Shark.. shark lady

incorrect ASOUE

Hey all! Long time no substantial post, I know

IRL things have been taking my focus for the most part, been trying to get back into the swing of posting things slowly but surely

Here's something I've been working on in the background; a redesign of Citron!

I intend to integrate her more into my social media presence, including a potential live2D model down the line (though I'm nowhere near close to achieving that anytime soon), hence why I felt she was overdue for a makeover

The first two are from my first redesign pass while the bottom one is my take after some feedback from my inner circles. Speaking of feedback, I'm more than happy to listen to outside criticism on increasing her visual appeal or simply adding outfit ideas to her wardrobe, so

Thoughts?

I'm having sad thoughts about Jacques again. About how he only seems like someone who has things figured out and is put together because we are seing him by very biased lens.

We are seing him by Lemony's eyes. The eyes of a man who idolized his older brother, who wanted to be like him. The eyes of someone who tends to either be extremely judgy or see everyone as better than himself and idealize them (often both at the same time).

We are in a different level seing him by the eyes of the Baudelraies. But they know little of Jacques and what they know is mostly that this is a man their parents knew, that promises answers and more important an adult that for the first time looks at Olaf in disguize and sees Olaf. Their view is biased at best.

We are also seing him by Quingleys eyes. But for Quingley Jacques was the man who found him lost in a tunnel alone and confused, griving and in danger and gave him something. That gave him some answers and food and a place to stay even if it was the abandoned house of one of his dead friends.

And even by everyone else Jacques is a Snicket, the Snickets are very competent and mostly loyal but also a bit weird. And Jacques is all that. But in comparrison to his sibblings? He has his life put together.

That's to say that Jacques is likely tired, overworked, traumatized and failing apart. But he can keep himself suave, well-read, well-dressed and calculating. He isn't taking obvious risky behavior like Kit. And he certainly isn't just a blurried bunch of trauma in a fedora like Lemony. So he appears to be someone that is fine. And that we shoudn't worry about.

“You write poetry?” Klaus asked. He had read a lot about poets but had never met one.

“Just a little bit,” Isadora said modestly. “I write poems down in this notebook. It’s an interest of mine.”

“Sappho!” Sunny shrieked, which meant something like “I’d be very pleased to hear a poem of yours!”

-The Austere Academy, Lemony Snicket

SUNNY?? MR. SNICKET?? WHAT??

I will love you like this:

I think, during my last moments, decades from now, when the sun has gotten hotter and the Earth has started melting like ice cream left out for too long, I will close my eyes and dream of you. I think, even then, after robots have grown to mimic the sound of your voice and after acting has gone out of perpetual style, I will plug in a USB of the old episodes I saved - just to watch you again. And I think, after the air becomes uninhabitable and the trees turn purple and the world goes black, I will still remember the way Prometheus put the oceans into your eyes. Surely, one day, you will know of all the ways in which I love you; but right now you’re none the wiser. Let me rectify that, if I am able. Let me tell you, plainly, that I love you. And let me tell you, unplainly, that I will love you no matter what.

No matter the distance. Or the time. Or the circumstances that get in the way. No matter the outcome of all this and no matter whatever anticlimax that may come about. I will love you no matter what the future holds - and if it doesn’t hold anything, and will instead crumble to the ground grasping for a straw or a blade of grass; well I will love you then too.

And I will love you no matter the popularity you gain, and no matter the amount of drama you get pulled into. And I will love you even if the drama finds you - or even if you cause it yourself.

I will love you if the media stays on your side or shifts toward a different opinion. And I will love you even if your career crumbles because of it or if it instead fades into a quiet thing of the past. I will love you if you give up acting. And if you take up painting. Or writing. Or designing your own clothing. And I will love you even if you decide to do none of that and would prefer to spend the rest of your life in a quiet cottage alone. Or with him.

