Percy, Lark | He/Him | Ace | Art, Cartoons, Weird Facts, FMA, Critical Role | An Actual Dragon | Don't mind my weird tags this blog doubles as an aesthetics archive for personal stuff
Y’know, this is wild as a kid who’s taken art history, and specifically spent several hours dissecting this piece in particular. Like, my art history professor had such a hard on for da Vinci and this piece in particular.
Super interesting things if you apply the Actual Painting to this:
-Percy is the Apostle Thomas. Lovely doubting Thomas, and Percy, who doubted in the power of the gods and spat in their faces, doubting DM Mercer. (Okay, looking at some other stuff instead of just memory, Percy might be in Matthew’s position and Vex in Thomas’, but they’re still both pretty applicable to Thomas. I’ll leave this where it stands, considering I could have sworn Thomas was where Percy was)
-Fjord is the Apostle Peter, though he doesn’t have his knife here. THOUGH! It would be super cool if he did, as a smaller version of his falchion. But it’s interesting that Fjord has the position of the DM’s most ardent supporter, especially as this last arc, and the first major story arc, is Fjord’s.
-Caleb is the Apostle John. John is always the prettiest apostle, so he’s super easy to pick out of a crowd, and the Christ’s beloved, essetially. That’s a little squidgier, and mostly coming out since Dan Brown, but it’s pretty well supported with just how pretty John always is. And here’s CHA 16 Caleb, with the backstory that’s likely so much fun for Matt to play with, almost as much as Molly’s. TBH, if Molly wasn’t in the front (and we’ll get there in a moment), then Molly should be in that position, or where Jester is.
-Speaking of Jester, Jester’s in Judas Iscariot’s position. That’s…odd, on a number of levels. Mainly because Jester’s adorable, but in the position where she’ll end up betraying the DM at some point. Odd, but also interesting, as she has the Traveler plot that could get things off the rails, and she doesn’t have the traditional angsty past that most adventurers do. But it’s interesting.
AND THE MOST INTERESTING
Molly!
Yeah. I get it, it’s because we don’t want to leave him out, but Molly’s on the other side of the table. First off, there’s no one here in the actual painting, obviously, but also, if you dig a little further back, it’s where JUDAS would usually be. You see, they needed a way to differentiate Judas from the other apostles, so he would either have visibly darker skin (which da Vinci does in this one), he sits on the other side of the table (very common, especially in earlier paintings and depictions), or both. Molly here’s on the other side of the table, where Judas is. So that’s cool because he pretty much betrayed the campaign by dying so soon and making Matt seem like an asshole because he got killed. But it’s really cool.
I really do like this. I don’t know how much thought or the like was tossed into this, but it’s SO COOL, and it’s clear there was quite a bit of thought put into it, and while I don’t know how much, it’s super cool that you can tie connections between the original characters and then the CR characters settled here. And it continues a long tradition of lifting composition styles and patterns for new uses, and so I think da Vinci would be proud as well.
“And remember: the sky is the limit! You can be anything you want to be!”
“Thank you. I want to be a secretary.”
That stopped them short. “What?”
“A secretary,” she repeated.
“But…” they trailed off, dumbfounded. “Why? You could be a CEO, a scientist, a law–”
“I don’t want to be a CEO,” she said. “I want to be a secretary.”
They scoffed. “You want to answer phones all day?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“Schedule appointments?”
“I like organizing.”
“Be a second banana?”
An affirmative nod. “I’m skilled at helping.”
“I just don’t understand,” they said. “HOW could you be okay with all of this?!”
“I enjoy the work.”
“BUT YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE!”
“I know.”
“Then WHY?!”
She shrugged.
“Because I want to be a secretary.”
Honestly though, this is very similar to my mom’s experience. She’s always been super bright, but has realized as she’s gotten older that intellectual pursuits just aren’t her jam. She dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and although she has her master’s and was a pretty good school psychologist, she hated having to make huge decisions. She’s a church secretary now and loves it, and she’s GOOD at it; she’s letting her school psych certification permanently expire this year with zero regrets. If you can be anything you want, that includes the things we don’t tend to value as highly as a society. Not everybody is built for or wants the “respectable” careers.
My grandma did this to me, saying that i didn’t want to get stuck on the outside, making coffee and filing papers. The thing is, that’s exactly what I’ve always enjoyed the most, making and organizing things. That would be enough for me.
Nobody seems to realize that if you tell people they can be anything they want to be they will. And not everyone WANTS to be doctors or lawyers or CEOs or scientists. Sometimes, they just want to be a secretary.
it took me a LOT of therapy before i was able to shrug off the effects of the Gifted Child Upbringing enough to realize that what i really wanted to be was a house husband and Local Queerdad who writes novels sometimes. god, i’m so much happier now.
ain’t nothing wrong with an ordinary life. don’t let anybody tell you you have to be the top dog to be worth anything.
I am currently happier at my job being a cashier at a grocery store than I was working as an assistant manager on my way to owning my own store as a full manager. My old manager adores his job, but it was just too much responsibility for me. People like different things, and that’s okay!
When I was interviewed away my current job they asked me something along the lines of if I felt I was a good leader and I said no. While I *can* effectively take charge in a situation where I am the most qualified, I don’t want to be in charge of others on a regular basis. My answer visibly threw them for a bit of a loop. I’m happy as just a tech. If I was ever made a supervisor I wouldn’t have time to work with the animals anymore.
And this also applies to the people who ask if I plan on becoming a vet. No. I lost certainly don’t want to be one. Let me be a tech.
I have two degrees: Business Management and Graphic Design.
The first because my dad liked that, and the second because my mom was an artist and I’ve been pressured from the beginning to be just like her.
My dad and stepmom keep looking bewildered when I say I want to live in a commune with a bunch of friends, sharing dogs and farmland, pursuing whatever job catches my interest and having no career.
If I became rich, I’d share it with people who need it until I wasn’t rich any longer.
I want to live a peaceful, content life in a small house, building costumes and writing stuff that makes other people happy. Going to conventions and showing off what I’ve made so I can see them smile, so I can bring magic into their lives.
ok do you guys remember those Capri Sun “RESPECT THE POUCH, RESPECT IT!” ads where children would deface a Capri Sun pouch in some way and then suffer some karmic punishment thematically connected to the way they disrespected pouch
then there were Airheads commercials where eating an airhead would turn your head into a balloon
and there were Fruit Gusher ads similar to that except your head turned into an enormous piece of fruit
what happened where for this brief period of time (in america at least) it was decided the best way to get kids to buy fruit themed junk food was to imply there was some kind of chaotic evil force that would let you sip its sweet nectar and feast on its fruit, but only if you were willing to sacrifice your state of existence and obey the artificially flavored outer gods
