunch of excerpts from but this discourse is extremely not limited to the CR fandom. I mean, think about all of the endlessly churning nonsense about the women of Gone Girl and Midsommar. I am going to see Love Lies Bleeding tomorrow and have steered well clear of really any discussion because I simply would like to see buff lesbians in a crime drama but apparently the discourse is rancid.

Of course there are people who assume ill of female characters while excusing men. That is absolutely a big problem. But again, we can barely talk about that. I recently made a post about how Laura is not a particularly chaotic player, and indeed is one of the most cautious players in actual play, and again I think there is a serious and important conversation to be had about how there's probably a reason why, say, Travis and Taliesin are more likely to make extremely bold moves, because they didn't get raked over the coals during C1 for stealing a cool broom from a guest character! I actually think Marisha has managed to hang on to some of her boldness and it makes her a stronger player but I would not have been surprised if she retreated after the hate she got from Keyleth. But yeah, in actual play, bold moves are pretty important. We can't even talk about how real-world misogyny holds back the actual actors without some moronic wretch being like "FIGURES THAT A MISOGYNIST CUNT LIKE YOU LIKES A MALE ACTOR."

When a character who is a man - or in some cases, characters who are not men but are played by men - does something people don't like we can say "wow, I didn't like this, but it was an interesting choice by the actor!" but we aren't allowed to either talk about the reasons why a real world woman might hesitate to play a character who does ugly things - because of the misogynistic backlash that will land specifically on her as a real person - nor can we compliment her for going for it and playing a complex flawed character, because how DARE you say a woman is anything less than some kind of Divine Feminine ideal. At best you're allowed a two-dimensional caricature of She's So Sweet And Good But Sometimes Gets Angry (this also happened to my friend Keyleth).

And this might reveal my own biases but like. I as a woman don't love being called self-centered, but that, personally, would probably lead me to some reflection. If you call me a girlfailure, even jokingly, I am going to break your nose. It's really telling that like...one of the absolute no-brainer "hey stop calling grown women girls" feminist tenets has gone by the wayside particularly with the set of people who think that meta that fails to put women on so high a pedestal they are untouchable is misogynist. They are awful towards women, fictional and real.

A line that always stuck with me from, bizarrely, a book about wordplay, was that Victorian men would treat women of their same classes as their superiors, but never their equals - they would coddle them and protect them but they wouldn't actually engage with their thoughts and foibles. (This happened to my friend Jester).

Anyway my personal solution is to keep going. On some level, as my previous post indicates, while I don't want the harassment it also only underscores my point, that a lot of these people are way more invested in being a dick to women on the internet than writing meta about the pretend women they think they like. I have to imagine they're doing this because either think they're entitled to meta they like from people who can actually fucking write it because god knows most of the people making this complaint have the most "if you can't dazzle them with brillance, blind them with the most purple-prose bullshit you can muster" attitude; or because they literally are just champing at the bit to attack women online with the ostensible veneer of "but it's FEMINIST to call THESE women cunts because they said my blorbo wasn't saintly and flawless." However, again, I know that I'm pretty bullheaded and forcibly unlearned the uh, patriarchal idea that women should not be confrontational. I do not blame people who look at this whole situation and say "I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself because this is so unpleasant."

Not to be every person on the internet for the past month, but have you seen The Amazing Digital Circus? And if so what are your thoughts on it?

YES!!! I have seen it.

So far, I like it! The humor is pretty innocent and I find that refreshing (lost my absolute marbles when Kinger started wigging out). I also really like the animation! The recoils in the characters’ movements just scratched an itch in my brain idk how to explain it. The general style of TADC has a unique charm to it and I’m excited to see where it goes.

My favorite characters so far, in order:

1. Pomni - I just like everything about her. Jester, girlfailure, probably the realest person there, I love her.

2. Caine - I love chaotic entities with a few screws missing and complete dominion over their world.

3. Ragatha - Second realest person there. I also really like dolls. If not a jester, then a doll. I think Ragatha and Pomni should file their jointly taxes together.

I will end this post with a TADC thing I started a while ago and will probably never finish

on the topic of lars' jp and cn voiceovers, and the difference between the two:

(tl;dr: jp lars is more girlfailure himbo and cn lars is more babygirl himbo)

i think for jp lars the trope subversion is in the dissonance between the way he carries himself (playing up the cool suave persona) and the way he actually is (silly, earnest, kinda clumsy). he imbues his lines with a dramatic flair, playfully inflating his own ego, and it's precisely because of this over-exaggeration that both mc and you, as the reader, know he's mostly full of hot air (and doing it on purpose). i'd describe it as good-natured pomposity; he knows his worth, but he'll jokingly raise himself up a couple rungs to tease a reaction out of you (and to wheedle some praise out of you too, while he's at it). the trope subversion here is on a meta, narrative level, where the dichotomy exists in the way we see through his disposition; it's the contrast between what he presents himself to be and what we perceive through his actions.

whereas for cn lars, there are many instances where he directly lampshades this dissonance; he pokes fun at himself in a lighthearted, self-aware manner, deliberately affecting his speech with childish phrases that contrast his position and disposition. he is simultaneously the successful adult and the child at heart; the confident businessman and the petulant boy; the playful jester and the gentle companion. here, the trope subversion is within the character itself; cn lars' portrayal encompasses both aspects of his personality, letting the subverted traits peek through between the played-up persona. there's less dramatic flair, and perhaps less comedy as a result, but less hot air also means he's more down-to-earth and relatable.