And I will love you if you marry him. I will love you if you have a beautiful big wedding or a beautiful small wedding and I will love you if your dress is the traditional white- or if you step out of the box and wear some other creative color. And I will love you if you don’t wear a dress at all. I will love you if you wear a suit instead and I will love you if the two of you match and I will love you if you do none of that and wear no dress and no suit and decide never to marry him at all. I will love you if you marry someone else instead. I will love you if you have a change of heart. I will love you if you have children with either of whoever. And I will love you if you choose to adopt. And I will love you if you don’t want marriage and if you don’t want children and if you don’t want to adopt and if you’d rather die beside friends, family, and a menagerie of pets. I will love you if you don’t really like cats. And I will love you even if you can’t appreciate the acquired scent of a ferret. 

And I will love you even though we are different. And I will love you because of the differences. And I will love you despite the differences. And despite the rifts said differences may cause between us. I will love you if there never is an ‘us’. I will love you if there never comes to be more than this. I will love you even though I am young. I will love you even though you are older. I will love you even though it is impossible to say so. And I will love you despite the impossibility of it all. And I will love you despite the recklessness of it all. And I will love you despite the pain. And the ache. And the missing. And I will love you even if I must miss you for the rest of my life. And if somehow I know you one day, then I will love you then too. I will love you even if your laugh is not as loud and boisterous as it seems. And I will love you if you’re a quiet person at heart. And I will love you if you can’t stand silence and I will love you if you can’t stand noise. And I will love you if you talk to me forever. And I will love you if we never exchange a single word.

I will love you if I never meet you. And if I never know you. And I will love you if you never meet or know me either. And I will love you if we meet all the time and see each other every Friday. I will love you until Friday isn’t a word anymore, and until the universe itself resets, and until the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide. I’ll love you past that, as well. Until we’re all swallowed by a black hole or by the sun’s implosion. I will love you through the heat of sweltering days and through the chill of winter’s deep-freeze. I will love you when the weather is nice, and when everyone is kind to each other, and I will love you if Summer is your favorite season and if you can’t stand the cold that Autumn brings. I will love you if Spring spells out your name. And I will love you if you hate the sound of rain and can’t help but flinch when lightning strikes. 

I will love you through those storms. And through those evenings. And those days. And I will love you during every minute, and every second, and every millisecond that spans between the minutes and every milli-minute that spans between the hours. I will love you until all such hours melt into years and eventually into decades, and past the point of centuries.

And I will love you if you’re in Japan. Or Milan. Or even South Africa. And I will love you if you wear silk. Or velvet. Or satin. Or even some odd combination of cotton and tulle. And I will love you if you never wear designer clothing ever again - and if you never step foot on another runway - and if you decide to dedicate the rest of your life to sweatpants and hoodies.

And if somehow I die before you, before all of that, then I will love you from beyond the grave. I will love you from beyond the rot. And beyond the veil of death. I will love you no matter where I am; behind silver gates or behind fire and eternal damnation. I will love you even if I am set aflame, and if you greet the clouds of the silver city after your own death. I will love you if you go first and if I stay alive and I will love you so hard then that you will consume me entirely.

I will love you even after all of that as well.

And if the cure for death is somehow found, and we all get to live forever, I will love you until Armageddon takes us away. I will love you into my thirties and I will love you into old age. I will love you if I lose it all and I will love you if I gain everything I’ve ever wanted.

I will love you if I never grow out of this phase, and I will love you if I surpass my own expectations- as high as they are. And I will love you if you don’t do the same, and if you shrivel up instead, and become a hollow shell of yourself. I will love you if life turns sour and if the days get gloomy and if the nights get lonely and all you can do is cry. I will love you while you cry. I will love you while you laugh. I will love you while you scream and while you shout and I will love you while you mourn and grieve and explode in joy. I will love you if you never feel joy again. And I will love you if you feel joy every moment of every day. I will love you even if you find that that doesn’t feel fulfilling enough, and if you start yearning for sadness again. And I will love you through that sadness. 

And I will love you through the madness. And the horror. And the terror of the world. And I will love you through the poisoning of the oceans and through the deforestation of Earth. And I will love you despite the fact that it’s all burning. And despite the fact that nothing matters. And if it turns out that that’s wrong, and that everything does matter in the end, then I will love you at the end. And the beginning. And the middle. And the prologue. And the epilogue. And I will love you at the table of contents and the glossary and even at the works cited. 

I will love you no matter what happens. 

I will love you no matter who dies first. 

I will love you even if I think I don’t love you. 

Because that’s not possible.

And we both know I love you despite that, too. 

-----

- Rip x

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Something about the way Esmé trusts Beatrice and Lemony so completely, even after their argument about who should have the sugar bowl...

Esmé turns her back on it and Beatrice, trusting her so deeply that she leaves her prized possession unattended even AFTER this argument. She takes a moment to cool off to avoid a real fight, never once thinking that two of her closest friends could betray her.

And after stealing it, Beatrice may have killed Olaf’s father with that dart, but she aimed for Esmé. Fully prepared to kill her. Esmé fired a warning shot to get their attention and have a conversation. But Beatrice? Prepared to kill a close friend without second thought.

Esmé loved and trusted these people to the ends of the earth and they betrayed her. And after that she was never the same.

fellow writers, y’all ever have a scene you’ve written (or drafted in your head) so strongly associated with a song that you cant help but see it play like a movie in your mind when the song comes on?

what’s the song?

just, spitballing something

violet doesn’t learn how to drive for a really long time (when would she have had the time?? when was it necessary??) but eventually she learns how to drive in her late twenties, and she needs An Adult Who Is More Adult Than Her to be in the car while she’s driving and it’s lemony. lemony is very touched to be asked to supervise her driving, even though no one can concretely confirm whether or not lemony himself can drive. but he knows what he’s talking about and is very patient with her even when she accidentally runs a red light one (1) time

and the thing about violet hanging out with lemony is that like, he doesn’t make her uncomfortable, but, he makes her uncomfortable. violet has been the oldest adult in the room for so long that when there is an actual adult around who’s the age her parents would’ve been if they were still alive, she does not know what to do with him. he never acts like a parent or An Older Adult, but violet has been protecting everybody for so long that she doesn’t know what to do when presented with somebody who could potentially protect her, and maybe actually do it, like they’re supposed to. and she doesn’t need somebody to protect her, she’s in her late twenties and she knows how the world works and what to do, how to live and how to hope and how to be. and she doesn’t need lemony, not like that, not at all. sure she likes him just fine, he helps around the house and he has good taste in books and beatrice likes him, and he took care of her, but you’re supposed to take care of a child. violet isn’t a child anymore. and she doesn’t want to be.

anyway. she runs the red light one (1) time and has to pull over because she can’t breathe. and when she starts crying and lemony lets her cry she’s almost angry that he doesn’t do anything else. but she doesn’t know what she wants him to do. and then he hands her a handkerchief. and lemony has never asked anything of her, she thinks, except that she just be violet baudelaire. and, being violet baudelaire means a lot of things. inventor, orphan, sister, parent, adult. she was a child. then she was an adult. she’s an adult now. and there was no period in between, and klaus knows how that feels, but klaus is her brother, her younger brother, and violet wants nothing more, all at once, but to look up and see somebody else who’s supposed to know what to do. somebody else to make a decision, somebody else to do something terrible and hurt someone else, somebody else to make a mistake, somebody else to raise her siblings and beatrice, not that she doesn’t want to but she’s been going for so long without stopping until here, now, on the side of the road in a car she built herself, learning how to drive much too late, which just tops the list of things that in a decent world violet baudelaire should never have really had to do, and violet feels like she’s unraveling. being violet baudelaire means, she’s never allowed herself to be this tired, and she can’t do it.

and lemony snicket is handing her a handkerchief. and he smiles at her, and tells her she can try again. driving scares him, too. that’s why he doesn’t typically drive, even though, yes, he does have a license. he shows it to her. he tells her about how her parents were very proud of him, when he got it. he tells her they made fun of his picture, this very picture because he has since renewed it a number of times (sometimes many years late but always renewed) but always under circumstances where he could not change the picture, but he assures her no one gets a good picture at the department of motor vehicle anyway, and it’s nothing to worry about. he tells her she’s okay.