while jp lars is funny because of how transparent his antics are and how quickly his hot air deflates, cn lars is amusing because of how earnest he is in both aspects of his personality, which ought to be diametrically opposite yet coexist so seamlessly within him. both portrayals make lars nuanced and endearing, just in different ways!

i'd elaborate more and corroborate with actual examples from the cn and jp lines, but that would probably expand into a whole essay, so... maybe next time! (i do love languages and linguistics, so)

Spare some R facts if its not too much to ask?? I love them so much. They have bewitched me. You had me at sad jester😭 per the headcanons, I imagine my MC Adrien begging carter for some kind of therapet as a kid for when other people's thoughts get too loud and overwhelming. Just an anxiety dog for her to hone in on in social situations to filter out the noise. Also she looks SO intimidating and actively tries to cultivate this 'scary, do not engage, i bite' image when in reality she's the biggest DORK alive. Can't handle arguments without crying. Thinks of a witty comeback 2 hours later and practices conversations beforehand in the mirror when she thinks carter isn't home. Girlfailure final boss i love her

Aww, I'm so glad you like R and I love your MC. I can totally see Carter caving and getting MC a pet, especially there was any chance that a pet would help keep MC stable.

As for a few facts about R,

R was definitely the first person Carter contacted when MC showed him their powers. I imagine R wanted to meet MC ages ago only to get their head bitten off by an over protective Carter. But he's got a reason to be overprotective and R would find it hilarious, so no hard feelings.

Actually I can see "Get them a pet" being R's first piece of advice for Carter. Which Carter wouldn't want to hear but guess who's still going to the animal shelter the first thing the next morning?

R is very well-read and has studied a lot of esoteric, dead magics for fun and profit. They're sort of a multi-disciplined freelancer. Kind of part private detective, part bounty hunter, part researcher.

They are also not totally human.

And maybe a little based off another blonde, emotional disaster.

Bibi The Jester

(The artwork was done by Girlfailure anon!)

♡ "Pookie where's my hug, please? I made you laugh and now I should get a hug!" ♡

She's a clingy yandere who will just pop up wherever you happen to be/ She's also a bit delusional, you could be actively hiding and she'll talk about how it's not a very funny joke to act like you're hiding from your girlfriend and you should cut it out before the joke starts to get very annoying. She starts to get a bit mean when you start to repeat your same unfunny "jokes" like how love her or you're mad she killed your fiance. The jokes getting old, stop making it.

♡ "Sorry to disappoint pookie but Bibi is my full name, I don't have a name other than it!" ♡

She might be lying but it's not worth the anger to investigate any further than that.

♡ "42, next question! This is a fun game! More questions! Hurry pookie!" ♡

Probably lying.

♡ "I'm a bit of a ladies man if I do say so myself! Haha just kidding pookie, don't worry if any girl approaches me, I'll kill them and give you their eyes!" ♡

She's a lesbian and she's being completely serious.

♡ "Oh I love this question! I'm the executioner, if you couldn't tell by the bells on my head! Also court jester but the executions are my funniest jokes!" ♡

She's primarily court jester but they also let her do executions, Theanna likes how having her jester do executions makes everyone unnerved and scared that if they do something bad their execution will be made into a subpar jester's comedy routine.

♡ "I like my pookie! Your laugh is the cutest! I also like shouting!" ♡

It goes without saying she also likes killing, it's funny.

♡ "I hate when people tell unfunny jokes or laugh at the jokes for the wrong reasons! Oh! Oh! I also hate hate hate when necks are too thick to cut through in one go, it ruins the bit!" ♡

She doesn't like when you keep going with an unfunny joke like telling her the two of you are breaking up or you don't love her cause you laughed at a joke, it's not funny you bitch.

♡ "I'm obviously very good at running! Haha, of course I'm not good at that, look at my leg, it's falling apart, I got you good though! Laugh. Anyways I'm great at telling jokes, not good at stealing but that's what got me my current job!" ♡

She was about to be killed for thievery but made a joke Theanna laughed at so she was allowed to be a court jester instead. She's also decent at juggling even though she's missing two fingers. She has a prosthetic leg so very not good at running cause it's broken down and never gets repaired. She's really not good at a lot of things.

♡ "Pookie! Get back here! I have more jokes to tell! Look at this eyeball, isn't it funny looking!" ♡

Guys get this. JESTERS.

BUT GIRLFAILURE JESTERS

-ADHD!! (idfk)

"Yea.. Jesters.. ♥️"

With Fans like you, Outono feels right at home ❤️

(Instagram always has the NICEST Fans!)

Wake up babe new hyperfixation just dropped

Silly jester girlfailure who has seen the horrors my beloved <3

Doodling my beloved girlfailure and the slut jester too! from my memory it's very easy to challenge my memory <D

Og character - @/gooseworx

AUs

Carnival - @sm-baby

Freakshow - @hootbon

Her girlfailure vibes and jester outfit have enchanted me

Thanks tadc for filling the dhmis void in my heart

Honestly, before Gooseworx said anything, I don't know why, but I assumed Kinger would be the worst cook out of the humans.

But uhh no, I was wrong. The woman said it herself. Do not let that fucking jester cook ever, she is banned from the kitchen.

Pomni is really not beating the girlfailure allegations.