violet takes his handkerchief. she holds it tight in her hands and can’t find it in her to wipe her eyes or stop crying, and she can’t say anything at all. lemony looks concerned now, and he almost always looks some degree of concerned, about one thing or another, but he looks concerned at her and he puts his hand on her shoulder and says it again, very earnestly. she’s okay. and she really isn’t. she doesn’t feel okay at all. she leans over and sobs into his suit jacket, because she’s not okay. and he doesn’t say anything else. he holds her very gently and doesn’t say anything. not even when she crumples up the lapels of his jacket in her hands as she grips them alongside the handkerchief. like a child, she thinks. it’s terrible.

it’s not all that terrible. the world is stopping, but it still moves on. another car drives by. neither violet or lemony let go for as long as it takes.

eventually, violet stops crying, and she leans back in the seat and dries her eyes, and folds lemony’s handkerchief into a neat square, and hesitates. then she tucks it into the pocket of her shirt.

“for safekeeping,” she explains. anything can happen in a car. in case i need it, she does not say, because she’s still not entirely okay.

lemony nods, very seriously. not patronizingly, but seriously. like he’d do the same thing, like he understands completely, and she doesn’t have to say anything more.

violet drives back home with lemony snicket.

just remembered how a major part of my bi awakening was watching a series of unfortunate events with my sister and being all “come on lemony, how long are you going to keep pining after your dead girlfriend?” but then we got to the beatrice flashback and immediately going “oh… i get it now”

"My dearest Beatrice, I assure you that I am going through it!"

asoue + tumblr

Alright uh so

Fractalis has a wife who he loves very much. She started as just a backstory detail for the dnd campaign he was a part of (before that fell apart), mainly as a reason for why he would want to escape from where he was adventuring.

Now she's an actual character lmao. This is Cirina! Read more about her below.

Cirina's upbringing is in a different category of strife compared to her husband's. She was born and raised in Arabel. Her merchant family was invested in the production and trade of the city's various exports, particularly the Arabel specialty of Bitter Black beer. As a child, she was often part of the caravans to other large cities where goods would regularly be sold and traded. She enjoyed the limited freedom those trips gave her. Even at a young age, the joy of seeing new things in new places was something she held onto for dear life. Familiarity and routine didn't bother her, but she much preferred to take in new information to learn how to adapt to a constantly changing social contract between fellow traders. Her curiosity for the new and exciting was fostered in her formative years in that she would hone her skill in picking other peoples brains and reading their intentions and needs as she grew up. She maintained a sprightly demeanor through her adolescence and into young adulthood, though that's not to say she was always optimistic. The way in which she would voice her frustration was wholehearted and honest, but it was often followed up by a diluted nihilism that kept her moving forward, causing her to push her frustration aside. While that technique helped to ease her momentary despair, reality would prove to test her resolve as time marched on.

Trade in Interior Faerun is highly competitive, and while being involved in the production of the staple drink of their home city was advantageous to an extent, Cirina's family experienced more valleys than peaks in their profits over time. They had to change their sales tactics, diversify their output, learn new trades, do something to provide a safety net when the keep they earned wasn't high enough to make ends meet. Cirina herself shaped up to be en excellent saleswoman every time a change in what was sold and who was being sold to took place. She could sell water to a fish if she knew enough about the fish from their first interaction, helped by her overall active and friendly personality. Despite her adaptability, the ceiling for how much her family could earn was lower than any of them would like to admit.

That is, earning the honest way.

Eventually, a client approached the family with a handsome proposition to ferry powerful magical contraband between Hilsfar and Westgate (with hired mercenaries as suitable protection). Though the journey back an forth was long and taxing, involving roughly 600 miles of land travel and 200 miles of sea travel in one direction, the client was willing and able to give tens of thousands in gold pieces per journey. They never asked what those objects were for, all the family knew is that if they followed through, they would be doing far better than their contemporary competitors. How could they possibly refuse? It didn't matter if the items were to be given to vampire lords or usurper kings in the end.

Cirina then became the face of this questionable operation, using her natural charm to dissuade guards at checkpoints from inspecting the precious cargo too closely. She often had to bite her tongue over the morals of committing to this trade agreement. She knew what she was doing was duplicitous, but compromising the trade meant losing everything, including the family's standing as reputable merchants should the agreement expire at any time. Nobody could know that they were complicit in facilitating potential magical arms dealings with the likes of those that do harm in the realm. Her conscience began collecting guilt with each lie and half-truth she told in the name of escorting the source of her pay. It couldn't be helped. She had a job to do, and she had to keep moving forward like always.

Yet the truth will always make itself known, no matter what.

One of the mercenaries charged with protecting the caravan ratted them out to a rival of their benefactor for profit. The rival confronted the family at a checkpoint on the way to Hilsfar, but rather than hand them over to the authorities to be hanged for their crimes, they gave them an ultimatum. They were to either cease all trade and fall into obscurity elsewhere, or be publicly executed to send a message to all traders operating with their prior wealthy partner.

The choice was obvious. Her family took the deal and ran into King's Forest, eventually settling in Mouth O' Gargoyles. They held onto their earned gold in secrecy, knowing full well that if their profits were discovered wherever they ended up, the source would be questioned. Holding onto the truth close to her chest ate away at Cirina more now than it did during the time she was the saleswoman for the operation. She had to do something with her now forcibly idle hands, if only to distract from the shame she was coated in. Why not woodcarving? Of the artisanal trades she'd already learned about out of curiosity, whittling and sculpting were not yet known to her, and she was now surrounded with enough material to last her a lifetime.

The locals were happy to direct her to the tiefling woodcutter for scraps to practice with.

This is how Cirina met her husband, Fractalis.

I'm back home for the holidays and I was playing with my cousin (the most adorable toddler ever) and I think I want more fics about characthers taking care of babies. It's cute, soft and makes me smile.

I used to think I hated makeup bc every time I did it I got viscerally upset. Something was wrong. That person in the mirror wasn’t me. The weird goop on my face felt bad and blinking made my eyes stick together. My prom and homecoming photos still weird me out, because the person in those photos doesn’t seem like they’re having a good time, and they don’t look like how I looked in high school. I swore off makeup after my senior prom bc I was sick of feeling miserable and alien.

Turns out I didn’t like makeup when it was a specific style imposed upon me by my mother. My wonderful friend @fruitbatvampiresociety helped me figure out what I do and don’t enjoy about makeup, and now I know what I like!

My makeup rules:

- I have to look like me. If my face shape changes, or the color/reflective was of my skin changes, or my lip shape is different, I will get intense facial dysmorphia. Me with makeup should just be a more colorful version of me without makeup.

- I have to have fun. If someone else is picking my makeup, and I don’t get a say in it, I’m not having fun. If I’m doing my makeup just because someone else likes it, I’m not having fun. Makeup should not be a chore. I should be the primary audience for whatever is on my face.

- I have to feel comfortable. The texture of the makeup should not be distracting or distressing. If it’s gritty, chalky, or sticky, it’s not going on my face. If wearing it means I’m constantly hyperaware of how my face moves, or makes me feel like I can’t eat/drink/cry/etc, it’s not going on my face. Anything I put on should be able to handle being touched and getting messy.

- I have to be able to do it in ten minutes. The time interval here is a suggestion rather than a hard rule, but the point stands. If I’m spending more time putting on makeup than I am getting dressed, it becomes a chore. I don’t want an art project at 8AM. I have watercolors for those. I want to put glitter on my face that vaguely matches my skirt and be done with it. (If Lemony wants to do my makeup for me then that’s different bc I’m not the one putting all the effort in. Then it’s a friend activity I get to share with them.)

in the canon in my head where kit's name is marguerite and also she and jacques named lemony then their parents would have actually planned for lemony's name to be léandre. they were in their french era